Thomas Drury
Thomas Drury, the third son of Robert Drury, was born in Hawstead on 8th May, 1551. His mother, Audrey Rich Drury, was the daughter of Richard Rich, who, along with Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Audley took part in the investigation against Queen Anne Boleyn. (1) He was also given the task of questioning Thomas Culpeper, Francis Dereham and Henry Manox during the investigation of Queen Catherine Howard. (2) Rich also served as Lord Chancellor during the reign of Edward VI (3).
Robert Drury died when his son was six years old. The eldest son, William Drury, inherited most of the family property in Suffolk. Under the terms of his father's will, Thomas received a third share of a manorial property in Lincolnshire. At the age thirteen he was admitted to Caius College but seems to have left Cambridge University without taking a degree. (4) According to Park Honan, documents show that Drury was "nearly illiterate". (5)
Robert Drury - Secret Agent
Charles Nicholl, the author of The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (1992), has argued: "Thomas Drury was, like others in this story, a younger son of a well-breeched family, thrown onto his wits and cunning to keep himself in the style to which he felt he ought to be accustomed. As certain later events make clear, he was as full of craft in dealing with family matters." One of his nephews described him as a "degenerate rogue". (6)
It was during this period he became friends with Richard Baines. In 1579 Baines attended the English College at Rheims in France. It was a seminary at which Catholics could study for the priesthood. He was ordained as a deacon on 8th May 1581. On 4th October 1581 he celebrated his first Mass as a priest. (7) Nicholl has suggested that Drury was a member of the Catholic underground: "It is possible Drury was himself a Catholic - other members of the family were. His cousin, Henry Drury of Lawshall, Suffolk, was indicted for recusancy in 1576, and was harbouring a fugitive priest in 1584; another cousin, John was also presented as a recusant." (8) However, it later emerged that Drury was working as a government spy for Francis Walsingham and so it is impossible to know how loyal these men were to the Catholic religion. (9)
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Thomas Drury was having difficulty making an honest living. On 27th June 1580, Lord William Burgh, complained that Drury had "insinuated himself" into the family "pretending great honesty and truth, and such a readiness in every matter to do the said Lord Burgh and his sons pleasure... and boasting himself to have great sums of money to pleasure his friend". Burgh then goes on to point out that he managed to persuade the family to loan him a total of £521 that he never paid back. The outcome is not recorded but it is the first example of becoming a dishonest character. (10)
Catholic or Atheist?
Henry Howard wrote to Queen Elizabeth on 29th December, 1580, pointing out that he had seen Thomas Drury in the company of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. (11) The significance of this is that Oxford was suspected of being the head of an atheist group that included the geographers, Richard Hakluyt and Robert Hues, the astrologer, Thomas Harriot, the mathematicians, Thomas Allen and Walter Warner, and the writers, Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Kyd, George Chapman and Matthew Roydon. The men would either meet at the homes of Oxford, Walter Raleigh and Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland. (12)
It has been claimed that these men were atheists. In reality they were sceptics (someone who doubts the authenticity of accepted beliefs). For example, at various times the Earl of Oxford was quoted as saying the Bible was "only... to hold men in obedience, and was man's device" and "that the blessed virgin made a fault... and that Joseph was a wittol (cuckold). Oxford did not believe in heaven and hell and declared "that after this life we should be as we had never been and the rest was devised but to make us afraid like babes and children of our shadows". (13)
Thomas Drury could have been a member of this group as a sceptic. Another possibility was that he was working as a spy for either the government or Catholic groups, opposed to atheism. The next time Drury enters the historical record is in the summer of 1585 when he is Fleet Prison. It is not known what offence he had been accused of committing. However, it might have been connected with the arrest of his cousin, Henry Drury, who had been charged with harbouring a Catholic priest. (14)
After his release he moved to France where he was working for Sir Edward Stafford, the ambassador in Paris. On 11th September 1587, Sir Francis Walsingham, the head of the secret service, was informed that Drury was working as an agent for Stafford. Walsingham was highly suspicious of Stafford as he believed that he was involved in a conspiracy against Queen Elizabeth. (15)
On his return to England he associated with Richard Cholmeley. The evidence suggests that Cholmeley was employed by Robert Cecil and the Privy Council as an anti-Catholic agent. (16) Cholmeley told his friends that he was involved in the "apprehension of papists and other dangerous men". (17) Charles Nicholl, the author of The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (1992) claims that agents such as "Richard Cholmeley, emerge as pseudo-Catholics, using their origins and connections to entrap Catholics." (18)
In May 1591, Cholmeley informed the authorities that Drury was a Catholic subversive. He was arrested and imprisoned in Marshalsea Prison in Southwark. (19) His lodgings were searched and certain documents were found that suggested he was guilty of treason. (20) David Riggs has argued that Cholmeley "worked on the margin where state service intersected with double-dealing and sedition". He was later accused of supplying the Privy Council "with information about recusants, while using the Council's warrant to extort money from his victims". Cholmeley's reputation was so bad that Cecil refused to meet with him in public. (21)
In 1592 Sir Hugh Cholmeley wrote to Cecil warning about his brother's actions accusing him of "conceit of hatred". Another agent, Richard Baines, claimed that Cholmeley was now an atheist and the leader of a political gang of sixty followers. He went on to argue that this group believed there will soon be "as many of their opinion as of any other religion". These were men of "resolute murdering minds" whose aim was to murder Queen Elizabeth and to "crown one of themselves as king and live by their own laws". (22)
Atheist Plot
In the autumn of 1592, Thomas Drury, was interviewed by the authorities about his knowledge of this atheist plot. He made a statement that revealed details about what Richard Cholmeley had told him about figures such as Christopher Marlowe, Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, Charles Howard and William Cecil. Drury claimed that Cholmeley made accusations against most of the leaders in the government. (23) One of his most important claims was that Christopher Marlowe "is able to show more sound reasons for atheism than any divine in England is able to give to prove divinity, and that Marlowe told him, he hath read the atheist lecture to Sir Walter Raleigh and others". (24)
In March 1593, Walter Raleigh upset Queen Elizabeth and her Privy Council, by making a speech in the House of Commons against proposed legislation to enforce religious conformity, aimed at both Catholic and Puritan dissenters. "He (Rayleigh) denounced the bill as inquisitorial, an invasion into realms of private opinion and belief that neither could, nor should, be policed." As Charles Nicholl pointed out, his opponents said he was "arguing against religious enforcement in order to protect his own illicit belief: atheism. His plea for tolerance becomes a weapon to use against him, an instance of his own non-conformity." (25)
On 20th May 1593 Christopher Marlowe was arrested and charged with blasphemy and treason. His friend, Thomas Kyd, was also taken into custody and after being tortured he made a confession where he claimed that "it was his (Marlowe) custom… to jest at the divine scriptures and strive in argument to frustrate and confute what hath been spoken or written by prophets and such holy men". He also suggested that Marlowe had talked about Jesus Christ and St. John as bedfellows. (26)
Death of Christopher Marlowe
Marlowe was allowed bail, on condition that he report daily to the Star Chamber. On the 30th May, 1593, Marlowe was drinking in a tavern in Deptford with Ingram Frizer, Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley. The four men walked in the garden before having a meal together. Frizer had originally said he would pay for the food but later changed his mind. During the argument that followed Frizer stabbed Marlowe above the eyeball. The blade entered Marlowe's brain, killing him instantly. (27)
An Inquest was held on 1st June. William Danby, Coroner for the Queen's Household, presided over the Inquest. In doing so, he acted illegally, since the country coroner was required to be on hand, according to statutory law. (28) According to the report by Danby, "Marlowe suddenly and of malice... unsheathed the dagger... and there maliciously gave the aforesaid Ingram Fritzer two wounds on his head of the length of two inches and of the depth of a quarter of an inch." Danby claimed that Frizer, "in fear of being slain and sitting on the aforesaid bench between Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley so that he was not able to withdraw in any way, in his own defence and to save his life... gave the aforesaid Christopher Marlowe then and there a mortal wound above his right eye of the depth of two inches." (29)
David Riggs has questioned this account: "Since the scalp consists of skin and bone, Frizer's wounds can hardly have been a quarter of an inch deep, nor does Coroner Danby say that Marlowe attacked his companion with the point of his knife. The deposition rather indicates that Marlowe (or someone) pummelled Fritzer's scalp with the hilt of his dagger. This was a common practice in Elizabethan brawls and it had a precise connotation. Pummelling meant that you intended to hurt, but not to kill your adversary. Had Marlowe wanted to kill Fritzer, he would have stabbed him in the back of the neck. Fritzer's scalp wounds were the result of a beating rather than a stabbing." (30)
It was later claimed that Frizer, Skeres and Poley were all government agents. (31) Poley had worked for Sir Francis Walsingham and was a key figure in uncovering the Babington Plot. (32) As well as being spies, Frizer and Skeres, were both involved in money-lending swindles. (33) "Poley, Skerres and Frizer were used to operating in teams and had worked with one another before. They had practical experience in manipulating the law; they knew how to fabricate a trial narrative and maintain it under interrogation." (34)
Richard Cholmeley was arrested on 28th June, 1593. He was tortured so that he would reveal the names of other members of his "sect". As he was being led away he shouted: "I do know the law, and when it comes to pass I can shift well enough." (35) According to Park Honan, the author of Christopher Marlowe - Poet and Spy (2005) "the sect... of sixty, turned out to be just four men, all of whom at one time or another had been government spies or turncoat Catholics." Cholmeley disappeared from the public record after entering prison and his ultimate fate is unknown. (36)
Thomas Drury was released from prison and in 1595 he was in France "on the Queen's service" and a document survives shows that on 14th June, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, paid him £16 for his work. Burghley had replaced Sir Francis Walsingham as the head of the secret service and might have been involved in a spying mission. There is also evidence that during this period he was working with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. (37)
David Riggs, the author of The World of Christopher Marlowe (2004), claims that "by the turn of the century he had returned to his old trade of petty swindler and confidence man". (38)
Thomas Drury died of the plague on 26th August, 1603 in his lodgings at the Swan Inn in Southwark. (39)
Primary Sources
(1) Charles Nicholl, The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (1992)
Thomas Drury was, like others in this story, a younger son of a well-breeched family, thrown onto his wits and cunning to keep himself in the style to which he felt he ought to be accustomed. As certain later events make clear, he was as full of craft in dealing with family matters as he was in these political machinations concerning Marlowe... Of Drury's youth, misspent or otherwise, we know a little... It is possible Drury was himself a Catholic - other members of the family were. His cousin, Henry Drury of Lawshall, Suffolk, was indicted for recusancy in 1576, and was harbouring a fugitive priest in 1584; another cousin, John was also presented as a recusant.
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