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Ingram Frizer

Ingram Frizer (d. August 1627) was an English figure of the late 16th century and early 17th century who is perhaps best known for killing playwright Christopher Marlowe in the home of Eleanor Bull on 30 May 1593.

Biography

Little is known of his Frizer's life, but he is known to have been a client of Thomas Walsingham, a young cousin of Queen Elizabeth I's Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham. Both Walsinghams were heavily involved with period espionage and it is likely that as a servant of Thomas Walsingham, Frizer was also an intelligence agent. He was also known as a petty con man, involved (with Thomas Walsingham and Nicholas Skeres) with bilking one Drew Woodleff of his inheritance.

Christopher Marlowe

For several years previous to his murder, Marlowe had been loosely attached to the Walsinghams' group and was likely to have done some espionage work for them. By the Spring of 1593, Marlowe was becoming increasingly notorious as a (reputed) atheist, homosexual and/or Catholic and a liability to his more conservative associates.

Frizer is known to have invited Marlowe to a feast at the house of Eleanor Bull, a widow running what may have been a tavern in Deptford. Also in attendance were known Walsingham intelligence workers, Nicholas Skeres and Robert Poley. According to tradition, Frizer and Marlowe got into an argument over "the reckyninge" or the bill. The argument escalated into a brawl, at the end of which, Marlowe was dead, stabbed just above the right eye.

Although some authorities doubted some of events that were said to have unfolded, Frizer was found on June 1, 1593 to be not guilty of murder for reasons of self defense. On the June 28, the Queen granted Frizer a formal pardon. A few years later when James I of England ascended the throne, Frizer received numerous benefices from the crown, through the action of Audrey Walsingham (Thomas' wife and a friend of James' Queen, Anne of Denmark). He moved to an estate in Eltham, Kent, where he lived until he died.