tion, such as those for lighting the streets and alleys at night by means of lanterns, although it is feared they were not always complied with.

Numerous quaint roomy hostelries and thickly populated houses, of all kinds of curious architectural development, shouldered one another into the street and overhung the shadowy thoroughfares. The eaves of the more pretentious buildings were supported by grotesque figures called 'telamonies,' by goblins, and grinning monsters; whilst runic-knots, scrolls and zigzags were much in evidence amid what was intended to be considered ornamental. 'Here were lanes, odd nooks and corners, queer old buildings with some monster or elfin carved upon the massive beams, at which the pilgrim stared, hardly knowing whether to cross himself or not, whether it betokened a saint duly canonised, or a devil, or a punchinello who owed his existence to that comic spirit which the genius of ecclesiastical architecture and art invoked in the middle ages, in strange contrast to (sic) its devotional tendencies.'

The citizens of this ancient metropolis, wealthy and long accustomed to the good things of this life, and well endowed with municipal privileges, nourished a love of independence and an attachment to liberty which rendered them sturdy in the maintenance of their civic rights and less amenable to the restrictions under which many of their classes lived elsewhere. All the bodies of Kentish men be free,' proclaims the Custumal of Kent, and although for

many centuries this was not a fact as regards the agriculturalist, it applied pretty generally to the burgher of proud Canterbury." The corporation maintained its freedom, as well as its other privileges, and passed stringent decrees to deter any of its members from attaching themselves to, or becoming retainers of, any 'worshipful man' outside their own circle. At a court of Burghmote, as the civic governing body was designated, held in 1572, it was decreed: 'That if any Alderman or Common Councilman shall take any livery, or be retained as servant to any Nobleman or man of worship, then every such Alderman or Common Councilman shall be discharged from his office and from this Court.' And their records prove that the rules of these independent-minded burghers were duly enforced."

This high and mighty Canterbury, this revered shrine of the martyred A'Becket, had been for centuries the resort of the people of all Christian lands. Mighty princes and haughty prelates had journeyed thither, and had been jostled in its narrow thoroughfares by the superstitious and the needy; the rich and the poor, the halt, the maimed and the blind, all pilgrimaged to this miracle-pervaded city in the hope that their prayers might be granted or their wishes accomplished. Many resorted to it as the probable scene of living adventure, fashion, folly, and, peradventure, with a prospect of earning a penny more or less honestly. Wealth flowed into the city, and its citizens became men of importance,

gaining fortunes, reputation, and even titles. In the second half of the sixteenth century, it is true, the pillage of its treasures and decanonisation of St. Thomas A'Becket undoubtedly deterred many pilgrims from visiting his shrine, and facilitated the decadence of Canterbury, but, as yet, the city held its head high among the cities of the land; its archbishop kept sway over all the prelates of England, and its corporation continued to receive and entertain in lordly style not only foreign potentates but the rulers of our own country. All these things-memories of a high, mighty, and marvel-haunted past—a recent martyrmaking era of persecution, and an independent but pastime-loving present-combined to form and influence the minds of such of the upgrowing generation as were suitably formed for impression.

For several generations a family of the name of Marlowe or Marley had dwelt in this city. Out of Canterbury and its vicinity the name has never been common. Here and there about England the cognomen of Marlowe occasionally crops up, but outside the county of Kent it has never been of frequent occurrence. Early in the fifteenth century there are traces at Wisbech, it is true, of a certain Marlowe family, but it soon terminated in one of them known in local records as a 'musicianer';" in 1409 a Richard Marlow was Lord Mayor of London, and according to Weever, in his 'maioraltie there was a play at Skinner's Hall, which lasted eight dayes, to heare which most of the greatest Estates of England were

present. The subject of the play was the sacred Scriptures, from the creation of the world.'s Such plays, the reader may be reminded, were performed in various parts of the kingdom under the title of Corpus Christi plays.

Early in Queen Elizabeth's reign there was an Edward Marlowe of some local importance residing at Clifton, Bristol, who got into trouble for taking unlawful possession of a salt-laden vessel belonging to Denmark, a country with which England was at peace. John Marlowe, of Merton College, Oxford, who died in 1543, was thought to have been a scion of the Kentish Marlowes. He became treasurer of Wells Cathedral and canon of the King's Chapel of St. Stephen within the palace of Westminster, and was evidently a person of some importance in his days.10 Anthony Marlowe, of whom more hereafter, was a wealthy and influential Deptford merchant, and probably a connection of the Canterbury Marlowes." Captain Edmund Marlowe, who lived till 1615, is mentioned in Purchas's Pilgrims as 'an excellent man, and well skilled in the mathematics and the art of navigation,' and may have belonged to Kent. In 1571 a Richard Marlow was master of the Grammar School of St. Olave's Parish, Southwark, London, and about twenty years later a Thomas Marlow was living in the neighbouring parish of St. George in the same borough, and was assessed on property of some considerable value,12 With these few examples may end the tale of the non

Kentish Marlowes; some, if not all of them, were probably of the Kentish stock.

In the records of Canterbury the Marlowes can be traced back to the early part of the fifteenth century. They all belonged to the trading community, and occasionally gave evidence of being not only wealthy but regardful of the public weal. The earliest trace of a public bequest by any of the family is contained in the will of one Richard Marley. This Richard Marley, who, in 1514, is described in the accounts of the chamberlain of the city as a son of John Marley, tanner, and as a freeman and tanner of Westgate Street, 13 was apparently the great grandfather of the future poet. In his will, dated 1521, after giving directions for his own burial in the churchyard of Holy Cross Church, 'before the Crucifix of our Lord, as nigh the coming in of the as conveniently can be,' he directs see gilt well and workmanly the Lord, with Mary and John standing upon the Porch of the said North door.' This crucifix, which Richard Marley wished 'gilt well and workmanly,' as it stood in the porch of the church by Westgate, to arouse the devotion of communicants, did not stand long in that position, for even in the next century Somner had to record that it had gone, and the King's Arms was set up in place of it.'14 Others of the family founded hospitals and in various ways provided for the benefit of their fellow-beings.

14

North door there his executors to Crucifix of our

A certain Christopher Marlowe belonging to the