1. The three men who were in the room with him when he died were all connected both to the state secret service and to the London underworld. Frizer and Skeres also had a long record as loan sharks and con-men, as shown by court records. Bull's house also had "links to the government's spy network".
2. Their story that they were on a day's pleasure outing to Deptford is alleged to be implausible. In fact, they spent the whole day together. Also, Robert Poley was carrying urgent and confidential despatches to the Queen, who was at her residence Nonesuch Palace in Surrey, but instead of delivering them, he spent the day with Marlowe and the other two, and didn't in fact hand them in until well over a week later, on 8 June.
3. It seems too much of a coincidence that Marlowe's death occurred only a few days after his arrest, apparently for heresy.
4. The manner of Marlowe's arrest is alleged to suggest causes more tangled than a simple charge of heresy would generally indicate. He was released in spite of prima facie evidence, and even though other accusations about him received within a few days, as described below, implicitly connected Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Northumberland with the heresy.
Thus, some contend it to be probable that the investigation was meant primarily as a warning to the politicians in the "School of Night", or that it was connected with a power struggle within the Privy Council itself.
5. The various incidents that hint at a relationship with the Privy Council (see above), and by the fact that his patron was Thomas Walsingham, Sir Francis's second cousin once removed, who had been actively involved in intelligence work.
Christopher Marlowe is buried in an unmarked grave in the churchyard of St. Nicholas Church, Deptford immediately after the inquest, on 1 June 1593.
William Adams
William Adams also known in Japanese as Miura Anjin-sama was an English navigator who travelled to Japan and is believed to be the first Englishman ever to reach that country. He was the inspiration for the character of John Blackthorne in James Clavell's bestselling novel Shōgun.
Adams was born in Gillingham, Kent, in 1564. After losing his father at the age of twelve, he was apprenticed to shipyard owner Master Nicholas Diggins at Limehouse for the seafaring life. He spent the next twelve years learning shipbuilding, astronomy, and navigation before entering the Royal Navy.
Adams served in the Royal Navy under Sir Francis Drake and saw naval service against the Spanish Armada in 1588 as master of the Richarde Dyffylde, a resupply ship.
Adams then became a pilot for the Barbary Company. During this service, according to Jesuit sources, he took part in an expedition to the Arctic that lasted about two years, in search of a Northeast Passage along the coast of Siberia to the Far East.
Attracted by the Dutch trade with India, Adams, then 34 years old, shipped as pilot major with a five ship fleet dispatched from the isle of Texel to the Far East in 1598 by a company of Rotterdam merchants (a voorcompagnie, anterior to the Dutch East India Company).
He set sail from Rotterdam in June 1598 on the Hoop and joined up with the rest of the fleet on June 24.
Originally, the fleet's mission was to sail for the west coast of South America, where they would sell their cargo for silver, and to head for Japan only if the first mission failed. In that case, they were supposed to obtain silver in Japan to buy spices in the Moluccas, before heading back to Europe.
The vessels were driven to the coast of Guinea, West Africa where the adventurers attacked the island of Annobón for supplies, and then moved on for the Straits of Magellan. Scattered by stress of weather and after several disasters in the South Atlantic, only three ships out of five made it through the Magellan Straits.
During the voyage, Adams had changed ships to the Liefde. The Liefde waited for the other ships at Floreana Island off the Ecuadorean coast. However, only the Hoop had arrived by the spring of 1599 and the captains of both vessels, together with Adams's brother Thomas and twenty other men, lost their lives in an encounter with the natives. The Trouw later turned up in Tidore (Indonesia) where the crew was eliminated by the Portuguese in January 1601.
In fear of the Spaniards, the remaining crews determined to sail across the Pacific. It was late November 1599 when the two ships sailed westward for Japan. On their way, the two ships made landfall in "certain islands" (possibly the islands of Hawaii) where eight sailors deserted the ships. Later during the voyage, a typhoon claimed the Hoop with all hands, in late February 1600.
In April 1600, after more than nineteen months at sea, the Liefde with a crew of about twenty sick and dying men was brought to anchor off the island of Kysh, Japan. Its cargo consisted of eleven chests of coarse woollen cloth, glass beads, mirrors, spectacles, nails, iron, hammers, nineteen bronze cannons, 5,000 cannonballs, 500 muskets, 300 chain-shot and three chests filled with coats of mail.
When the nine crew members were strong enough to stand, they made landfall on April 19 off Bungo (present-day Usuki, ita Prefecture), they were met by locals and Portuguese Jesuit priests claiming that Adams' ship was a pirate vessel and that the crew should be crucified as pirates. The ship was seized and the sickly crew were imprisoned at Osaka Castle on orders by Tokugawa Leyasu, the daimyo of Mikawa and future Shogun. The nineteen bronze cannons of the Liefde were unloaded and according to Spanish accounts later employed at the decisive Battle of Sekigahara on October 21, 1600.
Adams met Leyasu in Osaka three times between May and June 1600. He was questioned by Leyasu, then a guardian of the young son of the Taik, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the ruler who had just died. Adams' knowledge of ships, shipbuilding and nautical smattering of mathematics appealed to Leyasu.
In 1604, Tokugawa ordered Adams and his companions to help Mukai Shogen, who was commander in chief of the navy of Uraga, build Japan's first Western-style ship. The sailing ship was built at the harbour of Ito on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula, with carpenters from the harbour supplying the manpower for the construction of an eighty-ton vessel. The Shogun then ordered a larger ship of 120 tons to be built the following year.
According to Adams, Tokugawa "came aboard to see it, and the sight whereof gave him great content". In 1610, the 120-ton ship was lent to shipwrecked Spanish sailors, who sailed back to Mexico with it, accompanied by a mission of twenty-two Japanese led by Tanaka Shosuke.
The shogun took a liking to Adams and made him a revered diplomatic and trade advisor and bestowed great privileges upon him. He is often known as the first foreign samurai. Ultimately, Adams became his personal advisor on all things related to Western powers and civilization and, after a few years, Adams replaced the Jesuit Padre João Rodrigues as the Shogun's official interpreter.
Padre Valentim Carvalho wrote: "After he had learned the language, he had access to Leyasu and entered the palace at any time"; he also described him as "a great engineer and mathematician".
Adams had a wife and children in England but Ieyasu had forbidden the Englishman to leave Japan. He was presented with two swords representing the authority of a Samurai.
The Shogun decreed that William Adams the pilot was dead and that Miura Anjin, a samurai, was born. This made Adams's wife in England in effect a widow (although Adams managed to send regular support payments to her after 1613 via the English and Dutch companies) and "freed" Adams to serve the Shogunate on a permanent basis.
The latter part of his life was spent in the service of the English trading company. He undertook a number of voyages to Siam in 1616 and Cochin China in 1617 and 1618, sometimes for the English East India Company, sometimes for his own account. He is recorded in Japanese sources as the owner of a Red Seal Ship of 500 tons.
Adams died at Hirado, north of Nagasaki, on May 16, 1620, aged 55 and was buried in Nagasaki-ken where his grave marker may still be seen to this day, alongside a memorial to Saint Francis Xavier. The English factory was dissolved three years later due to its unprofitability.
The Black Bull of Great Chart
In 1613 At the Church of St Mary, Gre
at Chart, just as vicar Hadrian Savaria began his sermon a fearsome creature suddenly appeared ahead of the congregation.
The beast appeared in the form of a great black bull which terrified all those in in the congregation who were keen to flee the church but most were frozen with fear and wonderment.
The bull stood in the main aisle breathing hard and stamping its feet, snorting, and its fiery eyes were glowing for all to see.
The monster built up its aggression and then stormed through the rows, battering anyone who had been unable to escape in time.
Some folk were badly injured and three men were killed as the spectre charged into the North Wall and exploded into a ball of red flame.
The wall was demolished and a powerful, nauseating odour permeated the air.
The vicar amazingly escaped with just minor burn marks to his robes.
The story over the years began to drift into local folklore and was in fact later dismissed by sceptics as an extreme incident of ball lightening.
Sceptics argue that similar events have occurred nationwide over the years, usually during thunderstorms, and such monsters are believed to be nothing more than forms created by terrified, and often naïve witnesses keen to explain the apparition away as something unholy.
Then in 1983 another terrifying beast was seen in the village and observed by four witnesses who described the monster as a shaggy, black dog with burning eyes.
The spectral hound was seen to walk up a lane towards the church. Witnesses were in a vehicle travelling in the opposite direction to the creature.
The famous author Charles Igglesden, in his third volume of A Saunter through Kent with Pen and Pencil, from 1902, writes of a sign board of a Black Dog hanging over the front door of a house in Great Chart.
Lady Dering Of Pluckley
It’s not unusual to connect hauntings with the village of Pluckley, but one family has been linked to this haunted Kentish village for about 400 years, the Dering’s. There have been many hauntings surrounding one certain member of the family since then, that of Lady Dering.
It all started back with Sir Edward Dering, he was the eldest son of Sir Anthony Dering and his second wife, Frances, of Surrenden House, Pluckley. Surrenden house was later renamed, Surrenden Dering after the Dering family. Sir Edward became the first baronet of Pluckley in 1626.
When the Duke of Buckingham was assassinated in 1628, Sir Edward lost his peerage, ironically the same year he lost his second wife, Anne Ashburnham at the age of 23 years. They had a son, also named Edward. He became Sir Edward, 2nd Baronet.
Sir Edward Dering [2nd] married Mary Harvey on 5 April 1648, to become Lady Mary Dering. They had 17 children, 10 of whom survived into adulthood. Mary was the daughter of Daniel Harvey of Croydon, the brother of Dr William Harvey – a man who became the first person to accurately describe blood circulation.
A hospital is named after him in nearby Ashford. Mary was also a composer, and became the first woman in England whose musical compositions were published under her own name. It earned her a place in the history of English music.
Mary studied with Henry Lawes, who dedicated his book to her; in the dedication he highly praises her compositions, and says that few of any sex have matched their perfection. Some of her music was published in John Playford's ‘Select Ayres and Dialogues’, and three of her songs were published in Lawes' Second book of airs.
Sir Edward and Lady Dering also had a daughter Elizabeth who married Sir Robert Southwell, and he is an ancestral of today’s Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. She survived her husband by twenty years, dying in February 1704 (1705 New Style); she also outlived her eldest son Sir Edward Dering, 3rd Baronet. Lady Dering, was buried at Pluckley, and has a memorial inscription in the church of St. Nicholas. Also buried there are the 3 Sir Edward Dering heirs.
In later years even to this day, Lady Dering has been known as two ghostly figures, ‘The Red Lady’ who haunts the grounds of the church. She was supposedly buried in several lead coffins and placed in the crypt, and was buried with a red rose that was placed with her inside the coffin. It is also reputedly said, that the name ‘Red Lady’ stems from the rose. She is said to wander around the churchyard in search of the unmarked grave of her still born child. But there is no known grave there.
The other apparition of Lady Dering is ‘The White Lady’ that haunts the Dering family house library in their manor of Surrenden Dering. The white lady was seen whilst Surrenden Dering was the US Embassy between the first and second World Wars. As legend goes, it is said that Walter W. Winans, held a lonesome vigil one Christmas Eve in the library with his hunting rifle.
He came to witness the white lady at first hand when she appeared before him. He then took a shot at her that passed straight through the apparition and then she vanished through a panelled wall. It was thought she disappeared into a hidden tunnel that is supposed to link the house with the church.
Stranger still, Walter Winans was an American born British marksman who competed in the Olympics of 1908, winning a Gold medal for shooting. He also won a silver medal in 1912. It was found that he did live in Kent just before he died in 1920 that helps date the sighting.
The Surrenden manor house also served as a boy’s school before burning down; sadly it was destroyed in a fire around 1952.
Also in Pluckley is The Dering Arms. This was once an old hunting lodge, but in later years turned into a public house and named after the Dering family.
This too is said to be haunted, but this time by an old lady in a bonnet.
This apparition is said to be so clear that she is sometimes mistaken as a customer sitting at a table. It is not known if this has any link with Lady Dering.
The Folkestone Triangle
Supposedly, since the first recorded ship to disappear in the Bermuda Triangle in 1679 there has been many seemly unexplained sinking and losses in an area what is also referred to as the Devils Triangle. Fortunately, we live in the British Isles and we do not have such stuff, - or do we?
Ships do sink from time to time, during times of war and peace, also there are areas that are extremely hazardous to shipping in the world, but what is unusual is for numbers of ships to disappear in exactly the same location.
But this is exactly what has been happened according to the Sites and Monuments Register kept by Kent County Council. For example there is an area of the seabed off the Folkestone and Dover coast in which the records held by the County showing eighty-four shipwrecks in three locations, each of which form a corner of the Channel Triangle.
At the Southern End of the Channel Triangle, the records show that there are six nineteenth century shipwrecks, and five shipwrecks of the twentieth century.
These 11 vessels are recorded as sunk in position Latitude 50.9833359 Longitude 1.33333015.
At the Western End of the Channel Triangle, the records show that there are eight shipwrecks between 1743 and 1760, and in the nineteenth century ten shipwrecks, and eleven shipwrecks of the twentieth century.
These 29 vessels are recorded as sunk in position Latitude 51 Longitude 1.25.
At the Eastern End of the Channel Triangle, the records show that there are fourteen wrecks sunk between the years 1618 and 1773, and in the nineteenth century there are eighteen shipwrecks, and twelve shipwrecks of the twentieth century.
These 44 vessels are recorded sunk in position Latitude 51.066665 Longitude 1.45.
John "Swift Nick" Nevison 1676
A charming man of tall gentlemanly appearance and bearing, it is claimed that Nevison never used violence against his victims. It seems that his romantic reputation was sealed through a renowned ride from the south of England to York in 1676, a feat later mistakenly attributed in popular legend to Dick Turpin and his horse Black Bess.
The error arose in a novel called Rookwood written in 1834 by Harrison Ainsworth, who wrongly attributed the feat to Turpin. In fact the ride was already on record in 1724 (when Turpin was still a butcher's lad in Whitechapel), in
Daniel Defoe's A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, from which the following account is drawn:
At 4am one summer morning in 1676, a traveller at Gads Hill in Kent, England was robbed by John Nevison. The highwayman then made his escape on a bay mare, crossed the River Thames by ferry and galloped towards Chelmsford. After resting his horse for half an hour, he rode on to Cambridge and Huntingdon, resting regularly for short periods during the journey.
Eventually, he found his way to the Great North Road where he turned north for York.
He arrived in York at sunset after a journey of more than 200 miles, a stunning achievement for both man and horse. He stabled his weary horse at a York inn, washed and changed his travel-stained clothes, then strolled to a bowling green where he knew the Lord Mayor was playing bowls.
He engaged the Lord Mayor in a conversation and then laid a bet on the outcome of the match - and Nevison made sure the Lord Mayor remembered the time the bet was laid - 8pm that evening.
Abridged Legends of Kent Page 3