Christopher Marlowe was born in Canterbury in 1564, the same year as Shakespeare. Elizabethan Canterbury was a cosmopolitan town with many immigrants, particularly Huguenots fleeing the French wars of religion. It had also been hit particularly hard by the Reformation and the subsequent desecration of the shrine of St Thomas Becket, and it is hard not to believe that Marlowe's considerable interest in ritual and iconography derives partly from his childhood in the vicinity of the great cathedral. Indeed he was educated virtually under its shadow, for although he was only the son of a shoemaker, he seems to have showed early promise and was awarded a scholarship to the prestigious King's School, Canterbury. His days there are …
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