son Richard, who died in 1521, leaving a detailed will
mainly in favour of his only son Christopher, then a
minor. Richard was a man of substance, for the property
which he devised included the tanhouse, the 'principal
tenement' in which he dwelt, three messuages in North-
lane, and twenty acres of land leased from 'Sir John
Ffyneux, Knight'. ¹ There is further evidence at a later
date of connexion between the Marlowe and the Phineaux
families. ²

Christopher Marley, the first bearer of the name, died
in 1540, leaving one daughter and his wife, Joan, with
an unborn child who, if a 'man child', was to inherit his
dwelling-house and the adjoining "'Old Hall'" with the
land belonging to it, while the widow was to have the
twenty leased acres and, presumably, the tanhouse. There
is no documentary evidence, but it is a reasonable sup-
position that the unborn child of Christopher Marley's
will was John Marley, or Marlowe, who was to be father
of the second Christopher, the dramatist, and also of a
daughter, Joan, thus carrying on the names of both
grandparents. Moreover, 'the dates of John Marlowe's
marriage, business career, and death agree well with the
assumption that he was born in 1540'. ³

If the speculation concerning John Marlowe's genealogy
is correct, it might have been anticipated that he would
continue the trade of tanning in which the family had
been profitably engaged for three generations. But he
took up the allied trade of shoemaking, the tanners and
shoemakers being associated in Canterbury in the same
guild. A recent discovery by John Bakeless proves that
John Marley was enrolled by Gerard Richardson, shoe-
maker and freeman of Canterbury, as an apprentice in
1559-60. ⁴

The usual period of apprenticeship was seven years, but

-2-