Eleanor Bull (c. 1550 – 1596) was an English woman who is known for owning the establishment in which Christopher Marlowe, the Elizabethan playwright and poet, was killed in 1593.

Life

She was born Eleanor (or Elinor) Whitney, daughter of James and Sybil (Parry) Whitney of Clifford. Although the main branch of the Whitney family had a castle at

Whitney-on-Wye Whitney-on-Wye is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, roughly a mile east of the border with Wales. The population of this civil parish at the 2011 census was 117. It is on the A438 road, and on the River Wye. The village is ...

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...

, Eleanor was from a related branch of that family who resided in nearby

Clifford, Herefordshire Clifford is a village and civil parish in Herefordshire, England, and to the north of Hay-on-Wye. It lies on the south bank of the River Wye The River Wye (; cy, Afon Gwy ) is the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, fourth-longest r ...

. Eleanor seems to have been a relation of

Blanche Parry Blanche Parry (1507/8–12 February 1590) of Newcourt in the parish of Bacton, Herefordshire, in the Welsh Marches, was a personal attendant of Queen Elizabeth I, who held the offices of Chief Gentlewoman of the Queen's Most Honourable Privy Ch ...

, a companion of Queen

Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was Queen of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. Elizabeth was the last of the five House of Tudor monarchs and is sometimes referred to as the "Virgin Queen". Eli ...

. Blanche gave Eleanor a legacy of £100 in her will in 1589. She married Richard Bull October 14, 1571 at

St Mary-le-Bow The Church of St Mary-le-Bow is a Church of England parish church in the City of London. Located on Cheapside, one of the city's oldest and most important thoroughfares, the church was founded in 1080 by Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury. Rebu ...

, London. He was probably the son of the master-shipwright of that name. He held the post of sub-bailiff at Sayes Court and worked for the Clerk of the Green Cloth. He died in 1590.Park Honan, ''Christopher Marlowe: Poet and Spy'', Oxford University Press, 2005, p.344. After her husband's death, she stayed at their house on Deptford Strand,

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, within the London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home ...

, which was in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, but is now within London. The house became a form of hotel or "rooming house in which meals were served". Her normal clientele included supervisors or inspectors at the dockyards, exporters of quality goods, and merchants involved in imports from Russia and the Baltic ports." She died in Deptford and was buried on March 19, 1596.

Death of Marlowe

Eleanor is known because it was at her house in which Christopher Marlowe was killed by stabbing during a quarrel with

Ingram Frizer Ingram Frizer ( ; died August 1627) was an English gentleman and businessman of the late 16th and early 17th centuries who is notable for his reported killing "According to the official story – the story told by Skeres and Poley – it was Marlo ...

. Also present were

Nicholas Skeres Nicholas Skeres (March 1563 – c. 1601) was an Elizabethan con-man and government informer—i.e. a "professional deceiver"—and one of the three "gentlemen" who were with the poet and playwright Christopher Marlowe when he was killed in Deptfo ...

and

Robert Poley The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of '' Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory, honou ...

. All had spent most of the day at Bull's house, apparently engaged in conversation, eating and drinking. At the inquest it was stated that the quarrel was over the bill (known as "the reckoning") for the day's events.

Leslie Hotson John Leslie Hotson, (16 August 1897 – 16 November 1992) was a scholar of Elizabethan literary puzzles. Biography He was born at Delhi, Ontario, on 16 August 1897. He studied at Harvard University, where he obtained a B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. He we ...

, who first identified the documents relating to the inquest described Bull's house as a "tavern", leading to accounts of her as a kind of

Mistress Quickly Mistress Nell Quickly is a fictional character who appears in several plays by William Shakespeare. She is an inn-keeper, who runs the Boar's Head Tavern, at which Sir John Falstaff and his disreputable cronies congregate. The character app ...

of Deptford "who is always ready to let a room for some disreputable purpose". However,

Charles Nicholl Charles "Boomer" Bowen Nicholl (19 June 1870 – 9 July 1939) was a Welsh international rugby union forward who played club rugby for Cambridge University and Llanelli. Nicholl played for Wales on fifteen occasions during the 1891 and 1896 Hom ...

noted her genteel social connections, and stated that she was a "woman of substance, well-born and well-connected, not at all the shabby old ale-house keeper she is often portrayed as."Charles Nicholl, ''The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe'', p.36

References

Sources

*''The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe'' by Charles Nicholl intage; New Ed edition (3 Oct 2002)

External links

Family summary for James and Sybil (Parry) Whitney
on the Whitney Research Group wiki website]. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bull, Eleanor People from Deptford 1596 deaths 1550s births 16th-century English women 16th-century English businesspeople English women in business