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Richard Baines ( ''fl''. 1568–1593) was an Elizabethan double agent, informer and ordained Catholic priest. He is best known for the so-called Baines Note, a list of accusations against the poet and playwright
Christopher Marlowe Christopher Marlowe ( ; Baptism, baptised 26 February 156430 May 1593), also known as Kit Marlowe, was an English playwright, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. Marlowe is among the most famous of the English Renaissance theatre, Eli ...
, which has been described by Paul Kocher as the "master key to the mind of Marlowe" and that "for revolutionary impact and scope it stands alone, an extraordinary document in the history of free thought".


Early life and education

Nothing is known about where and when Baines was born, but 1554 would seem to be a reasonable estimate for the latter. One of the first mentions of him were his matriculation in November 1568 as a pensioner at
Christ's College, Cambridge Christ's College is a Colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college includes the Master, the Fellows of the College, and about 450 undergraduate and 250 graduate students. The c ...
. There was another Richard Baines, favoured by earlier biographers, who was at Oxford, but Kendall has convincingly argued that the Baines who was connected with Marlowe was the Cambridge one. Assuming that this was the right Richard Baines, he gained his BA (Bachelor of Arts) degree in 1573, commencing his MA (i.e. being awarded the degree of Master of Arts) at
Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, commonly known as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges an ...
, in 1576.


Double agent

The English College at
Rheims Reims ( ; ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded by ...
in France was a Catholic seminary at which English Catholics studied for the priesthood, with the aim of returning covertly to England to provide Catholic clergy for those who still adhered to the "old religion" in what was now a Protestant country. Some would support action to return England to the Catholic faith, even if this entailed the assassination of its Protestant Queen,
Elizabeth I Elizabeth I (7 September 153324 March 1603) was List of English monarchs, Queen of England and List of Irish monarchs, Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death in 1603. She was the last and longest reigning monarch of the House of Tudo ...
. On 4 July 1579 Baines arrived at Rheims, being ordained a sub-deacon three years later on 25 March 1581, a deacon on 8 May, and a priest on 21 September that year. On 4 October 1581 he celebrated his first Mass as a priest. Unfortunately for him, however, he confided to a fellow-seminarist his rejection of the Catholic faith and his plans to return to England to report to the queen's spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham about the various plots being hatched in Rheims. In May 1582 he was imprisoned in Rheims town gaol, but a year later was back at the seminary, still a prisoner, where he wrote a lengthy confession of his offences. It seems quite likely that he had in fact been an agent of Sir Francis Walsingham all along.


Flushing

Walsingham died in 1590, and Baines was next heard of in early 1592, when he was in Flushing, at that time an English possession in the Netherlands, apparently sharing a room with Christopher Marlowe. According to a letter sent by the Governor, Sir Robert Sidney, to the Lord Treasurer, Lord Burghley, Baines accused Marlowe of having been involved in the counterfeiting of coins. Only one of these—a Dutch shilling made of pewter—had been put into circulation ( 'uttered'), but some pieces of "Her Majesty's coin" had also been counterfeited, and this made it petty treason, a capital offence. Marlowe was sent back under guard to face Lord Burghley, but seems to have been released almost immediately, suggesting that whatever he was doing was on behalf of Burghley, and that Baines was unaware of this. Whether Baines was there on behalf of some rival faction of the Privy Council is a possibility, but at the moment unknowable.


The Baines Note

A year later, in May 1593, it seems that Baines was instrumental in getting the playwright
Thomas Kyd Thomas Kyd (baptised 6 November 1558; buried 15 August 1594) was an English playwright, the author of ''The Spanish Tragedy'', and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama. Although well known in his own time, ...
wrongly accused of an offence for which he was imprisoned and tortured and shortly after this Baines was called upon, apparently by the Lord Keeper, Lord Puckering, to provide an account of what he knew of the heretical views of Christopher Marlowe. Seemingly relishing the task, he produced the so-called Baines Note which, with some amendment by Puckering, was sent to the Queen. Before any action could be taken against Marlowe, however, an inquest reported him dead, stabbed in self-defence by
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 ...
—a man with whom he had been dining—in a dispute over payment of the bill or "reckoning". A majority of Marlowe's more recent biographers have nevertheless expressed doubts about whether the inquest jury's finding was what really happened.


Vicar or thief?

It had been thought of in the past that a Richard Baines who finished up as a vicar in
Waltham, Lincolnshire Waltham is a village and civil parish in North East Lincolnshire, England. It is south of Grimsby close to the suburb of Scartho and to the smaller villages of Brigsley, Barnoldby-le-Beck, and Holton le Clay. Less than to the east-north-east ...
, might have been the one described as Marlowe's nemesis. Roy Kendall, however, has persuasively argued that he was framed for a capital crime the following year by an unnamed man with whom he went drinking, a crime about which a ballad was even written. The details of the cup-stealing scene in '' Doctor Faustus'' between "Dick" and "Robin" in fact seem so similar to those of the Baines case that it may well have been an addition made after 1594, in December of which year this Richard Baines was hanged at
Tyburn Tyburn was a Manorialism, manor (estate) in London, Middlesex, England, one of two which were served by the parish of Marylebone. Tyburn took its name from the Tyburn Brook, a tributary of the River Westbourne. The name Tyburn, from Teo Bourne ...
.


Footnotes


References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Baines, Richard 16th-century English Roman Catholic priests