Orpheus : A legendary musician who sought to rescue his love from Hell
Oxford, Seventeenth Earl of : (Edward de Vere) A Promethean, alleging himself a poet
de Parma, Fray Xalbadore : A Promethean. An Inquisitor.
Plantagenet, Edward : (Edward II of England) A historic king, the title character of Edward II by Christopher Marlowe
Peaseblossom : A Faerie
Poley, Mary : Sister to Thomas Watson, estranged wife to Robert Poley, mother of Robin Poley
Poley, Robin : Son of Mary Poley
Poley, Robert : A Promethean. A moneylender and intelligencer. Eventually, a Yeoman Warder of the Tower.
Raleigh, Sir Walter : A sea captain, sympathetic to the Prometheans A lame raven
Robin Goodfellow (aka Puck) : A Faerie
Rosalind, also Ganymede : The heroine of As You like It
Sackerson : A bear.
Shakespeare, Anne : (Annie) Wife to William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, Edmund : Brother to William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, Gilbert : Brother to William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, Hamnet : Son to William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, Joan : (Joan Hart) Sister to William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, John : Father to William Shakespeare. A glover of Stratford-upon-Avon.
Shakespeare, Judith : Daughter to William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, Mary : Mother to William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, Richard : Brother to William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, Susanna : Daughter to William Shakespeare
Shakespeare, William : A vile playmaker. Principal player of lord Strange’s Men, the lord Chamberlain’s Men, and the King’s Men. Eventual Shareholder at the Globe.
Sidney, Sir Philip : A respected poet. Husband to Frances Walsingham. Dead.
Skeres, Nicholas : An intelligencer
Sly, Will : A principal player with the lord Chamberlain’s Men A sorrel gelding
Southampton, Earl of : (Henry Wriothesly) Patron to William Shakespeare,Promethean
Spencer, Gabriel : A player
Spenser, Edmund : A respected poet
Strange, lord : (Ferdinando Stanley) A Promethean, and patron to players
Stuart, James : (James VI, James I): King of Scotland and eventually England
Stuart, Mary : (Mary, Queen of Scots) Mother to James VI of Scotland. Dead.
Stubbs, Philip : A Puritan, dismbbered for treasonous writings
Taliesin : A legendary bard Tam lin: A legendary noblban kidnapped by Faeries
Thomas the Rhymer : A legendary bard
Topcliffe : The Queen’s torturer
Tresham, Francis : A Catholic recusant A troll
Tudor, Elizabeth : (Elizabeth I, Bess, Gloriana) The Queen of England, or perhaps Pretender to its throne
Tudor, Henry : (Henry VIII of England, Great Harry) Dead
de Vere, Elizabeth : Daughter of the seventeenth Earl of Oxford
Wade, William : The Queen’s other torturer, clerk of the Privy Council
Walsingham, Etheldreda (Audrey) : Wife to Thomas
Walsingham, Frances : (Frances Sidney, Frances Devereaux) Daughter to Sir Francis, widow of Sir Philip Sidney, wife of the Earl of Essex
Walsingham, Sir Francis : A Promethean. Spymaster to the Queen. Formerly, her Secretary of State.
Walsingham, Thomas : Cousin to Sir Francis, Patron to Christofer Marley
Watson, Thomas : A poet and intelligencer. A Promethean. Dead.
Divers demons, ifriti, faeries, prentices, goodwives, publicans, recusants, damned souls etc as required.
And since we all have suck’d one wholesome air,
And with the same proportion of Elements
Resolve, I hope we are resembled,
Vowing our loves to equal death and life.
CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE, Tamburlaine the Great, Part 1, Act II, scene vi
And since my mind, my wit, my head, my voice and tongue are weak,
To utter, move, devise, conceive, sound forth, declare and speak,
Such piercing plaints as answer might, or would my woeful case,
Help crave I must, and crave I will, with tears upon my face,
Of all that may in heaven or hell, in earth or air be found,
To wail with me this loss of mine, as of these griefs the ground.
EDWARD DE VERE, 17TH EARL OF OXFORD, loss of Good Name
Christofer Marley died as he was born: on the bank of a river, within the sound and stench of slaughterhouses.
The news reached London before the red sun ebbed, while alleys fell into straitened darkness under rooftops still stained bright. It was a bloody end to the penultimate day of May, in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of the excommunicate Elizabeth.
The nave of the Queen’s chapel at Westminster lay shadowed when, at the secluded entrance of a secret room, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford hesitated. Edward de Vere pushed his hood back from fine hair and wiped one ringed hand across his mouth. The panel slid open at his touch, releasing the redolence of oil. The sputter of candles along the walls reassured him that he was not the first. Four men waited within the stifling chamber.
“Marley is dead in Deptford.” Oxford tossed the words on the table like a poacher’s take. “Stabbed above the eye by your cousin’s man, Sir Francis. And we are lost with him: have you so thoughtlessly betrayed your Sovereign?”