Christopher Marlow Christopher Marlowe was born on February 6, 1564 (Discovering Christopher Marlowe 2), in Canterbury, England, and baptized at St. George’s Church on the 26th of the same month, exactly two months before William Shakespeare was baptized at Stratford-upon-Avon (Henderson 275). He was the eldest son of John Marlowe of the Shoemaker’s Guild and Katherine Arthur, a Dover girl of yeoman stock (Henderson 275). Upon graduating King’s School, Canterbury, he received a six-year scholarship to Cambridge upon the condition that he studies for the church. He went to Cambridge, but had to be reviewed by the Privy Council before the university could