William Danby

William Danby (fl. 1542–1593) was a sixteenth-century lawyer and Coroner of the Queen's Household towards the end of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I. He is particularly noted for having presided over the inquest into the controversial death at Deptford in 1593 of the poet/dramatist Christopher Marlowe. Lincoln's Inn Although the date of Danby's birth is unknown, he is most probably the William Danby who entered Lincoln's Inn on 1 August 1542. If so, his exact contemporary there was the father of Marlowe's friend and patron Thomas Walsingham, another Thomas, who was born in 1526. Danby was therefore probably in his late sixties at the time of Marlowe's inquest. Coroner of The Queen's Household