THE DARK LADY is an 800 page historical biography of Amelia Bassano perhaps the world's greatest literary genius. The prelude begins in the Bassano family, the Court recorder troupe, with the death of her father, and her adoption at the age of 7 into the household of the Duchess of Suffolk and Countess Susan Bertie. It then continues with Amelia's adult life at Court from the age of about 13 as mistress to the elderly Lord Hunsdon, Queen Elizabeth's closest relative, and the man in charge of the English theater. It describes the next decade during which time she worked on several of the history plays set at Court. It reveals her relationship with Marlowe and the reasons for his murder to prevent him from publishing his book "Against the Trinity" which demonstrated his reasons for not believing in the New Testament which he said was a literary fiction being "all of one man's making".
The next chapters trace how after becoming pregnant in 1592 she was thrown out of Court and rapidly married off to Alphonso Lanier, a court musician. During the next few years the Italian marriage comedies were written, beginning with Taming of the Shrew. The next chapters examine how she employed the man from Stratford- Gulielmus Shagspere-- as a front man and play-broker once Lord Hunsdon was no longer there to protect her. Finally the last part of the book describes how her husband wasted her money, how the plays became bleaker, and how she ended up as the first woman in England to own and operate a school.
Throughout The Dark Lady, the meaning of each play is related to Amelia's goal of continuing Marlowe's work by showing allegorically how the pro-Roman Gospels (meaning 'Good News of Military Victory') were created after the end of the Roman-Jewish war. As Marlowe's Jewish protagonist had pointed out; "Those swine-eating Christians' were ne'er thought upon Till Titus and Vespasian conquer'd us" (The Jew of Malta).
Her plays both reflect Marlowe's knowledge
that the New Testament texts were Roman literary fictions---written during
the reign of the Flavian emperors 70-100CE --- and also take comic allegorical
revenge upon their creators. Nowhere is this more clear than in A Midsummer
Night's Dream, where Oberon the God/king of the Jews tricks Titania/Titus
into loving Bottom/Jesus, before being 'killed' with Dian's Bud/ Wormwood/Gall
( the convulsive poison supposedly offered to Jesus on the cross), before
being resurrected as someone who now loves the Jewish God.