"And for Edward, Marlowe does not ask our liking: he is foolish, he is at his best pathetic [...], he is cruel to his wife [...], he knows himself so little that he thinks he erred only in too much clemency. There is barely a redeeming moment in the long presentation of his conduct. Yet what Marlowe has done is to make us deeply conscious of a humanity that we share with this man who happened to be also a king."