William Danby (coroner)
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 In 1589 Danby apparently took over the role of Coroner of The Queen's Household from Richard Vale. The first time Danby's name appears in this capacity (in the Middlesex records held at the London Metropolitan Archives) was for an inquest held in October 1589—in Shepperton, Middlesex—when he presided together with a county coroner, John Chalkhill, at the inquest on one Robert Wrote. Unfortunately for Danby, this case was later declared "insufficient" because Chalkhill had not said in his report that Shepperton was within the verge, which