Here are some of the best links I have found to Shakespeare's contemporaries (using the term very broadly indeed). The effort continues. Let me encourage those who take an interest in these authors to mount presentations of their works. There are some wonderful examples to work from, such as Chris Cleary's Middleton page and Richard Bear's Spenser page. The term "contemporary" is taken very loosely here to cover pre- and post- Shakespearean figures from the Renaissance.  Of surpassing excellence are Anniina Jokinen's pages devoted to various writers of the English Renaissance.  To avoid littering the page with five diamonds each time Anniina is mentioned, let me place them here with a link to her index, The Luminarium.

Swinburne's Contemporaries of Shakespeare is still an interesting text.

The Biographical Index of English Drama Before 1660:  all people known to have been involved with theater in England prior to 1660, is also a very useful resource for persons not found here.

Adriaenssen, Emmanuel

Emmanuel Adriaenssen (1554(?)-1604 - also known as Hadrianius), Flemish composer and lutenist, was one of the most influential Renaissance musicians primarily because of the publication of his Pratum Musicum, (1584, rev. 1600), and Novum Pratum Musicum, 1592.  The contents include about 5 fantasies, 50 vocal compositions, for 1-4 lutes with 1-4 vocal parts, and about 30 dances (The Lute in Britain, p.223). The lute was possibly the most popular instrument of the Renaissance, certainly the lute literature from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries is extensive (for a remarkable list of 16th century publications for the lute see the list published by Appalachian State).  Lute music printing was centered in the Netherlands, especially Antwerp by the Phalese firm, and few pieces of printed music were more important than  Adriaenssen's Pratum Musicum, which amounted to nothing less than a Renaissance compendium of greatest hits written in lute tabulature, or "intabulation" as it is known (see Svsann'vn jour à 5 from the Novum, for example). In fact, the Pratum was a much studies source for Italian madrigals (which predominate), motets, chansons, canzonets, villanellas, galliards, corantos, preludes, fantasias, Neapolitan songs and German and English lute pieces by the best known composers of the late sixteenth century, "freely transcribed" by Adriaenssen. Interestingly, G. R. Hibbard, in his Oxford edition (p. 243) of Love's Labour's Lost suggests that the song sung by Moth, given at 3.1.3, "Concolinel", may have been to the tune of "Altra canzon englesa" found in the Pratum Musicum, (see the contents listed here, specifically the entry for 92v/2 attributed to John Johnson) via the 'Dallis' Lute Book.

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Anonymous

• Halliwell, J. O. (ed)  Tarleton's Jests and News Out of Purgatory, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 135 pages.

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Alciato, Andrea (1492 - 1550)

[Alciato] displayed great literary skill in his exposition of the laws, and was one of the first to interpret the civil law by the history, languages and literature of antiquity, and to substitute original research for the servile interpretations of the glossators. He published many legal works, and some annotations on Tacitus. Alciati is most famous for his Emblemata, published in dozens of editions from 1531 onward. This collection of short Latin verse texts and accompanying woodcuts created an entire European genre, the emblem book, which attained enormous popularity in continental Europe and Great Britain. From the Wikipedia article on Andrea Alciato

• The Book of Emblems (1531-1621)

• Felthan, Mark.  The Web and the Book: The Memorial Electronic Edition of Andrea Alciato's Book of Emblems, EMLS 5.3, containing useful links to Alciato studies and Renaissance emblems in general.

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Allen, William (Cardinal) (1532 - 1594)

William Allen (1532 – October 16, 1594) was an English Catholic priest and cardinal...In 1567 he went to Rome for the first time, and conceived his plan for establishing a college where English students could live together and finish their theological course. This was linked to the conviction, arising from his experience as a missioner, that the whole future of the Catholic Church in England depended on there being a supply of trained clergy and controversialists ready to come into the country when Catholicism would again be restored. From the Wikipedia article on Cardinal William Allen.

• Article on Cardinal William Allen in the Catholic Encyclopedia.

• Article on Cardinal William Allen in the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.

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Ariosto, Ludovico (1474 - 1533)

Ludovico Ariosto (September 8, 1474 – July 6, 1533) was an Italian poet, author of the epic poem Orlando furioso (1516), "Orlando Enraged". From the Wikipedia article on Ludovico Ariosto.

• Orlando Furioso

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Ascham, Roger (1515? - 1568)

Though only technically a contemporary of Shakespeare's (he died in 1568 and Shakespeare was born in 1564) Roger Ascham can be said to have been enormously influential in the life of Shakespeare if only indirectly because of his enormous influence on Elizabeth I and, it is not too much to say, his influence on the humanistic ethos of the Elizabethan court and courtly culture under Elizabeth.  He was but a tutor and schoolmaster, but one of the lessons of his life is the enormous impact a teacher can have when devoted to his students. Ascham was born in 1515 and educated first in the home of Sir Humphrey Wingfield (speaker of the House of Commons in 1533), where he first learned to enjoy archery as a sport.  About 1530 he was sent to St. Johns, Cambridge where, to Ascham's great good fortune, the fasion for the study of Greek was at high water.  Here he met John Cheke, later tutor to Edward VI, probably the most influential association he made at Cambridge with respect to the cours of his later life.  Ascham showed enormous facility for languages, and particularly Greek.  Ascham, a born scholar, took his BA in 1534/35, his MA in 1537, and was elected a fellow of St. John's college where he took pupils, one of whom was William Grindal who, in 1544 was appointed tutor to the Princess Elizabeth by Katherine Parr.  Ascham, through Grinadal, took a great interest in the edcation of Elizabeth and maintained a regular correspondence with Kat Ashely, Elizabeth's early governess and companion, and recommended to Grindal books for Elizabeth to study. Ascham's interest in Elizabeth's intellectual progress was not completely selfless, of course.  He hoped eventually to become her tutor.  In 1548, with Edward not King Edward VI, Elizabeth's tutor Grindal died and Ascham made his application for the job of tutor.  Elizabeth was much of the same mind and used her influence to secure Asham in the position. At the time Ascham was an internationally known scholar.  In 1545 he published Toxophilus, his English vernacular treatise on archery.  He was also a master of calligraphy, and improved the elegant Italic hand taught to Elizabeth initially by Castiglione.  Ascham is best know, however, for the posthumous (1570) The Scholemaster, which propounds progressive,even liberal ideas, for the day, on education.  His curriculum was based on study of the Scriptures (!) and the classics, espcially Cicero.  He included athletics in his instruction, and Elizabeth learned to love riding and hunting.  Elizabeth took from Ascham a love a learning that she retained throughout her life.  Through Elizabeth the bar for her courtier's (and entertainers) was set ever so high, thanks, primarily, to the tutelage of Ascham.

• A biographical article on Ascham from NNDB.
• Johnson's Memoir of Roger Ascham
• The Whole Works of Roger Ascham, Now First Collected and Revised, With a Life of the Author, ed. E. A. Giles, John Russell Smith, 1864-1865, full view and PDF from GBS.
  • Vol. I, Part I
  • Vol. I, Part II
  • Vol. II
  • Vol. III
• Toxophilus, ed. Edward Arber, English Reprints, 1869, full view and PDF from GBS.
• The Scholemaster, ed. Edward Arber, English Reprints, 1895, full view and PDF from GBS.
• The Scholemaster, from Renascence Editions, U. of Oregon.
• The Scholemaster, from U. of Virginia etext library.

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Bacon, Sir Francis (1561 - 1626)

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626) was an English philosopher, statesman, and essayist, but is best known as a philosophical advocate and defender of the scientific revolution. Indeed, his dedication brought him into a rare historical group of scientists who were killed by their own experiments. From the Wikipedia article on Sir Francis Bacon.

• Anniina Jokinen's Sir Francis Bacon Page from the Luminarium.
• Works of Bacon:
  • The Works of Bacon at Project Gutenberg.
  • The New Atlantis, an HTML transcription from the Perseus Project at Tufts University.
  • The Essays, (1601), from Renascence Editions, University of Oregon.
  • The Works of Bacon at the University of Adelaide, including The Essays.
  • Novum Organum (1620), HTML.

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Barnes, Barnabe (1568? - 1609)

This, on the little known Barnabe Barnes, from Morley's 1893 English Writers: an attempt towards a History of English Literature: "Barnabe Barnes published, in May, 1593, his "Parthenophil and Parthenophe," which is a way of naming "the Maid and her Lover," as Sidney's Astrophel and Stella were names for "the Star and her Lover." It is a collection of a hundred and four sonnets, twenty-six madrigals, and a sestine exact in technical construction. These are followed by twenty-one elegies, a canzone, a translation of the first Idyll of Moschus, twenty odes, four more sestines, and a few sonnets of compliment. "Barnabe Barnes was the fourth of nine children of Richard Barnes, Bishop of Durham, who died in 1587. A year before his father's death Barnabe entered Brasenose College, but he left Oxford without graduating. In 1591 Barnabe Barnes went with the Earl of Essex into Normandy, to join the French against the Prince of Parma. As a friend of Gabriel Harvey, whom he supported with a sonnet against Nash, Barnabe Barnes received in his own face some of the mud thrown in the Nash and Harvey gutter-war [See Nash's "Have with you to Saffron Walden" where he accuses Barnes of cowardice]. While many of the sonnets in "Parthenophil and Parthenophe" are in the form then commonly used, of three quatrains and a couplet, others vary the rhyming, and some — as the thirtieth, thirty- second, thirty-third, and others — are accurately formed on Petrarch's model. In 1595 Barnabe Barnes published "A Divine Centvrie of Spirituall Sonnets," mainly Petrarchan in their form. Whether he sing of earthly or of heavenly love, the passion is conventional, but there is livelier imagery in the poems upon earthly love. After the death of Elizabeth, Barnabe Barnes published, in 1606, "Foure Bookes of Offices ; enabling privat Persons for the speciall service of all good Princes and Policies." This was followed in the next year (1607) by a tragedy, called " The Divel's Charter," on Pope Alexander VI. and Lucretia Borgia. Barnes died in December, 1609" (pp. 214-215). Barnes' connections to Shakespeare are tantalizing.  Their common acquaintance is John Florio (p. 463), translator of Montaigne and secretary to Southampton, who was in Barnes' service while he was at Oxford.  Barnes and his friend William Percy, to whom Parthenophil and Parthenophe is dedicated, were both sonneteers in the same circles as Shakespeare in the years when he was, most likely, writing his sonnets.  Barnes, in 1593 wrote a flattering sonnet to Southampton, and at least one widely read biographer (Sir Sidney Lee in his 1898 biography; see also Lee's DNB entry on Shakespeare in 1909) assigned Barnes the role of rival poet of the Sonnets. Later Barnes contributed to the spate of Jacobean plays on witchcraft, necromancy and the daemonic, The Devil's Charter, reflecting the interests of King James, near the same time that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth.  Barnes' play was performed before the King by Shakespeare's company.

• Sonnets by Barnes in Specimens of English Sonnets, ed. Alexander Dyce, 1833, from GBS in full view and PDF.
• The Devil's Charter, ed. R. B. McKerrow, 1904, from GBS, full view and PDF.
• The Devils Charter, students facsimile edition, from the Dyce collection, 1913, from GBS, full view and PDF.
• The Poems of Barnaby Barnes, ed. A. B. Grosart, 1875, from GBS, full view and PDF.

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Beaumont, Francis (1584 - 1616)

Francis Beaumont (1584 – March 6, 1616) was a dramatist in the English Renaissance theatre, most famous for his collaborations with John Fletcher. From the Wikipedia article on Francis Beaumont.

• Biography from the Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Beaumont and Fletcher in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume VI. The Drama to 1642, Part Two.
• Beaumont and Fletcher from the Theatre Database.

Works

• Works by Francis Beaumont at Project Gutenberg.
• The Woman Hater
• The Masque of The Inner-Temple and Gray's Inn, Gray's Inn and The Inner-Temple;
• Poems
• The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher, George Darley ed., Oxford, 1859 (reprint): Vol. I, Vol. II; from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
• The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher in Ten Volumes, Cambridge University Press, 1905-1912, from Internet Archive.
  • Vol. I - The Maid's Tragedy; Philaster; A King, and No King; The Scornful Lady, The Custom of the Country.
  • Vol. II - The Elder Brother; The Spanish Curate; Wit Without Money; Beggar's Bush; The Humerous Lieutenant; The Faithful Shepherdess.
  • Vol. III - The Mad Lover; The Loyal Subject; Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife; The Laws of Candy; The False One; The Little French Lawyer.
  • Vol. IV - The Tragedy of Valentinian; Monsieur Thomas; The Chances; The Bloody Brother; The Wild-Goose Chase.
  • Vol. V - A Wife for a Month; The Lover's Progress; The Pilgrim; The Captain; The Prophetess.
  • Vol. VI - The Queen of Corinth; Bonduca; The Night of the Burning Pestle; Love's Pilgrimage; The Double Marriage.
  • Vol. VII - The Maid of the Mill; The Knight of Malta; Love's Cure, or The Martial Maid; Women Pleas'd; The Night-Walker, or The Little Thief.
  • Vol. VIII - The Woman's Prize; The Island Princess; The Noble Gentleman; The Coronation; The Coxcomb.
  • Vol. IX - The Sea Voyage; Wit At Several Weapons; The Fair Maid of the Inn; Cupid's Revenge; The Two Noble Kinsmen.
  • Vol. X - Thierry and Theodorat; The Woman Hater; Nice Valor; The Honest Man's Fortune; The Masque of the Gentlemen of Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple; Four Plays or Moral Representations in One.

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Brooke, William, 10th Baron Cobham (1527 - 1597)

William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham (1527-1597) was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and and a Member of Parliament for Hythe. Although he was viewed by some as a religious radical during the Somerset protectorate, he entertained Elizabeth at Cobham Hall in 1559, signalling his acceptance of the moderate regime...In 1596, he was named Lord Chamberlain on the death of Baron Hunsdon; he died in March 1597. From the Wikipedia article on William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham. [NB: He is briefly Lord Chamberlain after the death of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon.  He was succeeded in the office by George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon, a man much more congenial to the players.  He is descended from the Sir John Oldcastle, of Lollard fame, whose name was originally given to Falstaff.  Whether the name was given with satiric intent is not known, but it was quickly changed, under pressure, when his descendant became Lord Chamberlain.  During the time Brooke was Lord Chamberlain, Shakespeare's company called themselves Lord Hunsdon's Men, and are so named on the title page of the first quarto of Romeo and Juliet published in 1597.]

• A brief biography of William Brooke from Tudor Place.

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Buck, (Sir) George (1560 - 1622)

Sir George Buck, or Buc (1560 – 1622) was an antiquarian who served as Master of the Revels to King James I of England...Once he assumed the full office in 1610, Buck clearly was the primary censor for public drama...Buck was also a minor poet and prose writer. He published "A Discourse or Treatise of the third universitie of England" (1615), an account of the Inns of Court. His major work, his History of the Life and Reign of Richard III, would not be published until 1646. From the Wikipedia article on Sir George Buck.

• Alan Nelson's Sir George Buc, The Man Who Knew Shakespeare.
• Nelson's George Buc, William Shakespeare, and the Folger George a Greene from JSTOR (for-pay service, but available through many libraries). $$$
• Mark Eccles has a long article on "Sir George Buc, Master of the Revels" in Thomas Lodge and Other Elizabethans, which has only limited preview at Google Book Search.

Works

• The History of the Life and Reigne of Richard the Third By George Buck, originally published 1646.

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Burbage, Richard (1568 - 1619)

Richard Burbage (July 7, 1568 – March 13, 1619) was an actor and theatre owner. He was the younger brother of Cuthbert Burbage...He probably was acting with the Admiral's Men in 1590, with Lord Strange's Men in 1592, and with the Earl of Pembroke's Men in 1593; but most famously he was the star of William Shakespeare's theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men which mutated into the King's Men on the ascension of James I in 1603. He played the title role in the first performances of many of Shakespeare's plays, including Hamlet, Othello, Richard III and King Lear. But he was in great demand and also appeared in the plays of many of the great contemporary writers, such as Ben Jonson (the title role in Volpone and Subtle in The Alchemist), John Marston (The Malcontent), John Webster (The Duchess of Malfi) and Beaumont & Fletcher (The Maid's Tragedy). From the Wikipedia article on Richard Burbage.

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Byrd, William (1543? - 1623)

If you look up William Byrd in an encyclopedia his birth date will often be succeeded by a question mark.  It is, indeed, indefinite.  It is just possible he was born as early as 1534, but more likely in 1543, depending upon whether the Wylliam Byrd who became a chorister in Westminster Abbey in 1543 is the composer, or simply another lost William Byrd.  His birth place is usually given as Lincoln, since he has strong Lincoln associations later in life, but if the Westminster chorister and Byrd are the same, London is a more likely birth place.  In any event, there is no doubt he died in 1623, aged at least 80. It is a near certainty that Byrd sang in the Chapel Royal during the reign of Mary I under Thomas Tallis.  In his mid-twenties he is found as organist and choirmaster of Lincoln Cathedral.  He was named a gentleman of the Chapel Royal under Elizabeth, in 1572 and worked there as organist, singer and composer for many subsequent years.  He published a collection of motets with Tallis before Tallis' death, and composed Ye Sacred Muses as an elegy to the departed Tallis. In spite of Byrd's employment writing for the Protestant Church of England under Elizabeth, he seems to have harbored strong personal Catholic sympathies, and wrote a good deal of music for the Mass in his later years, apparently celebrating Mass secretly with his co-religionists.  Even though Byrd composed and openly published Catholic music he was not molested by the state, though some of those in possession of his printed music certainly were.  He composed prolifically throughout his very long life, and after Orlando Gibbons, is often considered the greatest of Elizabethan-Jacobean composers

• Wikipedia article on William Byrd.

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Campion, Edmund (1540 - 1581)

St. Edmund Campion (January 24, 1540 – December 1, 1581) was a Catholic priest, Jesuit and martyr...he was indicted at Westminster on a charge of having conspired, along with others, at Rome and Reims to raise a sedition in the realm and dethrone the Queen...He answered the sentence of the traitor's death with the Te Deum laudamus, and, after spending his last days in prayer, was led with two companions to Tyburn and hanged, drawn and quartered on December 1, 1581. Campion was beatified by Pope Leo XIII in 1886 and canonized in 1970. From the Wikipedia article on Edmund Campion.

• Article on Campion from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Brittanica.
• Entry in the Catholic Encyclopedia on St. Edmund Campion.
• Overview of the life of Edmund Campion by Todd Aglialoro.
• The Capture of Campion by Evelyn Waugh, from the Catholic Information Network.
• Campion's Brag, also from the Catholic Information Network.
• St. Edmund's Secret: The Case for Edmund Campion as the Author of Shakespeare.  Why not?

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Campion, Thomas (1567 - 1620)

Thomas Campion, (sometimes Campian) (February 12, 1567 – March 1, 1620) was an English composer, poet and physician...Campion wrote over one hundred lute songs in the Books of Airs, with the first collection (co-written with Philip Rosseter) appearing in 1601 and four more following throughout the 1610s. He also wrote a number of masques, including Lord Hay's Masque performed in 1607, along with Somerset Masque and The Lord's Masque which premiered in 1613. Some of Campion's works were quite ribald on the other hand, such as "Beauty, since you so much desire" (see media). In 1615 he published a book on counterpoint, A New Way of Making Fowre Parts in Counterpoint By a Most Familiar and Infallible Rule, which was regarded highly enough to be reprinted in 1660. From the Wikipedia article on Thomas Campion.

• Thomas Campion resources from the Luminarium.
• Campion in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).Volume III. Renascence and Reformation.

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Carey, George, 2nd Baron Hunsdon (1547 - 1603)

George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon KG (1547 – 9 September 1603) was the eldest son of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon and Anne Morgan. His father was first cousin to Elizabeth I of England...Both Henry and George Carey were patrons of the professional theatre company in London known as "the Lord Chamberlain's Men". Talents such as William Shakespeare and Richard Burbage were among the writers and performers of the company. From the Wikipedia article on George Carey, 2nd Baron Hunsdon.

• Brief biography of George Carey from Tudor Place.

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Carey, Henry, 1st Baron Hunsdon (1526 - 1596)

Henry Carey (or Cary), 1st Baron Hunsdon of Hunsdon (4 March 1526 – 23 July 1596) was an English nobleman...He was appointed Lord Chamberlain of the Household in July, 1585 and would hold this position until his death.  [NB: Thus, he was Lord Chamberlain, patron of The Lord Chamberlain's Men, when the company was first formed.] From the Wikipedia article on Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon.

• Brief biography of Henry Carey from Tudor Place.

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Carr, Frances (Howard) (1591 - 1632) Countess of Essex, then Countess of Somerset

Frances Howard daughter of Thomas Howard, Earl of Suffolk, and mother of Lady Anne Carr,  married, at age 13 the 3rd Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, son of the same Earl of Essex condemned for the rebellion against Queen Elizabeth in 1601.  The marriage was annulled, in a sensational annulment hearing conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury, George Abbot (who vehemently opposed it) on the grounds that the marriage had never been consummated.  The annulment left Frances Howard free to marry Robert Carr, the king's favorite, then Lord Rochester and soon elevated to Earl of Somerset. The Countess of Somerset plotted to poison Sir Thomas Overbury while he was incarcerated in the Tower, and succeeded, whether with the knowledge of the Earl of Somerset or not is not known, though he was convicted of the crime.  At her trial the countess pleaded guilty and asked for pardon, which was granted by King James, though many socially lesser individuals were executed for her crime. Both the Earl and Countess were pardoned, and lived together thereafter in reduced, but not unprosperous, circumstances, though their relationship deteriorated from the unbridled love they had at one time known. Frances Howard was vilified after her trial as lust incarnate, a witch and a Machiavellian poisoner, a reputation she has retained through the centuries, though there may be much to suggest these characterizations were colored by would be moralists.  Certainly she was guilty of compassing the death of Overbury--who at the time was thoroughly disliked, but who became a martyr of sorts in the public imagination afterwards--and certainly she had participated in incantations and other rites associated with wise men or astrologers, like Simon Forman--a practice not uncommon for the age--but whether she was as licentious as she is portrayed in the contemporary ballads is questionable. She died a horrible death at the age of 41 from cancer of the breast and cervix. The modern authority--and engaging history--on the Essex and Overbury affairs is Anne Somerset, Unnatural Murder: Poison at the Court of James I.

• Wikipedia article on Frances (Howard) Carr
• Article of Francis Howard from TudorPlace
• A Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors from the Earliest Period to the Year 1783, compiled by T. B. Howell, vol. II, containing an account of both Frances Howard's annulment proceedings of 1613 and her murder trial of 1616.

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Carr, Robert, Earl of Somerset (1587 - 1645)

Robert Carr was a lowly born Scot page whose good looks and natural graces attracted the homosexual affections of King James I and, once becoming the King's favourite, was elevated as Viscount Rochester (1611) and then 1st Earl of Somerset (1613).  The King showered enormous wealth upon him, and he became, for a time, the most influential man at James' court. Carr conducted an adulterous affair with Frances Howard, whose marriage to Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex was annulled so that she might marry Carr (in 1613).  Carr was soon supplanted in the King's affections by George Villiers (later the Duke of Buckingham) and shortly thereafter was arrested and tried for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, which had been engineered by his wife, Frances Howard.  Whether Carr was directly involved in the murder cannot be determined, but his behavior afterwards was highly suspicious and when brought to trial he was convicted by his peers. Carr received a pardon from the King, and was restored to a prosperous, though not lavish, living, through the King's bounty.  He was deeply embittered and never returned to court.  His relations with his wife, who he probably blamed entirely for his downfall, deteriorated, but they continued to live together. Carr's daughter was Lady Anne Carr, born at the time of her parents' murder trials, who later married the Duke of Bedford and became estranged with Carr over his failure to fulfill her dowry contract.

• Article on Robert Carr from Wikipedia

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Castiglione, Baldassare

Baldassare Castiglione, count of Novellata (December 6, 1478 – February 2, 1529), was a diplomat and was a very prominent Renaissance author. From the Wikipedia article on Baldassare Castiglione.

• The Book of the Courtier.

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Cecil, Robert, 1st Earl of Salisbury (1563 - 1612)

Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, KG, PC (1 June 1563 – 24 May 1612), son of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and half-brother of Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter, statesman, spymaster and minister to Queen Elizabeth I and King James I...Salisbury was made Secretary of State following the death of Sir Francis Walsingham in 1590, and he became the leading minister after the death of his father in 1598, serving both Queen Elizabeth and King James as Secretary of State. He fell into dispute with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, and only prevailed upon the latter's poor campaign against the Irish rebels during the Nine Years War in 1599. He was then in a position to orchestrate the succession to the throne, which he achieved with aplomb following Elizabeth's death in 1603. From the Wikipedia article on Robert Cecil.

• Biography of Cecil from Britannia Biographies.
• Article on Cecil from the Luminarium Encyclopedia Project.

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Cecil, William, 1st Baron Burghley (1520 - 1598)

William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (13 September 1520 – 4 August 1598), was an English politician, the chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign (17 November 1558–24 March 1603), and Lord High Treasurer from 1572...The interest of the State was the supreme consideration and to it he had no hesitation in sacrificing individual consciences. He frankly disbelieved in toleration; that State, he said, could never be in safety where there was a toleration of two religions. "For there is no enmity so great as that for religion; and therefore they that differ in the service of their God can never agree in the service of their country." From the Wikipedia article on William Cecil, Lord Burghley.

• Biography of William Cecil from Tudor Place.
• William Cecil, an Elizabethan Man, from medievalhistory.net.
• William Cecil biography from NNDB.
• William Cecil, Baron Burghley, from the Luminarium Encyclopedia Project.

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Cervantes, Don Miguel de (1547 - 1616)

Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra[b] (IPA: [miˈɣel ðe θerˈβantes saaˈβeðra] in modern Spanish; September 29, 1547 – April 23, 1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. Cervantes was one of the most important and influential persons in literature and the leading figure associated with the cultural flourishing of sixteenth century Spain (the Siglo de Oro). His novel Don Quixote is considered as a founding classic of Western literature and regularly figures among the best novels ever written; it has been translated into more than sixty-five languages, while editions continue regularly to be printed, and critical discussion of the work has persisted unabated since the 18th century. His work is considered among the most important in the universal literature[1]. He has been dubbed el Príncipe de los Ingenios (the Prince of Wits). From the Wikipedia article on Cervantes. MIGUEL DE CERVANTES SAAVEDRA was born at Alcalá de Henares in Spain in 1547, of a noble Castillan family. Nothing is certainly known of his education, but by the age of twenty-three we find him serving in the army as a private soldier. He was maimed for life at the battle of Lepanto, shared in a number of other engagements, and was taken captive by the Moors on his way home in 1575. After five years of slavery he was ransomed; and two or three years later he returned to Spain, and betook himself to the profession of letters. From youth he had practiced the writing of verse, and now he turned to the production of plays; but, tilling of financial success, he obtained an employment in the Government offices, which he held till 1597, when he was imprisoned for a shortage in his accounts due to the dishonesty of an associate. The imprisonment on this occasion lasted only till the end of the year, and, after a period of obscurity, he issued, in 1605, his masterpiece, "Don Quixote." Its success was great and immediate, and its reputation soon spread beyond Spain. Translations of parts into French appeared; and in 1611 Thomas Shelton, an Englishman otherwise unknown, put forth the present version, in style and vitality, if not in accuracy, acknowledged the most fortunate of English renderings. From the Introductory Note to the 1909 Harvard Classics edition of the 1611 Thomas Shelton translation of Don Quixote.

• Cervantes' life prior to Don Quixote.
• Cervantes y Saavedra from Famous Hispanics.
• The Cervantes Project, from Texas A&M, among others.
• Cervantes Society of America

Works

• The Works of Cervantes from Project Gutenberg.
• The Works of Miguel de Cervantes, html versions.

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Chamberlain, John (1553 - 1627)

John Chamberlain (1553 – 1628) was the author of a series of letters written in England from 1597 to 1626, notable for their historical value and their literary qualities. In the view of historian Wallace Notestein, Chamberlain's letters "constitute the first considerable body of letters in English history and literature that the modern reader can easily follow". They are an essential source for scholars who study the period. From the Wikipedia article on Chamberlain. Chamberlains correspondents and friends included Dudley Carleton, William Gilbert, Henry Wotton, Thomas Bodley, and William Camden.

• DNB entry for Chamberlain, Leslie Stephen 1887.
• Letters Written by John Chamberlain During the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, ed. Sarah Williams, The Camden Society, 1861, from Google Book Search, full text and PDF.

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Chapman, George (1559 - 1634)

George Chapman (ca. 1559 – May 12, 1634) was an English dramatist, translator, and poet. He was a classical scholar, and his work shows the influence of Stoicism. He has been identified as the Rival Poet of Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Minto, and as an anticipator of the Metaphysical Poets. He is perhaps best remembered for his translations of Homer's Iliad, Odyssey, and Batrachomyomachia. From the Wikipedia article on George Chapman.

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Chettle, Henry (1564? - 1607?)

Henry Chettle (1564? – 1607?) was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer of the Elizabethan era. From the Wikipedia article on Henry Chettle.

• About Henry Chettle:
  • "Henry Chettle’s early life: his Tragedies: The Tragedy of Hoffman" in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
    Volume V. The Drama to 1642, Part One, at Batleby.com.
• Chettle and Shakespeare:
  • Kind-Hartes Dreame, from Renascence Editions, contains the famous apology of Chettle to Shakespeare.
  • Chettle, Henry, Edward F. Rimbault, and Goldwin Smith. "Kind-Heart's Dream: Containing Five Apparitions with Their Invectives against Abuses Reigning." Early English Poetry. V (1841), from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 88 pages.
  • "The Attack Retracted," from Internet Shakespeare Editions.
  • "Shakespeare's Circle," from Penguin.
• Chettle's Works:
  • Tarlton's Jests, and News out of purgatory, with a lengthy introduction by Halliwell-Phillipps, 1844, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 135 pages.
  • Chettle, Henry, and Henry Barrett-Lennard. Hoffman; or, A Revenge for a Father, A Tragedy ... Acted A.D. 1602. London: Thomas Hailes Lacy, 1852, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.  It is often mentioned that this play was a response to Hamlet in hopes of capitalizing on it's success.
  • Chettle, Henry, et al. "Patient Grissill: a Comedy." Supplement to Dodsley's Old Plays. 3 (1841), from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 96 pages.  See also the Tudor Facsimile edition at the Internet Archive.

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Coke, Sir Edward (1552 - 1634)

Sir Edward Coke (pronounced "cook") (1 February 1552 – 3 September 1634), was an early English colonial entrepreneur and jurist whose writings on the English common law were the definitive legal texts for some 300 years...Coke became a Member of Parliament in 1589, Speaker of the House of Commons in 1592 and was appointed England's Attorney General in 1593, a post for which he was in competition with his rival Sir Francis Bacon. During this period, he was a zealous prosecutor of Sir Walter Raleigh and of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators. He was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas in 1606. In 1613, he was elevated to Chief Justice of the King's Bench, where he continued his defense of the English common law against the encroachment by the ecclesiastical hierarchy, local courts controlled by the aristocracy, and meddling by the King...Copies of Coke's writings arrived in North America on the Mayflower in 1620, and every lawyer in the English colonies and early United States was trained from Coke's books, particularly his Reports and Institutes, the most famous of which was his property book, The First Institute of the Lawes of England, or a Commentary on Littleton (a reference to 15th century English jurist Thomas de Littleton). From the Wikipedia article on Sir Edward Coke.

• A great popular biography of Coke is The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke: 1552 - 1634, by Catherine Drinker Bowen.  The book won the National Book Award when first published.
• Coke's 1628 Petition of Right.
• Article on Coke from TudorPlace.

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Daniel, Samuel (1562 - 1619)

[Samuel] Daniel was a great innovator in verse. His style is full, easy and stately, without being very animated or splendid; it is content with level flights. As a gnomic writer Daniel approaches Chapman, but is more musical and coherent. He lacks fire and passion, but he has scholarly grace and tender, mournful reverie. From the Wikipedia article on Samuel Daniel.

• Samuel Daniel resources from the Luminarium.
• Delia. Contayning certayne Sonnets: vvith the complaint of Rosamond. Samuel Daniel.
• Samuel Daniel's The Civil Wars between the two houses of Lancaster and York, Book IV, excerpt from the University of Toronto.  Daniel's poem was a source for the Henry IV plays.
• Daniel, Samuel.  An excerpt from The Tragedy of Cleopatra, a source for Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, from the Luminarium.
• The Complete Works in Verse and Prose of Samuel Daniel, ed. A. B. Grosart, 1885, from GBS in full view and PDF.
  • Vol. I
  • Vol. II
  • Vol. III

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Davenant, Sir William (1606 - 1668)

Sir William Davenant (February 28, 1606 – April 7, 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras, and who was active both before and after the English Civil War and the Interregnum. From the Wikipedia article on Sir William Davenant Davenant was said to be the godson of William Shakespeare and claimed himself, according to Aubrey, to be Shakespeare's illegitimate natural son. In 1638 Aubrey became England's Poet Laureate.  He was imprisoned in the Tower for his royalist sympathies from 1650-52.  Later he became manager of the Covent Garden theatre, one of the two (Drury Lane being the other) officially licensed after the Restoration.

• The Dramatic Works of Sir William D'Avenant, eds. James Maidment, W. H. Logan, 1872-74, from GBS in full view and PDF.
  • Volume the First
  • Volume the Second
  • Volume the Third
  • Volume the Fourth
  • Volume the Fifth (containing D'Avenant's Macbeth and The Tempest)

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Davies, John of Hereford (1565 - 1618)

John Davies of Hereford (c. 1565, Hereford, England – July 1618, London) was a writing-master and an Anglo-Welsh poet. He is usually known as John Davies of Hereford in order to distinguish him from others of the same name, Sir John Davies, for instance. Davies was a writing master, meaning he taught penmanship.  His pupils included members of very distinguished families, including the Pembroke, Derby, Herbert, Percy and Egerton families. He made powerful connections thereby.  He was also an acquaintance of John Donne, and may have met him in the Egerton household. In 1605 he was appointed master of penmanship to Prince Henry while the prince attended Magdalen College. Davies authored the Epigram on Shakespeare (number 159) in The Scourge of Folly (c. 1610) titled "To our English Terence Mr. Will : Shake-speare" and also made reference to Shakespeare and Burbage in Microcosmos (1603) and to Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis in Papers Complaint, compil'd in ruthfull Rimes Against the Paper-spoylers of these Times, a 546-line poetic satire appended to The Scourge of Folly.

• The Complete Works of John Davies of Hereford (15.. - 1618), ed. A. B. Grosart, 1878.
  • Vol. I
  • Vol. II

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Davies, Sir John (1569 - 1626)

Sir John Davies (1569 – July 1626) was an English poet and lawyer, who became attorney general in Ireland and formulated many of the legal principles that underpinned the British Empire. In 1594 Davies' poetry brought him into contact with Queen Elizabeth. She wished him to continue his study of law at the Middle Temple and had him sworn in as a servant-in-ordinary. In the following year, his poem, Orchestra, was published in July, prior to his call to the bar from the Middle Temple. In February 1598 Davies was disbarred, after having entered the dining hall of the Inns in the company of two swordsmen and striking Richard Martin with a cudgel. The victim was a noted wit who had insulted him in public, and Davies immediately took a boat at the Temple steps and retired to Oxford, where he chose to write poetry. Another of his works, Nosce Teipsum, was published in 1599 and found favour with the queen and with Lord Mountjoy, later lord deputy of Ireland. Davies became a favourite of the queen, to whom he addressed his work, Hymns of Astraea, in 1599. Later that year, however, his Epigrams was included in a list of published works that the state ordered to be confiscated and burned. In 1601 he was readmitted to the bar, having made a public apology to Martin, and in the same year served as the member of parliament for Corfe Castle. In 1603, he was part of the deputation sent to bring King James VI of Scotland to London as the new monarch. The Scots king was also an admirer of Davies' poetry, and rewarded him with a knighthood and appointments (at Mountjoy's recommendation) as solicitor-general and, later attorney-general, in Ireland. From the Wikipedia article on Sir John Davies.

• "Sir John Davies," in The English Poets: Selections with Critical Introductions, T. H. Ward, 1920.
• Sir John Davies at the Luminarium.
• The Complete Poems of Sir John Davies, ed. A. B. Grosart, 1876.
  • Vol. I
  • Vol. II

Dekker, Thomas (c. 1572 - 1632)

Thomas Dekker (c. 1572 – August 25, 1632) was an Elizabethan dramatist and pamphleteer, a versatile and prolific writer whose career spanned several decades and brought him into contact with many of the period's most famous dramatists. From the Wikipedia article on Thomas Dekker.

• Thomas Dekker resources from the Luminarium.
• The Works of Dekker:
  • The Shoemaker's Holiday (1599) at Bartleby.com.
  • Old Fortunatus, from Luminarium editions, HTML.
  • The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, Volume 1 ed. by R. H. Shepherd, from Google Book Search, containing The Shoemaker's Holiday, Old Fortunatus, Satiromastix, The Magnificent Entertainment Given to King James; full view and PDF, 340 pages (1873).
  • The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, Volume 2, ed. R. H. Shepherd, from Google Book Search, containing, The Honest Whore, The Second Part of the Honest Whore, The Whore of Babylon, Westward Ho (with Webster); full view and PDF, 382 pages, (1873).
  • The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, Volume 3, ed. R. H. Shepherd, from Google Book Search, containing Northward Ho (with Webster), The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyat (with Webster), The Roaring Girl (with Middleton), London Triumphing, If It Be Not Good The Devil Is In It; full view and PDF, 386 pages (1873).
  • The Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, Volume 4, ed. by R. H. Shepherd, from Google Book Search, containing The Virgin Martyr (with Massinger), Brittannia's Honor, Match Me In London, The Wonder of a Kingdom, The Sun's Darling, The Witch of Edmonton (with Rowley and Ford); full view and PDF, 451 pages (1873).
  • Patient Grissil, with Chettle and Haughton, from Google Book Search, 1841, full view and PDF, 96 pages.
  • The Noble Spanish Soldier at Project Gutenberg.
  • The Noble Spanish Soldier, edited by John Price.
  • The Honest Whore from Chris Cleary's Thomas Middleton Site, HTML.
  • Blurt, Master Constable (with Middleton), from Chris Cleary's Thomas Middleton site, HTML.
  • The Bloody Banquet (with Middleton), from Chris Cleary'sThomas Middleton site, HTML.
  • The Gull's Hornbook, ed. by R. B. McKerrow, 1905, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 126 pages.
  • The Guls Horn-Booke, from Renascence Editions, HTML and PDF.
  • See also the Map of Early Modern London for London Triumphing.
  • The Wonderfull Yeare, 1603, from Renascence Editions, HTML and PDF.
  • From The Non Dramatic Works of Thomas Dekker, 1885, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
  • The Seven Deadly Sins
  • Newes from Hell
  • Jests to Make you Merie
  • The Double PP
  • Dekker His Dream
  • The Belman of London
  • Lanthorne and Candle-light
  • A Strange Horse-Race
  • The Dead Tearme
  • Work for Armorours
  • The Ravens Almanack
  • A Rod for Run-Awayes
  • Foure Birdes of Noah's Ark
• Criticism and exposition:
  • Dekker's early activities, value of his work, etc., from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).  Volume VI. The Drama to 1642, Part Two.  See sections 16-19.
  • London and the Development of Popular Literature, in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton.

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Devereux, Robert, 2nd Earl of Essex (1566 - 1601)

Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (10 November 1566 – 25 February 1601), a favourite of Queen Elizabeth I of England, is the best-known of the many holders of the title "Earl of Essex." He was a military hero, but following a poor campaign against Irish rebels during the Nine Years War in 1599, he defied the queen and was executed for treason. From the Wikipedia article on Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex

• Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (1566-1601), from Britannia Biographies.
• Robert Devereux, from the Luminarium Encyclopedia Project.
• A brief Devereux biography from the BBC.
• A biography from Tudor Court.
• Portraits of Robert Devereux from the National Portrait Gallery.
• The Trial of the Earls of Essex and Southampton, from Renaissance, The Elizabethan World.
• Account of the death of the Earl of Essex, from Ballads from Manuscript, Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 1873.
• Elizabeth and Essex by Lytton Strachey, from the Internet Archive, in various formats.
• Shenk, Linda S. "'To Love and Be Wise': the Earl of Essex, Humanist Court Culture, and England's Learned Queen". EMLS Special Issue 16 (October, 2007).

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Digges, Leonard (1588 - 1635)

Leonard Digges (1588 – 1635) was a seventeenth-century poet and translator, a member of the prominent Digges family of Kent—son of the astronomer Thomas Digges (1545-95), grandson of the mathematician Leonard Digges (1520-59), and younger brother of statesman Sir Dudley Digges (1583-1639). There are other connections between Digges and Shakespeare. When John Benson printed Shakespeare's poems in a single volume in 1640, he prefaced the collection with a poem by Digges that lauds the popularity of Shakespeare's characters Falstaff, Malvolio, and Beatrice and Benedick. After his father Thomas Digges' death in 1595, Digges' widowed mother Anne St. Leger remarried (1603); her second husband, and Digges' stepfather, was Thomas Russell, a friend of Shakespeare and one of the overseers of the poet's will. (Russell lived at Alderminster, four miles south of Stratford-upon-Avon). From the Wikipedia article on Leonard Digges.

• Poems: Written by Wil. Shakespeare, Gent., facsimile edition from The Rare Book Room, containing Leonard Digges commendatory poem as prefatory matter.
• Digges' commendatory poem to the First Folio, To the Memory of the Deceased Authour Maister W. Shakespeare.

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Donne, John (1572 - 1631)

John Donne (IPA pronunciation: [dʌn]), 1572 – March 31, 1631) was a Jacobean poet and preacher, representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works, notable for their realistic and sensual style, include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and immediacy of metaphor, compared with that of his contemporaries. From the Wikipedia article on John Donne.

• Anniina Jokinen's John Donne Page.

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Dudley, Robert, 1st Earl of Leicester (1533 - 1588)

Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester (7 September 1533 – 4 September 1588) was the long‐standing favourite of Elizabeth I of England. He was born a younger son of the 1st Duke of Northumberland, who was executed in 1553 for his part in the attempt to put Lady Jane Grey on the throne of England. (Lady Jane was married to Robert's youngest brother, Guilford Dudley.) Robert Dudley was temporarily imprisoned, along with his father and brothers Guilford, John, Ambrose and Henry Dudley, in the Tower of London, where his stay coincided with the imprisonment of his childhood friend, Princess Elizabeth Tudor, who had been sent there on the orders of her estranged elder sister, Queen Mary I of England. From the Wikipedia article on Robert Dudley.

• Dudley biography from Britannia Biographies.
• Biography of Leicester from Elizabethi.org.
• Dudley article from the Luminarium Encyclopedia project.
• Dudley images from the National Portrait Gallery.
• Dudley biography from TudorPlace.com.

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Elizabeth I of England (1533 - 1603)

Elizabeth I (7 September 1533 – 24 March 1603) was Queen of England, Queen of France (in name only), and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. She is sometimes referred to as The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, and was immortalised by Edmund Spenser as the Faerie Queene. From the Wikipedia article on Elizabeth I.

• Elizabeth resources at the Luminarium.
• Elizabeth I web site, from Heather Thomas.
• Tudor and Elizabeth Portraits, from Edward Beuhler.
• Portraits of Queen Elizabeth.
• Allinson, Rayne ." 'These latter days of the world': the Correspondence of Elizabeth I and James VI, 1590-1603". EMLS Special Issue 16 (October, 2007).
• Shenk, Linda S. "'To Love and Be Wise': the Earl of Essex, Humanist Court Culture, and England's Learned Queen". EMLS Special Issue 16 (October, 2007).
• Clement, Jennifer. "The Queen’s Voice: Elizabeth I’s Christian Prayers and Meditations". EMLS 13.3

Elyot, Sir Thomas (c. 1490 - 1546)

In 1531 he produced the Boke named the Governour, dedicated to King Henry VIII. The work advanced him in the king's favour, and later that year he received instructions to proceed to the court of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, to try to persuade him to take a more favourable view of Henry's proposed divorce from Catherine of Aragon. With this was combined another commission, on which one of the king's agents, Stephen Vaughan, was already engaged. He was, if possible, to apprehend William Tyndale. From the Wikipedia article on Thomas Elyot.

• Sir Thomas Elyot from tudorplace.com.
• The Boke Named the Governour Devised by Sir Thomas Elyot, Knight, vol. 1 from Google Book Search, ed. H. H. S. Croft, 1883, full view and PDF, 351 pages.

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Erasmus, Desiderius (1466 - 1536)

Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus (sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam) (October 27, probably 1466 – July 12, 1536) was a Dutch humanist and theologian. From the Wikipedia article on Erasmus.

• The Erasmus Text Project

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Fish, Simon (d. 1531)

Simon Fish (d. 1531) was a 16th century Protestant reformer and English propagandist. Fish is best known for helping to spread William Tyndale’s New Testament and for authoring the vehemently anti-clerical pamphlet Supplication for the Beggars (also spelled A Supplycacion for the Beggars) which was condemned as heretical by the Roman Catholic Church on May 24, 1530. His pamphlet can be seen as a precursor to the English Reformation and, more broadly, the Protestant Reformation. Fish was eventually arrested in London on charges of heresy, but was stricken with bubonic plague and died before he could stand trial. His widow subsequently married the vocal reformist James Bainham, and then became a widow twice-over in April 1532, when Bainham was burnt at the stake as a heretic. From the Wikipedia article on Simon Fish.

• Simon Fish, from "Reformation Literature in England" in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21), Volume III. Renascence and Reformation, from bartleby.com.
• A Supplicacyon for the Beggers written about the year 1529, and (as is believed) by Simon Fish, "now re-edited by Frederick J. Furnivall, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.

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Fletcher, John (1579 - 1625)

John Fletcher (1579 – 1625) was a Jacobean playwright. Following William Shakespeare as house playwright for the King's Men, he was among the most prolific and influential dramatists of his day; both during his lifetime and in the early Restoration, his fame rivaled Shakespeare's. Though his reputation has been eclipsed since, Fletcher remains an important transitional figure between the Elizabethan popular tradition and the popular drama of the Restoration. From the Wikipedia article on John Fletcher.

• Beaumont and Fletcher, in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume VI. The Drama to 1642, Part Two.
• Beaumont and Fletcher from the Theatre Database.
• Fletcher resources from the Luminarium.

Works

• Works by John Fletcher at Project Gutenberg.
• The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher in Ten Volumes, Cambridge University Press, 1905-1912, from Internet Archive.
  • Vol. I - The Maid's Tragedy; Philaster; A King, and No King; The Scornful Lady, The Custom of the Country.
  • Vol. II - The Elder Brother; The Spanish Curate; Wit Without Money; Beggar's Bush; The Humerous Lieutenant; The Faithful Shepherdess.
  • Vol. III - The Mad Lover; The Loyal Subject; Rule a Wife, and Have a Wife; The Laws of Candy; The False One; The Little French Lawyer.
  • Vol. IV - The Tragedy of Valentinian; Monsieur Thomas; The Chances; The Bloody Brother; The Wild-Goose Chase.
  • Vol. V - A Wife for a Month; The Lover's Progress; The Pilgrim; The Captain; The Prophetess.
  • Vol. VI - The Queen of Corinth; Bonduca; The Night of the Burning Pestle; Love's Pilgrimage; The Double Marriage.
  • Vol. VII - The Maid of the Mill; The Knight of Malta; Love's Cure, or The Martial Maid; Women Pleas'd; The Night-Walker, or The Little Thief.
  • Vol. VIII - The Woman's Prize; The Island Princess; The Noble Gentleman; The Coronation; The Coxcomb.
  • Vol. IX - The Sea Voyage; Wit At Several Weapons; The Fair Maid of the Inn; Cupid's Revenge; The Two Noble Kinsmen.
  • Vol. X - Thierry and Theodorat; The Woman Hater; Nice Valor; The Honest Man's Fortune; The Masque of the Gentlemen of Gray's Inn and the Inner Temple; Four Plays or Moral Representations in One.

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Florio, John (Giovanni) (1553 - 1625)

John Florio (1553 - 1625), known in Italian as Giovanni Florio, was an accomplished linguist and lexicographer, a royal language tutor at the Court of James I , a probable close friend and influence on William Shakespeare and the translator of Montaigne. From the Wikipedia article on John Florio. "Florio is one of those somewhat elusive figures who appears from time to time in Shakespeare's biography, whose significance is out of all proportion to their visibility." (Peter Ackroyd, Shakespeare)

• A brief biography and note to the translation of the Decameron from the Decameron Web.
• Florio's 1611 Italian/English Dictionary: Queen Anna's New World of Words.
• A transcription of the words of Queen Anna's New World of Words from Project Archimedes.
• Florio's translation of Montaigne's Essays, from Renascence Editions.
• Montaigne, Michel de, John Florio, and Thomas Seccombe. The Essayes of Michael Lord of Montaigne. London: G. Richards, 1908, Florio's translation from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.

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Ford, John (1586 - 1640?)

John Ford (baptised April 17, 1586 – c.1640?) was an English Jacobean and Caroline playwright and poet...Ford is best known for the tragedy 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1633), a family drama with a plot line of incest. The play's title has often been changed in new productions, sometimes being referred to as simply Giovanni and Annabella—the play's leading, incestuous brother-and-sister characters; in a nineteenth-century work it is coyly called The Brother and Sister.  Shocking as the play is, it is still widely regarded as a classic piece of English drama. From the Wikipedia article on John Ford.

• John Ford resources from the Luminarium.
• The Works of John Ford, vol. I, II, III, ed. Gifford and Dyce, 1895, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.

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Forman, Simon (1552 - 1611)

Simon Forman was an Elizabethan/Jacobean occultist, astrologer, doctor (of medicine), herbalist, magician, necromancer, astronomer, playgoer, etc.  He became popular as a doctor by remaining in London during the severe plague outbreaks of 1592 and 1594 when many other "official" physicians (members of the College of Physicians) fled.  He was often in collision with authorities for his "immoral" behavior and practice of magic.  He is of interest because of the clientele he cultivated in his successful London private practice, many of whom were acquainted with theatrical circles of the day, including those who knew and knew of Shakespeare, including Shakespeare's landlady during his stay on Silver Street, Marie Mountjoy.  Forman was implicated in the Overbury murder of 1613, but died (notably predicting his own death) long before that case came to trial.  (See Anne Somerset's Unnatural Murder: Poison at the Court of James I for details on the Overbury murder).  Forman's name has been, ever since, blackened as a result of the court proceedings and, one supposes, the general attitude toward magic and his other secret arts, but according to A. L. Rowse, Forman had nothing to do with the murder.  In fact, he thought of himself as a pious Christian and was generally speaking socially conservative (except in his sex life). "Forman left behind a large body of manuscripts dealing with his patients and with all the subjects that interested him, from astronomy and astrology to medicine, mathematics, and magic. His Casebook is the most famous of these resources, though he also produced diaries and a third-person autobiography. His texts have proven to be a treasure trove of rare, odd, unusual data on one of the most studied periods of cultural history. His intimate knowledge of Shakespeare's circle makes him especially attractive to literary historians" (Wikipedia). His "Bocke of Plaies" is a notebook where he recorded lessons taken from three Shakespearean plays he observed in 1611:  Macbeth, The Winter's Tale, and Cymbeline.  His observations on the plays are among the few first-hand accounts of Shakespearean performances during Shakespeare's lifetime, though they are idiosyncratic.  The book, unfortunately (or perhaps, inevitably) was first published by the forger John Payne Collier in 1836.  Facsimiles of the "Bocke of Plaies" along with transcriptions were also printed by Halliwell-Phillipps in 1849.  Because the work was handled by Collier before it became public, it became suspect to certain modern scholars (particularly Dr. S. A. Tannenbaum), but its authenticity has since been established.  It's modern discovery was made by Ashmole Collection (Oxford University) cataloger W. H. Black, who sent a transcript on to Collier. The foundational work on Forman is by A. L. Rowse: Sex and Society in Shakespeare's Age: Simon Forman the Astrologer, 1974, who also reproduces the "Bocke of Plaies" along with Forman's third-person autobiography and extracts from his diaries.  Latter day works include Lauren Kassell's Medicine and Magic in Elizabethan London: Simon Forman: Astrologer, Alchemist, and Physician and Barbara Traister's The Notorious Astrological Physician of London: Works and Days of Simon Forman.

• Simon Forman in the Dictionary of National Biography (Leslie Stephen, 1889)
• Forman's eyewitness account of a production of Cymbeline in April-May, 1611: H. H. Furness' A New Variorum Edition of Shakespeare: The Tragedie of Cymbeline, J. B. Lippincott Company, London, 1913, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, pp. 445-447.
• Forman's eyewitness account of a production of Macbeth, April 20, 1611: The New Variorum edition of Macbeth, ed. H. H. Furness, 1901, p. 356)

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Garnet, Father Henry, S. J. (1555 - 1606)

Father Henry Garnet.  Born at Heanor in Derbyshire, Garnet was educated at Winchester and afterwards studied law in London. Having become a Roman Catholic, he went to Italy, joined the Society of Jesus in 1575, and acquired under Bellarmine and others a reputation for varied learning. In 1586 he joined the mission in England, becoming superior of the province on the imprisonment of William Weston in the following year. ..Garnet supervised the Jesuit mission for eighteen years with conspicuous success. His life was one of concealment and disguises; a price was put on his head; but he was fearless and indefatigable in carrying on his evangelization and in ministering to the scattered Catholics, even in their prisons. The result was that he gained many converts, while the number of Jesuits in England increased during his tenure of office from three to forty. It is, however, in connection with the Gunpowder Plot that he is best remembered. From the Wikipedia article on Henry Garnet.

• DNB entry (Sidney Lee, 1908) for Henry Garnet
• John Gerard, S.J., What Was the Gunpowder Plot? The Traditional Story Tested By Original Evidence, London, 1897; from GBS, full view and PDF.

Works

• A Treatise of Equivocation, edited by David Jardine from the manuscript in the Bodleian Library [MS Laud Misc. 655], 1851, from the Internet Archive.

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Greville, Fulke, Lord Brook (1554 - 1628)

Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, de jure 13th Baron Latimer and 5th Baron Willoughby de Broke (3 October 1554 – 30 September 1628), known before 1621 as Sir Fulke Greville, was a minor Elizabethan poet, dramatist, and statesman. From the Wikipedia article on Fulke Grevill, 1st Baron Brook.

• Luminarium resources on Fulke Greville.

Works

• The Works in Verse and Prose Complete of the Right Honourable Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke. The Fuller worthies' library, 1870,  vol. I, vol. II, vol. III, vol. IV, ed. Alexamder Grosart, from Google Book Search, full view.

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Giraldi, Giovanni Battista  (Cinthio) (1504-1573)

Giovanni Battista Giraldi (November, 1504 - December 30, 1573), surnamed Cynthitus, Cinthio or Cintio, was an Italian novelist and poet. From the Wikipedia article on Giovanni Battista Giraldi.

• Giraldi Home Page
• Heccatomiti, source for Othello (in Italian)

• Portions of Cinthio's Hecatommithi, a source for Othello, from Classical Net.

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Gosson, Stephen (1554-1624)

In 1598 Francis Meres in his Palladis Tamia mentions him with Sir Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, Abraham Fraunce and others as the "best for pastorall", but no pastorals of Gosson's are extant. He is said to have been an actor, and by his own confession he wrote plays, for he speaks of Catiline's Conspiracies as a "Pig of mine own Sowe." Because of their moral standpoint, he excludes such plays as these from the general condemnation of stage plays in his Schoole of Abuse, containing a pleasant invective against Poets, Pipers, Plaiers, Jesters and such like Caterpillars of the Commonwealth (1579). From the Wikipedia article on Stephen Gosson.

• Article on Stephen Gossen from LoveToKnow 1911.
• "Gossen's Schoole of Abuse" from "The Puritan Attack upon the Stage" in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume VI. The Drama to 1642, Part Two; bartleby.com.
• The Schoole of Abuse from Renascence Editions, University of Oregon (see Thomas Lodge for his Reply to Gossen).
• The School of Abuse: Containing a Pleasant Invective Against Poets, Pipers, Players, Jesters, Etc By Stephen Gosson, The Shakespeare Society, 1841; Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
• Gosson, Stephen. Playes confuted in fiue actions : prouing that they are not to be suffred in a Christian common weale, by the waye both the Cauils of Thomas Lodge, and the Play of playes, written in their defence, and other obiections of players frendes, are truely set d. London : Imprinted for Thomas Gosson dwelling in Pater noster row at the signe of the Sunne, [1582]. In Horace Howard Furness Memorial (Shakespeare) Library; facsimile edition.

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Greene, Robert (1558-1592)

Robert Greene, BA, MA, (1558 – September 3, 1592) was an English playwright, poet, pamphleteer, and prose writer. He was born in Norwich, England, and attended Cambridge University, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in 1580, and a Master of Arts in 1583. From the Wikipedia article on Robert Greene.

• About Greene:
  • Robert Greene articles and resources from The Luminarium, including "The Life of Robert Greene, "Selected Works of Robert Greene," "Renaissance Essays: Robert Greene," and "Additional Sources."
  • "Greene's Jealousy of Shakespeare," from The Drama: Its History, Literature and Influence on Civilization, vol. 13. ed. Alfred Bates. London: Historical Publishing Company, 1906. pp. 104-107.
  • Robert Greene, a brief biography from Elizabethan and Stuart Plays ed. Charles Read Baskervill. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1934. pp. 247-248.
• The Groats-worth of Wit:
  • Greene's  Groats-worth of Wit, from Renascence Editions via the Universith of Oregon..  Robert Greene's 1592 pamphlet containing the famous "upstart crowe" appellation applied to Shakespeare:  "...for there is an upstart Crow, beautified wit6h our feathers, that with his Tygers heart wrapt in a Players hide, supposed he is as well able to bumbast out a blanke verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Iohannes fac totum, is in his owne conceity the onely Shake-scene in a countrey." (See also, Saintsbury, George. Elizabethan & Jacobean Pamphlets. New York: Macmillan, 1892.   A full view book from Google Book Search, p. 157.)
  • Another transcription of the Groats-worth is available here, part of Peter Farey's Marlowe Page.
• The Works of Greene:
  • Greene, Robert, and John Churton Collins. The Plays & Poems of Robert Greene. Vol. I, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.  A full view text from Google Book Search with downloadable PDF.  Volume 1 contains the General Introduction, Alphonsus, A Looking Glasse, and Orlando Furioso.  This work is also available from the Internet Archive.
  • Greene, Robert, and John Churton Collins. The Plays & Poems of Robert Greene. Vol II, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905.  A full view book from Google Book Search with downloadable PDF.  Volume 2 contains Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay, James IV, The Pinner of Wakefield, A Maidens Dream, and miscellaneous poems.  This work is also available from the Internet Archive.
  • Greene, Robert, and Alexander Dyce. The Dramatic Works of Robert Greene: To Which Are Added His Poems ; with Some Account of the Author, and Notes. Volume 1. London: W. Pickering, 1831.  A full view book from Google Book Search with downloadable PDF, 229 pages.  This volume contains Orlando Furioso, A Looking Glass for London and England, Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay.
  • Greene, Robert, P. G. Thomas, and La Serre. Greene's 'Pandosto' or 'Dorastus and Fawnia' Being the Original of Shakespeare's 'Winter's Tale'. New York: Duffield & Co, 1907.  A full view book from Google Book Search with downloadable PDF, 152 pages.
  • Robert Greene, part of the Mermaid Series from Scribners, ed. by T. H. Dickinson, 1909, is available from the Internet Archive.  It contains Alphonsus, A Looking Glass, Orlando Furioso, Friar Bacon, James IV,  The Pinner, and is available in the standard IA versions: online flip-book, DjVu scan reader, PDF, TXT, an FTP, 452 pages.
• Greene studies and criticism:
  • Carroll, D. Allen. "The player-patron in Greene's Groats-worth of Wit (1592)," Studies in Philology, Summer 1994.Vol.91, Iss. 3; pg. 301.
  • Chapman, William H. William Shakespeare and Robert Greene: The Evidence, 1912, available in all the standard IA formats.  A long essay on the famous slander and its aftermath.
  • Woodbridge, Linda. "Impostors, Monsters, and Spies: What Rogue Literature Can Tell us about Early Modern Subjectivity."  EMLS Special Issue 9.
  • Jordan, John Clark. Robert Greene: A Study, by John Clark Jordan, 1915, in the standard IA formats.

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Hakluyt, Richard (1552 ? 53 - 1616)

Richard Hakluyt  (c.1552 or 1553 – 23 November 1616) was an English writer, and is principally remembered for his efforts in promoting and supporting the settlement of North America by the English through his works, notably Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America (1582) and The Principal Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoueries of the English Nation (1598–1600). From the Wikipedia article on Richard Hakluyt.

• The Hakluyt Society
• Richard Hakluyt from the Literary Encyclopedia.
• Richard Hakluyt in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
• Richard Hakluyt from the Galileo Project at Rice University.
• Richard Hakluyt: life, times legacy, from the National Maritime Museum (UK).

Works of Hakluyt

• The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of the English Nation, from the Perseus Project, Tufts University.
• The Works of Hakluyt from Project Gutenberg.
• The Works of Hakluyt at Google Book Search.
• The Works of Hakluyt at the Internet Archive.

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Harriot, Thomas (1560 - 1621)

Thomas Harriot (c. 1560 – July 2, 1621) was an English astronomer, mathematician, ethnographer, and linguist. Some sources give his surname as Harriott or Hariot. After graduating from the Oxford University, Harriot traveled to the Americas on expeditions funded by Raleigh, and on his return he worked for the 9th Earl of Northumberland. At the Earl's house, he became a prolific mathematician and astronomer to whom the theory of refraction can be attributed. From the Wikipedia article on Thomas Harriot.

• Thomas Harriot a biographical sketch from the School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland.
• Thomas Harriot resources from the Luminarium.
• About Thomas Harriot from the Galileo Project, Rice University.
• Thomas Harriot, Renaissance Scholar, from East Carolina University.
• The Thomas Harriot Seminar.
• Harriot's Manuscripts from St. Andrews University.
• Thomas Hariot, the Mathematician, the Philosopher and the Scholar by Henry Stevens from Project Gutenberg.
• Thomas Harriot, Trumpeter of Roanoke, from the National Park Service.

Works of Harriot

• Thomas Hariot's A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia, an archive edition by Melissa Kennedy. A spectacular site for scholars, containing the 1588 and 1590 editions, in transcription and facsimile, with a textual apparatus. The site is not yet completed, but is mostly there, and a superior job it is.
• A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia from Project Gutenberg.
• Harriot's ARTIS ANALYTICAE PRAXIS, ad aequationes algebraicae nova methodo resolvendas translated and annotated by Ian Bruce.

Commentary and Criticism:

• Bringing "this monstrous birth to the world's light": Colonial mimicry in early modern writing by Sabine Schülting.
• The Credit of Truth: Thomas Hariot and the Defense of Ralegh by Vance Briceland.
• The Soft Logic of Thomas Harriot, by H. T. Goranson.

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  Herbert, Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (1561 - 1621)

Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke née Mary Sidney (27 October 1561 – 25 September 1621), was one of the first English women to achieve a major reputation for her literary works, translations and literary patronage. From the Wikipedia article on Mary Sidney.

• Mary Herbert resources from the Luminarium.
• A Mary Sidney Spencer web site by Noel Kinnamon of Mars Hill College.

Works

• The Countess of Pembroke's Antonie, ed. Robert Garnier, from GBS, full-view and PDF.

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Herbert, William, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (1580 - 1630)

William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, KG, PC (8 April 1580 – 10 April 1630) was the son of Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke and his third wife Mary Sidney. Chancellor of the University of Oxford, he founded Pembroke College, Oxford with James VI of Scotland and I of England. He was also a patron of William Shakespeare... Herbert is one of several aristocrats claimed to be the model for the character of the youthful "Fair Youth" in William Shakespeare's sonnets, whom the poet urges to marry. Since Herbert, some years Shakespeare's junior, was a patron of the playwright, and since his initials match with the dedication of the Sonnets to one "Mr. W.H.", "the only begetter of these ensuing sonnets", he is a popular candidate, although Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton has also been popular. E. K. Chambers, who had previously considered Southampton to be the Fair Youth changed his mind when he encountered evidence in letters that young Herbert had been urged to wed Elizabeth Carey around 1595.[1] In her Arden Shakespeare edition of the Sonnets, Katherine Duncan-Jones argues that Herbert is by far the likeliest candidate.[2] From the Wikipedia article on William Herbert. William Herbert and his brother Philip are of the dedicatees of the First Folio.

• Portraits of William Herbert at the National Portrait Gallery.

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Herbert, Philip, 1st Earl of Montgomery, later 4th Earl of Pembroke (1584 - 1649)

Philip Herbert, 4th Earl of Pembroke, 1st Earl of Montgomery KG (October 16, 1584 – January 23, 1649) was an English courtier and politician active during the reigns of James I and Charles I. Philip Herbert and his older brother William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke were the 'incomparable pair of brethren' to whom the First Folio of Shakespeare's collected works was dedicated in 1623. Pembroke was also an active patron of literature, receiving the dedication of over forty books during his lifetime, beginning with the dedication of the English edition of Amadis de Gaula in 1619. His most famous dedication was that of Shakespeare's first folio, which was dedicated to Pembroke and his elder brother, whom Shakespeare referred to as an "incomparable pair of brethren." Pembroke was also notably the patron of Philip Massinger and of Pembroke's relative George Herbert (in 1630 he intervened with Charles to have George Herbert appointed to a rectory in Wiltshire). From the Wikipedia article on Philip Herbert.

• Portraits of Philip Herbert at the National Portrait Gallery.

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Herrick, Robert (1591 - 1674)

Robert Herrick (baptized August 24, 1591- October 1674) was a 17th century English poet. His reputation rests on his Hesperides, a collection of lyric poetry, and the much shorter Noble Numbers, spiritual works, published together in 1648. He is well-known for his style and, in his earlier works, frequent references to lovemaking and the female body. His later poetry was more of a spiritiual and philosophical nature. Among his most famous short poetical sayings are the unique monometers, such as "Thus I / Pass by / And die,/ As one / Unknown / And gone." From the Wikipedia article on Robert Herrick.

• Anniina Jokinen's Robert Herrick Page.
• Chrysomela: A Selection from the Lyrical Poems of Robert Herrick

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Heywood, Thomas (c. 1573? - 1641)

Thomas Heywood was a prominent English playwright, actor and miscellaneous author whose peak period of activity falls between late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre. Heywood is said to have been educated at the University of Cambridge, eventually becoming a fellow of Peterhouse. Subsequently, however, he moved to London, where the first mention of his dramatic career is a note in the diary of theatre entrepreneur Philip Henslowe recording that he wrote a play for the Admiral's Men, an acting company, in October 1596. By 1598, he was regularly engaged as a player in the company; since no wages are mentioned, he was presumably a sharer in the company, as was normal for important company members. He was later a member of other companies, including Lord Southampton's, Lord Strange's Men and Worcester's Men (who subsequently became known as Queen Anne's Men). During this time, Heywood was extremely prolific; in his preface to The English Traveller (1633) he describes himself as having had "an entire hand or at least a maine finger in two hundred and twenty plays". However, only twenty three plays and eight masques have survived that are accepted by historians as wholly or partially authored by him. From the Wikipedia article on Thomas Heywood.

• Heywood resources from the Luminarium.

Works

• The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood Now First Collected with Illustrative Notes and a Memoir of the Author in Six Volumes, edited by R. H. Shepherd, John Pearson, 1874, GBS, full view and PDF.  The date given after the play title is the date on the title page, not necessarily the date of composition.  The [IA] in bold after each volume number is a link to the Internet Archive version.  This is the most current standard edition of the works of Heywood.
  • Vol. I [IA]
    • Memoir of Thomas Heywood;
    • Commendatory Poems;
    • The First and Second parts of King Edward the Fourth (1600);
    • The Second Part of King Edward the Fourth;
    • If You Know Not Me, You Know No Bodie ; or, The troubles of Queen Elizabeth (1605);
    • If you know not me, you know no body. The Second Part. (1632).
  • Vol. II [IA]
    • The Fayre Mayde of the Exchange;
    • A Woman Kilde with Kindnesse;
    • The Four Prentises of London. With the Conquest of Jerusalem (1615);
    • The Fair Maid of the West, or A Girle Worth Gold, The First Part (1631);
    • The Fair Maid of the West, of A Girle Worth Gold, The Second Part (1631);
  • Vol. III [IA]
    • The Golden Age : or The lives of Jupiter and Saturne, with the deifying of the Heathen Gods. (1610);
    • The Silver Age, Including The love of Jupiter to Alcmena : The birth of Hercules. And The Rape of Prosperine. Concluding, With the Arraignment of the Moone. (1613);
    • The Brazen Age The first Act containing, the death of the Centaure Nessus, The Second, The Tragedy of Meleager: The Third The Tragedy of Iason and Media. The Fourth. Vulcans Net. The Fifth. The Labours and death of Hercules (1613);
    • The Iron Age : Contayning the Rape of Hellen, &c. (1632);
    • The Second Part of the Iron Age Which contayneth the death of Penthesilea, Paris, Priam, and Hecuba : &c. (1632).
  • Vol. IV [IA]
    • The English Traveller (1633);
    • A Pleasant Comedy, called A Hayden-Head Well Lost (1634);
    • The late Lancashire Witches (1634);
    • Londons Ius Honorarium. Exprest in sundry Triumphs, pagiants, and shews : At the Initiation or Entrance of the Right Honourable George Whitmore, into the Maioralty of the famous and farre renouned City of London (1631);
    • Londini Sinus Salutis, or, Londons Harbour of Health, and Happinesse. Expressed in sundry Triumphs, Pageants and Showes ; at the Initiation of the Right Honorable, Christopher Clethrowe, Into the Maioralty of the farre Renowned City of London (1635);
    • Londini Speculum : or, Londons Mirror, Exprest in sundry Triumphs, Pageants, and Showes, at the Initiation of the right Honorable Richard Fenn, into the Mairolty of the Famous and farre renowned City of London (1637).
  • Vol. V [IA]
    • A Challenge for Beautie (1636);
    • Loves Maistresse : or, The Queens Masque (1636);
    • The Rape of Lucrece (1638);
    • Porta pietatis, or, The Port or Harbour of Piety. Exprest in sundry Triumphes, Pageants, and Showes, at the Initiation of the Right Honourable Sir Maurice Abbot, Knight, into the Maioralty of the famous and farre renowned City London (1638);
    • The Wise-woman of Hogsdon (1638);
    • Londini Status Pacatus : or, Londons Peaceable Estate. Esprest in sundry Triumphs, Pageants, and Shewes, at the Innitiation of the right Honhourable Henry Garway, into the Maioralty of the Famous and farre Renowned City London (1639).
  • Vol. VI [IA]
    • The Royall King, and The Loyall Subject (1637);
    • Pleasant Dialogues and Dramma's, Selected Out Of Lucian, Erasmus, Textor, Ovid, &c. With Sundry Emblems extracted from the most elegant Iacobus Catsius (1637);
    • Fortune By Land and Sea. A Tragi-Comedy (1655).
       
• The Dramatic Works of Thomas Heywood with a Life of the Poet and Remarks on His Writings, Ed. J. Payne Collier, 1850 from GBS, full view and PDF.  Dates indicated after each play is the date on the title page of the edition herein presented.  Caution must be exercised when examining any work touched by J. P. Collier.
  • vol. I (1850) [IA]
    • The First Part of King Edward IV (1600);
    • The Second Part of King Edward IV;
    • The Fayre Mayde of the Exchange (1607);
    • Fortune by Land and Sea (1655);
    • The Fair Maid of the West, or A Girle Worth Gold. The first part (1631);
    • The Fair Maid of the West, or A Girle Worth Gold. The second part (1631).
  • vol. II (1851) [IA]
    • The Royall King, and The Loyall Subject (1637);
    • A Woman Kilde With Kindnesse (1607);
    • If You Know Not Me, You Know No Bodie; or, The Troubles of Queen Elizabeth (1605);
    • The second part of If You Know Not Me, You Know No Bodie. With the building of the Royal Exchange : and the Famous Victorie of Queen Elizabeth, in the Yeare 1588. (1606);
    • The Golden Age : or, The Lives of Jupiter and Saturne, with the defining of the Heathen Gods (1611);
    • The Silver Age, including The Love of Jupiter to Alcmena : The Birth of Hercules, and The Rape of Prosperine. Concluding with the Arraignment of the Moon. (1613).
• Thomas Heywood, ed. A. W. Verity, part of the Mermaid Series, general editor Havelock Ellis, "The Best Plays of the Old Dramatists", 1888 from GBS, full view and PDF.  This volume is also available in several copies at the Internet Archive.
  • A Woman Killed with Kindness;
  • The Fair Maid of the West, Part 1;
  • The English Traveller;
  • The Wise-Woman of Hogsdon;
  • The Rape of Lucrece.
• A Woman Killed with Kindness, ed. F. J. Cox, 1907, from GBS in full view and PDF.
• A Woman Killed with Kindness, and The Fair Maid of the West, ed. K. L. Bates, 1917, from GBS in full view and PDF.
• The Captives, ed. Alexander Corbin Judson, 1921 from GBS in full view and PDF.  Authorship disputed.
• The fair maid of the west, or, A girle worth gold : the first part, as it was lately acted before the King and Queen, with approved liking, by the Queens Majesties comedians. London : Printed for Richard Royston ... , 1631. In Annenberg Rare Book and Manuscript Library; facsimile edition from SCETI, University of Pennsylvania.
• Love's Mistress: or, The Queen's Masque, ed. Edmund Goldsmid, 1886 from GBS in full view and PDF.
• How a Man May Choose a Good Wife from a Bad, in A Select Collection of Old English Plays, vol. 9, ed. W. C. Hazlitt, 1874, GBS, full view and PDF.

Collaborations

• The Famous History of Sir Thomas Wyatt, ed. Alexander Dyce, vol. II, 1830, (with Webster, Smith, Dekker, and Chettle, c. 1602); [IA].
• Sir Thomas More (Heywood was only one of several contributors, including, it has been concluded based on paleographic evidence, Shakespeare).

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Hilliard, Nicholas (1547 - 1619)

Nicholas Hilliard (c. 1547 – bur. January 7, 1619) was an English goldsmith and limner best known for his portrait miniatures of members of the courts of Elizabeth I and James I of England. He mostly painted small oval miniatures, but also some larger cabinet miniatures, up to about ten inches tall, and at least the two famous half-length panel portraits of Elizabeth. He enjoyed continuing success as an artist, and continuing financial troubles, for forty-five years, and his paintings still exemplify the visual image of Elizabethan England, very different from that of most of Europe in the late sixteenth century. Technically he was very conservative by European standards, but his paintings are superbly executed and have a freshness and charm that has ensured his continuing reputation as "the central artistic figure of the Elizabethan age, the only English painter whose work reflects, in its delicate microcosm, the world of Shakespeare's earlier plays". From the Wikipedia article on Nicholas Hilliard.

• Nicholas Hilliard's "Young Man Among Roses"

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Holinshed, Raphael (d. 1580)

Raphael Holinshed (died c. 1580) was an English chronicler, whose work, commonly known as Holinshed's Chronicles, was one of the major sources used by William Shakespeare for a number of his plays. Raphael Holinshed, or Raphael Hollingshead, probably belonged to a Cheshire family... In 1548 Reginald Wolfe, a London printer, thought of creating a "Universal Cosmography of the whole world, and therewith also certain particular histories of every known nation.". He wanted the work to be printed in English and he wanted maps and illustrations in the book as well. Wolfe acquired many of John Leland’s works and with these he constructed chronologies and drew maps that were up to date. When Wolfe realised he could not complete this project on his own he hired Raphael Holinshed and William Harrison to assist him. Wolfe died with the work still uncompleted in 1573 and three London stationers took over the project. The scale of the project was downsized from a universal work to a work about the British isles. They retained the services of Raphael Holinshed, but they gave some of the work to William Harrison and Richard Stanyhurst. Holinshed now worked solely on the narrative histories and acted as general editor. This division of labour accelerated the project considerably and, consequently, nearly all the manuscripts were ready for publication within four years. Both volumes of the work were printed in 1577. Except for some pages on Ireland, the printed version was approved by the censors. The Chronicles were adjusted and the work was licensed in July of that year. It was distributed to several London booksellers under the name of Ralph Hollingshed's Chronicles... Shortly after Holinshed's death, George Bishop and John Harrison formed a new syndicate in order to publish a second edition of the Chronicles. John Hooker was selected as general editor and Abraham Fleming, John Stow and Francis Thynne (or Boteville) would also participate in the project. The second edition had the scope and nature of the first, but it was considerably different. The histories were brought up to date, that is to say 1586. New authorities were consulted, among them recently published tracts by Hooker and some unpublished antiquarian essays of Thynne. Hooker's inclusions were approved by the censors, but Thynne's accounts of the Archbishops of Canterbury, Wardens of the Cinque Ports and the Cobham title were excised. The second edition was finally licensed in 1587. From the Wikipedia article on Raphael Holinshed.

• Holinshed, Raphael, d. 1580?. The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland. London : Printed by Henry Denham, at the expenses of Iohn Harison, George Bishop, Rafe Newberie, Henrie Denham, and Thomas Woodcocke, [1587]. In Horace Howard Furness Memorial (Shakespeare) Library.  The is the facsimile edition in its entirety.  There is a handy drop-down menu at the top of the frame to quickly jump to sections of the work by monarch, from William I to Elizabeth I.
• Wikipedia article on Holinshed.
• "Holinshed, Raphael," in Dictionary of National Biography, v. 9, ed. Sidney Lee, 1908, from GBS, full view and PDF.
• The Works of Raphael Holinshed at Project Gutenberg.
• Shakspere's Holinshed: The Chronicle and the Historical Plays Compared, W. G. Boswell-Stone, 1896, from GBS, full view and PDF.
• Chronicle and Romance: Froissart, Malory, Holinshed ; with Introductions and Notes, Harvard Classics, vol. 35, 1910, from GBS, full view and PDF.

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Howard, Thomas, 1st Earl of Suffolk (1561 - 1626)

Lord Thomas commanded the Golden Lion in the attack on the Spanish Armada...In 1591, he was sent with a squadron to the Azores which was to waylay the Spanish treasure fleets from America....In 1596, Howard served as vice-admiral of the expedition against Cadiz, which defeated a Spanish fleet and captured the town....A friend of Sir Robert Cecil, he became acting Lord Chamberlain at the close of 1602...Suffolk accepted a gift from the Spanish ambassador negotiating the peace treaty of 1604, but his countess proved a more valuable informant and Catholic sympathizer. Avaricious, she accepted an annual pension of £1000 from the Spanish. While Suffolk was less pro-Spanish and pro-Catholic than his wife, she was felt to dominate her husband in matters of politics, a circumstance which would later bring him to grief...on 11 July 1614 was made Lord High Treasurer. His new son-in-law [Robert Carr, v.d.], Somerset, replaced him as Lord Chamberlain, and Suffolk and his family now dominated the court...Through the agency of Buckingham, James was made aware of Suffolk's misconduct in the Treasury, particularly allegations that Lady Suffolk harassed creditors of the crown, and extorted bribes from them before they could obtain payment. Suffolk was suspended from the Treasurership in July 1618. From the Wikipedia article on Admiral Thomas Howard.

• Article on Thomas Howard from TudorPlace.

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Howard, Henry, 1st Earl of Northampton (1540 - 1614)

Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton (1540-June 15, 1614), was the second son of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey, the poet, and of his wife, the former Lady Frances de Vere, daughter of the 15th Earl of Oxford, and was the younger brother of the 4th Duke of Norfolk...He was one of the judges at the trials of Raleigh and Lord Cobham in 1603, of Guy Fawkes in 1605, and of Garnet in 1606, in each case pressing for a conviction. In 1604 he was one of the commissioners who composed the treaty of peace with Spain, and from that date he received from the Spanish Court a pension of £1000...The climax of his career was reached when he assisted his great-niece, Lady Essex, in obtaining her divorce from her husband in order to marry the favourite Somerset, whose mistress she already was, and whose alliance Northampton was eager to secure for himself...Northampton, who was one of the most unscrupulous and treacherous characters of the age, was nevertheless distinguished for his learning, artistic culture and his public charities. From the Wikipedia article on Henry Howard.

• Article on Howard from TudorPlace.

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Hudson, Henry (1570? - 1611)

Henry Hudson (September 12, 1570s – 1611) was an English sea explorer and navigator in the early 17th century. From the Wikipedia article on Henry Hudson.

• Henry Hudson, Explorer

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James I of England, VI of Scotland (1566 - 1625)

James Stuart (19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scots as James VI, and King of England and King of Ireland as James I. He ruled in Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567, when he was only one year old. Regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1581. On 24 March 1603, as James I, he succeeded the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, Elizabeth I, who died without issue. He then ruled England, Scotland and Ireland for 22 years, until his death at the age of 58. From the Wikipedia article on King James I of England.

• James I resources from the Luminarium.
• An illustrated biography of James I by Jenny Wormald.

Works of James I

• King James VI of Scotland, I of England, The Daemonologie, a source for Macbeth and Lear.
• Daemonologie (1597) from the Internet Sacred Text archive.
• Demonology, from Forgotten Books at GBS, full text and PDF.
• The Trew Law of Free Monarchies, transcribed by Rick Gardiner of The American Colonist's Library.
• A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco by King of England James I, from Project Gutenberg.
• A Counter-Blaste to Tobacco from Renascence Editions.
• Basilikon Doron transcribed by Ben R. Schneider, Jr., in Shakespeare's Morals: The Stoic Legacy to the Renaissance.
• Basilikon Doron in A miscellany containing: Richard of Bury's Philobiblon, the Basilikon doron of King James I.; Monks and giants  ed. Henry Morley, 1888, from the Internet Archive, in various formats.
• The Political Works of James I, ed. C. H. McIlwain, Harvard, 1918, from GBS, full text and PDF.
• The Political Works of James I of England from the Perseus Project at Tufts University.

Essays on James I

• Allinson, Rayne ." 'These latter days of the world': the Correspondence of Elizabeth I and James VI, 1590-1603". EMLS Special Issue 16 (October, 2007).
• Barroll, Leeds.  Assessing 'Cultural Influence': James I as Patron of the Arts, from Shakespeare Studies, vol. 29.

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  Johnson, Robert  (1583 - 1633)

Son of John Johnson (who was lutenist to Elizabeth I), and lutenist at the court of James I, Robert Johnson (c.1580-c.1634) found steady employment providing music for the many court masques and entertainments during the Jacobean era, and became royal lutenist in the King’s "Private Musick" from 1604. He was later lutenist to Prince Henry (until his death in 1612) and continued service at the court of Charles I until 1633, becoming “Composer for Lute and Voices”... He composed the original settings for some of Shakespeare's songs, most notably those from The Tempest: "Where the Bee Sucks", “Full Fathom Five”, sometimes writing pieces for dances, interludes and sometimes taking text from Shakespeare’s play and setting them to music to be sung within the play itself. From the Wikipedia article on Robert Johnson.

• Overview of Robert Johnson's career, with audio clips, from Encyclopaedia Britannica.
• A Partial Robert Johnson Discography.
• Shakespeare's Musick: Songs & Dances from Shakepeare's Plays.

Audio

• The following clips are from the Johnson article in the Online Encyclopedia Britannica guide to Shakespeare, and are used by permission.
  • "Alman II" by Robert Johnson, lute solo by Anthony Rooley. "Shakespeare's Lutenist: Theatre Music by Robert Johnson" © 1993 Virgin Classics Ltd./Courtesy of EMI Classics:  mp3  -  EB web page.
  • "A corant" (courante) known as the Prince's Corant by Robert Johnson; lute solo by Anthony Rooley. "Shakespeare's Lutenist: Theatre Music by Robert Johnson" © 1993 Virgin Classics Ltd./Courtesy of EMI Classics:  mp3  -  EB web page.
  • "Cloten's song Hark, hark! the lark" (from Cymbeline, Act II, scene 3, line 21), sung by Emma Kirkby, with Anthony Rooley (lute); song setting by Robert Johnson. "Shakespeare's Lutenist: Theatre Music by Robert Johnson" © 1993 Virgin Classics Ltd./Courtesy of EMI Classics:  mp3  -  EB web page.
  • Ariel's song "Full fathom five" (from The Tempest, Act I, scene 2, line 396), sung by David Thomas, with Anthony Rooley (lute). "Shakespeare's Lutenist: Theatre Music by Robert Johnson" © 1993 Virgin Classics Ltd./Courtesy of EMI Classics:  mp3  -  EB web page.
• M. A. Shakespeare:  mp3s of Shakespeare songs, from Roy Booth.  This collection includes some remarkably (!) long extracts from "Shakespeare Songs and Lute Solos" by Alfred Deller and Desmond Dupree.  Other tracks collected at this site are by Morley, Wilson and others.
  • Various Deller and Dupree tracks, including Johnson & Shakespeare's "Where the bee sucks" and "Full fathom five": mp3.

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Jones, Inigo (1573 - 1652)

Inigo Jones (July 15, 1573 – June 21, 1652) is regarded as the first significant English architect, and the first to bring Renaissance architecture to England. He also made valuable contributions to stage design...He is credited with introducing movable scenery and the proscenium arch to English theatre. Jones designed costumes, sets, and stage effects for a number of masques by Ben Jonson, and the two had famous arguments about whether stage design or literature was more important in theatre. (Jonson ridiculed Jones in a series of his works, written over a span of two decades.) From the Wikpedia article on Inigo Jones. For Jones' career as architect see John Summerson's Inigo Jones.

• Article on Inigo Jones in the BBC "Historic Figures" series.
• "Inigo Jones" from NNDB.

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Jonson, Ben (1572 - 1637)

Benjamin Jonson (c. 11 June 1572 – 6 August 1637) was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone and The Alchemist which are considered his best, and his lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets. From the Wikipedia article on Ben Jonson.

• Anniina Jokinen's Ben Jonson Page.
• Ben Jonson in The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.

Works

• Works by Ben Jonson at Project Gutenberg.
• Various Works by Ben Jonson at the Holloway Pages.
• Various Works of Jonson from The Online Books Page.
• Selected Poems of Ben Jonson from Poetryfoundation.org.
• The Masque of Blacknesse from Renascence Editions.
• The Masque of Beauty from Renascence Editions.
• Oberon, The Fairy Prince from Renascence Editions.
• Timber or Discoveries Made Upon Men and Matter contains a Ben Jonson reminiscence of Shakespeare quite apart from the one usually quoted in the Folio, where, after all, he was on his best behavior and taking pains to be flattering.  Ben, in his cups or otherwise, could be acerbic.  The version quoted here is from a facsimile edition at Google Book Search.  There is also a transcription available from the University of Toronto.

Criticism and Commentary

• T. S. Eliot, "Ben Jonson" from The Sacred Wood.
• Gants, David L. "A Digital Catalogue of Watermarks and Type Ornaments Used By William Stansby in the Printing of the Works of Benjamin Jonson"
• Hurley, David.  "Magi Imaginationis: Alchemists & Magi in New Atlantis, The Tempest, & The Alchemist."

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Kemp, William (fl 1600)

William Kempe (also spelled Kemp) (fl. 1600) was an English actor and dancer best known for being one of the original actors in William Shakespeare's plays. Specialising in comic roles, he was considered during the period as the successor to the great Queen's Men clown Richard Tarlton. From the Wikipedia article on William Kemp.

• Entry on William Kemp in Leslie Stephen's Dictionary of National Biography, 1892, from Google Book Search.
• Kemps nine daies wonder, from Renascence Editions, University of Oregon, HTML and PDF.
• Kemps nine daies wonder: performed in a Daunce from London to Norwich from Project Gutenberg.

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Kyd, Thomas (1558 - 1594)

Thomas Kyd (November 3, 1558 – July 16, 1594) was an English dramatist, the author of The Spanish Tragedy, and one of the most important figures in the development of Elizabethan drama. Although well-known in his own time, Kyd fell into obscurity until 1773 when an early editor of the The Spanish Tragedie, Thomas Hawkins, discovered that the playwright was named as its author by Thomas Heywood in his Apologie for Actors (1612). A hundred years later, scholars in Germany and England began to shed light on his life and work, including the controversial finding that he may have been the author of a Hamlet play pre-dating Shakespeare's. From the Wikipedia article on Thomas Kyd.

• Thomas Kyd resources from the Luminarium.
• A biography of Thomas Kyd from NNDB.
• Article on Thomas Kyd from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica.
• Thomas Kyd--The Spanish Tragedy, a collection of materials from the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance from the University of Warwick.

Works

• The Spanish Tragedie from Project Gutenberg.
• Modern spelling transcription of The Spanish Tragedy from Elizabethan Authors.
• The Spanish Tragedy, from Renascence Editions, U. of Oregon.
• The Works of Thomas Kyd, F. S. Boas, ed., The Clarendon Press, 1901, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 470 pages.
• Kyd's Letter to Sir John Puckering, excerpted from Freeman, A. Thomas Kyd: Facts And Problems. Oxford: Clarendon, 1967  by Clifford Stetner.

Criticism and Commentary

• From The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).Volume V. The Drama to 1642, Part One.
  • Thomas Kyd's Early Work
  • The Spanish Tragedie
  • Kyd and the Early Hamlet
  • Doubtful authorship of The First Part of Jeronimo and of Solimon and Perseda
  • Criticism of Kyd’s work and comparison with Marlowe; Kyd’s place in English Drama.
• Supernatural Structures in Kyd and Shakespeare, video of a lecture delivered by Professor Phillip Edwards from the Doing Kyd conference at the University of Warwick.

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Lanyer, Aemilia (1569 - 1645)

Emilia Lanier, also spelled Aemilia Lanyer, (1569-1645) was the first Englishwoman to assert herself as a professional poet through her single volume of poems, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum (1611).[1] Born Aemilia Bassano and part of the Lanier family tree, she was a member of the minor gentry through her father's appointment as a royal musician, and was apparently educated in the household by Susan Bertie, the dowager Countess of Kent. She was for several years the mistress of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon, first cousin of Elizabeth I of England. She was married to court musician Alfonso Lanier in 1592 when she became pregnant, and the marriage was reportedly unhappy. From the Wikipedia article on Emilia Lanyer. Lanyer was A. L. Rowse's candidate for the dark lady.  (See

• Aemilia Lanyer web  site, containing the text of the poems from Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, and a thorough biography.
• Aemilia Lanyer entry in the Literary Encyclopedia.
• For an interesting discussion of Aemilia Bassano (Lanier) as the dark lady, see Peter Bassano's Shakespeare page.
• Works:
  • The Description of Cooke-ham, from the Perseus Project, Tufts University.

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Lodge, Thomas (1558 - 1625)

THOMAS LODGE (c. 1558-1625), English dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born about 1558 at West Ham. He was the second son of Sir Thomas Lodge, who was lord mayor of London in 1562-1563. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and Trinity College, Oxford; taking his B.A. degree in 1 577 and that of M.A. in 1581. In 1578 he entered Lincoln's Inn, where, as in the other Inns of Court, a love of letters and a crop of debts and difficulties were alike wont to spring up in a kindly soil. Lodge, apparently in disregard of the wishes of his family, speedily showed his inclination towards the looser ways of life and the lighter aspects of literature. From the Classic Encyclopedia article on Thomas Lodge.

• Wikipedia article on Thomas Lodge.
• Thomas Lodge resources at the Luminarium.
• The Works of Thomas Lodge at Project Gutenberg.
• Lodge, Thomas. Rosalind. A Novel. New York: Cassell, 1887, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 192 pages.  Rosalind is the primary source for As You Like It.
• Rosalynde, being the original of Shakespeare's 'As you like it'. Edited by W.W. Greg (1907), Internet Archive.
• 1596 reference to "the ghost which cried so miserably at the theatre, like an oyster-wife, Hamlet, revenge!" in Wits Miserie and the Worlds Madnesse: Discovering the Devils Incarnat of This Age (see p. 62), from Google Book Search.
• A Reply to Stephen Gosson's Schoole of Abuse in Defence of Poetry, Musick, and Stage Plays, from Renascence Editions, University of Oregon.

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Lyly, John (1553-4? - 1606)

John Lyly (Lilly or Lylie) (c. 1553 or 1554 – November 1606) was an English writer, best known for his books Euphues, The Anatomy of Wit and Euphues and His England. Lyly's linguistic style, originating in his first books, is known as Euphuism. From the Wikipedia article on John Lyly. "In later times the compulsory reading of Euphues and its sequel came to be used as a form of punishment suitable for uppish undergraduates..." (Stanley Wells, Shakespeare & Co., p. 64)

• Lyly resources from the Luminarium.
• John Lyly by J. Dover Wilson, Macmillan and Bowes, 1905, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 148 pages.
• The works of Lyly:
  • Euphues and his England (1580), an original spelling transcription from the Elizabethan Authors web site.
  • Euphues The Anatomy of Wit (1579) and Euphues and His England (1580) from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 479 pages.
  • Campaspe, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, in Linton, W. J., and Richard Henry Stoddard. English Verse. New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1883.
  • The Complete Works of John Lyly, vol. I,  vol. II, ed. Warwick Bond, Clarendon, 1902, via Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
• Criticism and commentary:
  • Egan, Gabriel.  "Leashing in the dogs of war: The influence of Lyly's Campaspe on Shakespeare's All's Well that Ends Well."

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Machiavelli, Nicholo (1469 - 1527)

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli (May 3, 1469 – June 21, 1527) was an Italian political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright. He is a figure of the Italian Renaissance and a central figure of its political component, most widely known for his treatises on realist political theory (The Prince) on the one hand and republicanism (Discourses on Livy) on the other. From the Wikipedia article on Machiavelli.

• Machiavelli in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Machiavelli.com.
• Machiavelli resources from Tomoroso.com.
• Works by Machiavelli, at Project Gutenberg.
• The Prince (c. 1505).

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Marlowe, Christopher (1564 - 1593)

Christopher "Kit" Marlowe (baptised 26 February 1564―30 May 1593) was an English dramatist, poet, and translator of the Elizabethan era. The foremost Elizabethan tragedian before William Shakespeare, he is known for his magnificent blank verse, his overreaching protagonists, and his own untimely death. From the Wikipedia article on Marlowe.

• A Brief Biography of Christopher Marlowe
• Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) from Anniina Jokinen.
• Christopher Marlowe Lives!
• The Complete Works of Marlowe (from Tufts).
• Discovering Christopher Marlowe, from Houston Community College
• Dr. Rebecca Bushnell's interesting comparison of two texts of Dr. Faustus (graphical).
• The Marlowe Society (UK)
• Peter Farey's Marlowe Page.

Works

• Works, with some account of the author, and notes, ed. Alexander Dyce, 1859, from the Internet Archive.
• The Complete Works of Chrisopher Marlowe, from the Perseus Project, Tufts University.

Articles and Criticism

• Bianco, Marcie."To Sodomize a Nation: Edward II, Ireland, and the Threat of Penetration". EMLS Special Issue 16.
• Duxfield, Andrew. " 'Resolve me of all ambiguities': Doctor Faustus and the Failure to Unify". EMLS Special Issue 16.
• Eliot, T. S. "Notes on the Blank Verse of Christopher Marlowe" from The Sacred Wood.
• Kay, Dennis. Marlowe, Edward II, and the Cult of Elizabeth
• Melnikoff, Kirk."'[I]ygging vaines' and 'riming mother wits': Marlowe, Clowns and the Early Frameworks of Dramatic Authorship". EMLS Special Issue 16.
• SparkNotes Study Guide to Dr. Faustus

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Marston, John (1575-1634)

John Marston (baptised October 7, 1576 – June 25, 1634) was an English poet, playwright and satirist during the late Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. Although his career as a writer lasted only a decade, his work is remembered for its energetic and often obscure style, its contributions to the development of a distinctively Jacobean style in poetry, and its idiosyncratic vocabulary. From the Wikipedia article on John Marston.

• Marston resources from the Luminarium.
• John Marston

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Massinger, Philip (1583 - 1640 )

Philip Massinger (1583 – March 17, 1640) was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes. From the Wikipedia article on Massinger.

About Massinger

• Massinger resources from the Luminarium.
• "Philip Massinger" in The Sacred Wood by T. S. Eliot at bartleby.com.
• Cruickshank, A. H. Philip Massinger, 1920, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
• Koeppel, Emil, "Philip Massinger" in the Cambridge History of English Literature, 1907-21.

Works

• Coleridge, Hartley, ed. The dramatic works of Massinger and Ford.  1859 [GBS].
• Gifford, William, ed.  The Plays of Philip Massinger, 1813 [GBS]
  • Vol. I - The virgin-martyr. The unnatural combat. The Duke of Milan
  • Vol. II - The bandman. The renegado. The parliament of love. The Roman actor. The great Duke of Florence.
  • Vol. III - The maid of honour. The picture. The emperor of the east. The fatal dowry. A new way to pay old debts.
  • Vol. IV - The city madam. The guardian. A very woman. The bashful lover. The old law.
• Symons, Arthur, ed.  Philip Massinger.  The Mermaid Series.  1887 [GBS].
  • Vol. I - The Duke of Milan, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The Great Duke of Florence, The Maid of Honour, The City Madam
  • Vol. II - The Roman Actor, The Fatal Dowry, The Guardian, The Virgin-Martyr, Believe As You List

  Philip Massinger: A Critical Reassessment, Douglas Howard, ed.	The Selected Plays of Philip Massinger: The Duke of Milan, The Roman Actor, A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam (Plays by Renaissance and Restoration Dramatists), Colin Gibson, ed.

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Meres, Francis (1565-1647)

Meres rendered immense service to the history of Elizabethan literature by the publication of his Palladis Tamia, Wits Treasury (1598), a commonplace book that is important as a source on the Elizabethan poets and more particularly because its list of Shakespeare's plays is a critical source for in establishing the chronology of Shakespeare plays. It was one of a series of such volumes of short pithy sayings, the first of which was Politeuphuia: Wits Commonwealth (1597), compiled by John Bodenham or by Nicholas Ling, the publisher. Meres' Palladis Tamia contained moral and critical reflections borrowed from various sources, and included sections on books, on philosophy, on music and painting, and a famous "Comparative Discourse of our English poets with the Greeke, Latin, and Italian poets." This chapter enumerates the English poets from Geoffrey Chaucer to Meres' own day, and compares each with some classical author. From the Wikipedia article on Francis Meres.

• Excerpts from Palladis Tamia: Wit's Treasury A Comparative Discourse of our English Poets, with the Greek, Latin, and Italian Poets, by Francis Meres, 1598.
• A reprint of the Poetrie section of Palladis Tamia can be found in Smith, G. Gregory, Elizabethan Critical Essays, vol. II, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1904.  It can also be found in Haslewood, Joseph, et al. Ancient Critical Essays Upon English Poets and Poësy. London: Printed by Harding and Wright for Robert Triphook, 1815, also in full view and PDF from GBS, the relevant passage beginning on p. 147. 

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Middleton, Thomas (1580 - 1627)

Thomas Middleton (1580 – 1627) was an English Jacobean playwright and poet. Middleton stands with John Fletcher and Ben Jonson as among the most successful and prolific of playwrights who wrote their best plays during the Jacobean period. He stands with Shakespeare as one of the few Renaissance dramatists to achieve equal success in comedy and tragedy. Also a prolific writer of masques and pageants, he remains one of the most noteworthy and characteristic of Jacobean dramatists. From the Wikipedia article on Thomas Middleton.

• Middleton Resources from the Luminarium.
• Article on Middleton from NNDB.
• The Thomas Middleton Page: Several html editions of the works of Shakespeare's successor with the King's men. This is a very useful page that makes a unique and valuable contribution to Internet scholarship. 

Works

• Middleton, Thomas, et al. The Works of Thomas Middleton. ed. A. H. Bullen, London: J.C. Nimno, 1885; Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
  • Volume the First - Bullen's Introduction; Blurt, Master-Constable; The Phoenix; Michaelmas Term
  • Volume the Second - The Mayor Of Queenborough; The Old Law; A Trick To Catch The Old One
  • Volume the Third - The Family Of Love; Your Five Gallants; A Mad World, My Masters
  • Volume the Fourth - The Roaring Girl; A Fair Quarrel; No {Wit/Help} Like A Womans
  • Volume the Fifth - A Chaste Maid In Cheapside; The Widow; Anything For A Quiet Life; The Witch
  • Volume the Sixth - The Changeling; The Spanish Gipsy; Women Beware Women; More Dissemblers Besides Women
  • Volume the Seventh - A Game At Chess; The World Tost At Tennis; Various Masques
  • Volume the Eighth - The Black Book; Father Hubburd's Tales; Micro-Cynicon; The Wisdom of Solomon Paraphrased; The Peacemaker
• Middleton, Thomas, et al. The Works of Thomas Middleton, Now First Collected. ed. Alexander Dyce, London: E. Lumley, 1840; from both Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
  • Volume I
  • Volume II
  • Volume III
  • Volume IV
  • Volume V
• Many authorities attribute The Revenger's Tragedy to Middleton, though it has traditionally been attributed to Cyril Tourneur.  You can read the text from the University of Virginia in original spelling transcription.

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Milton, John (1608 - 1674)

John Milton (December 9, 1608 – November 8, 1674) was an English poet, prose polemicist, and civil servant for the English Commonwealth. Most famed for his epic poem Paradise Lost, Milton is celebrated as well for his eloquent treatise condemning censorship, Areopagitica. Long considered the supreme English poet, Milton experienced a dip in popularity after attacks by T.S. Eliot and F.R. Leavis in the mid 20th century; but with multiple societies and scholarly journals devoted to his study, Milton’s reputation remains as b as ever in the 21st century. From the Wikipedia article on John Milton.

• The Milton Home Page:

And so Sepulcher'd in such pompe dost lie That Kings for such a Tombe would wish to die.   An Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet, W.SHAKESPEARE, prefaced to the Second Folio (1632)

• The Milton Reading Room, from Dartmouth.  Another wonderful site.
• Milton resources from the Luminarium.
• A John Milton Chronology, by Roy C. Flannagan.
• Siemens, R.G. "Milton's Works and Life: Select Studies and Resources." EMLS. Originally published in Dennis Danielson (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Milton. 2nd ed. Cambridge, 1999.
• John Milton and Seventeenth-Century Culture, from the University of South Carolina, based on an exhibit by Patrick Scott.

Works

• "An Epitaph on the admirable Dramaticke Poet, W.SHAKESPEARE." "On Shakespear," as it is commonly known, was Milton's first published poem, appearing anonymously in the second folio of plays by Shakespeare (1632).  See the interesting note on the Shakespeare-Milton connection from the Milton Reading Room.
• Works of Milton at Project Gutenberg.
• Works of Milton from Poetry Feast.
• John Milton's A Maske or Comus, from the University of Maryland.
• 1667 edition of Paradise Lost from the University of Virginia.
• The Poetical Works of John Milton, ed. William Aldis Wright, 1903, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 607 pages.

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Montaigne, Michel de (1533 - 1592)

• Wikipedia article on Montaigne.
• Montaigne's Essays, translated by John Florio (1553 - 1625), from Renascence Editions, University of Oregon.
• Montaigne's Essays, from Project Gutenberg.
• Montaigne, Michel de, John Florio, and Thomas Seccombe. The Essayes of Michael Lord of Montaigne. London: G. Richards, 1908, Florio's translation from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
• Selected essays from Oregon State, with search tool.
• The Montaigne Project, with full text search tool.  This is the complete, searchable text of the Villey-Saulnier edition from the ARFTL project at the University of Chicago (French).
• Overview and timeline to the life of Montaigne.
• Digital facsimile edition of the 1595 edition, with introductory materials, from the Gordon collection, University of Virginia.

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More, Sir Thomas (1478 - 1535)

Sir Thomas More (7 February 1478 – 6 July 1535), also known as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, author, and statesman. During his lifetime he earned a reputation as a leading humanist scholar and occupied many public offices, including that of Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532. More coined the word "utopia", a name he gave to an ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in a book published in 1516. He is chiefly remembered for his principled refusal to accept King Henry VIII's claim to be supreme head of the Church of England, a decision which ended his political career and led to his execution as a traitor. From the Wikipedia article on Thomas More.

• Sir Thomas More resources from the Luminarium.
• Sir Thomas More's The History of King Richard the Third
• Sir Thomas More, from "Englishmen and the Classical Renascence," in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21), Volume III. Renascence and Reformation, from bartleby.com.

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Morley, Thomas (1557?8? - 1602)

Thomas Morley (1557 or 1558 – October 1602) was an English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English Madrigal School. He was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England, and the composer of the only surviving contemporary settings of verse by Shakespeare. From the Wikipedia article on Thomas Morley.

• A brief Thomas Morley biography.
• Thomas Morley, A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke, 1597, from the University of Reading Library.
• Selected Poetry of Thomas Morley, from the University of Toronto.
• Thomas Morley "It Was a Lover to His Lass" (As You Like It) resources:
  • An interesting article on "It Was A Lover To His Lass," including instructions on reproducing an Elizabethan style, can be found as part of Constance Fairfax's Commonplace Book.  A four part orchestration is provided from The Choral Public Domain Library, with MIDI orchestration and a 4-part printable score via the SCORCH browser plugin.  The original version in As You Like It was for two voices, of course, accompanied by lute and bass viol.  A single line lead sheet downloadable as PDF can be found at laymusic.org.  A three-part choral arrangement in PDF, provided by Steven Marx, is available from Cal Poly.  A downloadable mp3, or "streaming" m3u choral versions are available from David W. Solomon's Music Site. 
• For those interested in madrigals, Thomas Morley, from the Old Music Project, including PDF sheet music of many madrigals.

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Munday, Anthony (1560? - 1633)

Anthony Munday (or Monday) (1560?–August 10, 1633), was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer. The chief interest in Munday for the modern reader lies in his collaboration with Shakespeare and others on the play Sir Thomas More and his writings on Robin Hood. From the Wikipedia article on Anthony Munday.

• Anthony Munday resources from the Luminarium.

• "Antony Munday’s career (1553–1633) and industry as a writer," in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume V. The Drama to 1642, Part One, from Bartleby.com.

Works

• Sir Thomas More, ed. Alexander Dyce, 1844, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.

• THE DOWNFALL OF ROBERT, EARLE OF HUNTINGTON and THE DEATH OF ROBERT, EARLE OF HUNTINGTON, ed. Russell Peck, University of Rochester.

• The Life of Sir John Oldcastle, 1600. [London: Printed for the Malone society by C. Whittingham & co. at the Chiswick press], 1908, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.

• John a Kent and John a Cumber, ed. J. Payne Collier, 1851, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.

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Nashe, Thomas (1567-1601)

Adieu, farewell earths blisse, This world uncertaine is, Fond are lifes lustful joyes, Death proves them all but toyes, None from his darts can flye; I am sick, I must dye: Lord, have mercy on us. From Summers Last Will and Testament, by Thomas Nashe

• Wikipedia article on Thomas Nashe.
• Thomas Nashe from Rita Lamb.
• Nashe resources from the Luminarium.

Works of Nashe

• Pierce Penilesse, His Supplication to the Divell, from Renascence Editions.  See also the edition from Google Book Search.
• The Choise of Valentines from Project Gutenberg
• The Vnfortunate Traveller, or The Life Of Jack WiltonWith An Essay On The Life And Writings Of Thomas Nash By Edmund Gosse (Project Gutenberg).  See also Nash, Thomas, and Edmund Gosse. The Unfortunate Traveller; Or, The Life of Jack Wilton, with an Essay on the Life and Writings of Thomas Nash. London: C. Whittingham & Co, 1892, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
• Introduction (loosely speaking) to his friend Robert Greene's Menaphon (1589), titled ("To the Gentlemen Students of Both Universities") in which he makes reference to the Ur-Hamlet and alludes to Thomas Kyd, which scholars have taken to point to Kyd's authorship of the Ur-Hamlet.
• Works of Thomas Nashe, from Project Gutenberg.

Criticism

• Banks, Carol and Holderness, Graham, "Effeminate Dayes," in Early Modern Culture.

Overbury, Sir Thomas (1581 - 1613)

Sir Thomas Overbury (1581 – 15 September 1613), English poet and essayist, and the victim of one of the most sensational crimes in English history...In summer 1615, it emerged that Sir Thomas Overbury had died on 14 September 1615 in the Tower of London where he had been placed at the king's request in advance of the annulment case of Frances Howard.  Overbury had been poisoned. Among those suspected were Frances Howard and Robert Carr, who had been replaced in the meantime as the king's favourite by a young man called George Villiers, with whom James was said to have been infatuated. Frances Howard, who admitted a part in Overbury's murder, and Carr, who did not, were both found guilty and sentenced to death though they were eventually pardoned. Four other accused were also executed. The implication of the king in such a scandal provoked much public and literary conjecture and irreparably tarnished James's court with an image of corruption and depravity. From the Wikipedia article Sir Thomas Overbury. At the time of his death Overbury was thoroughly disliked by almost everyone on account of his arrogance and supercilious attitudes.  After his death, however, he became something of a nostalgic martyr in the vilification of his murderers. The modern authority--and engaging history--on the Essex and Overbury affairs is Anne Somerset, Unnatural Murder: Poison at the Court of James I.

• Article on Overbury from NNDB.
• Overbury's A Wife, the poem that gained Overbury posthumous fame and proved enormously popular with moralists and male sexists of every stripe from 1613 through the remainder of the reign of James, the reign of Charles I, and even through the Commonwealth.
• The Miscellaneous Works in Prose and Verse of Sir Thomas Overbury, Knt., ed. E. R. Rimbault, 1856, from GBS, full view and PDF.

Parsons, Robert (1546 - 1610)

Robert Parsons (more correctly, Robert Persons) (Nether Stowey, Somerset, June 24, 1546 – April 15, 1610, Rome) was an English Jesuit priest of equal contemporary fame with Edmund Campion, whom he accompanied on his mission to aid the English Catholics in 1580. Parsons was the superior on the mission and was intended to counterbalance Campion's fervour and impetuous zeal. From the Wikipedia article on Robert Parsons.

• Entry from the Catholic Encyclopedia on Robert Persons.
• Catholic Resistance Theory, from J. P. Sommerville, U. of Wisconsin.
• Article on Persons from the Gunpowder Plot Society.

Peele, George (1556 - 1596)

Peele belonged to the group of university scholars who, in Greene's phrase, "spent their wits in making playes." Greene went on to say that he was "in some things rarer, in nothing inferior," to Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe. This praise was not unfounded. The credit given to Greene and Marlowe for the increased dignity of English dramatic diction, and for the new smoothness infused into blank verse, must certainly be shared by Peele. From the Wikipedia article on George Peele.

• "George Peele," from the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Brittanica.
• "The Plays of the University Wits: George Peele," in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).  Volume V. The Drama to 1642, Part One, from bartleby.com.
• Article on George Peele, from the NNDB.

Works of Peele

• The Works of George Peele, vol. I, ed. A. H. Bullen, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1888, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
  • The Arraignment of Paris
  • Edward the First
  • The Battle of Alcazar
  • The Old Wives' Tale
  • Device of the Pageant
  • Descensus Astraeae
• The Works of George Peele, vol. II, ed. A. H. Bullen, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1888, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
  • David and Bethsabe
  • Sir Clyomon and Sir Clamydes
  • A Farewell to Sir John Norris and Sir Francis Drake, Etc.; and a Tale of Troy
  • An Eclogue Congratulatory
  • Polyhymnia
  • Speeches to Queen Elizabeth at Theobald's
  • The Honour of the Garter
  • Anglorum Fariae, England's Holidays
  • Miscellaneous Poems
  • Merry Conceited Jests of George Peele

Criticism

• Connolly, Annaliese. "Peele's David and Bethsabe: Reconsidering Biblical Drama of the Long 1590s". EMLS Special Issue 16.
• Swinburne, Algernon Charles.  "Greene, Peele and Lodge" in Contemporaries of Shakespeare, from the Swinburne Project, University of Indiana.

Polydore Vergil (1470 - 1555)

• Wikipedia article on Polydore Vergil
• Anglica Historia, Books 23-25. from the London edition of J. B. Nichols, 1846. HTML markup and proofing by Jeff Wheeler, San Jose State University.

Raleigh, Sir Walter (1552 ? 54 - 1618)

Sir Walter Raleigh (1552 or 1554 – 29 October 1618), was a famed English writer, poet, courtier and explorer. He was responsible for establishing the first English colony in the New World, on June 4, 1584, at Roanoke Island in present-day North Carolina. From the Wikipedia article on Sir Walter Raleigh.

• Anniina Jokinen's Sir Walter Ralegh (1552-1618) page from the Luminarium.
• Charter to Sir Walter Raleigh : 1584, part of the Yale Avalon Project.
• Sir Walter Raleigh,of Hayes Barton,Woodbury Common.
• Sir Walter Raleigh, part of the BBCs Historic Figures series.

The Works of Raleigh

• The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, vol. I, containing The Lives, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, Oxford, 1829.
• The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, vol. II, containing A History of the World, Book I, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, Oxford, 1829.
• The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, vol. III, containing A History of the World, Book II, chap. 1-13, 4, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, Oxford, 1829.
• The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, vol IV, containing A History of the World, Book II, chap. 13, 5-28, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, Oxford, 1829.
• The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, vol. V, containing A History of the World, Book III - IV, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, Oxford, 1829.
• The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, vol. VI, containing A History of the World, Book V, chap. 1-3, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, Oxford, 1829.
• The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, vol. VII, containing A History of the World, Book V, chap. 4-6, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, Oxford, 1829.
• The Works of Sir Walter Ralegh, vol. VIII, containing Miscellaneous Works, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, Oxford, 1829.

Rowley, William (1585? - 1626)

• Wikipedia article on William Rowley
• The Birth of Merlin or The Childe Hath Found His Father ascribed to William Rowley.

Sidney, Sir Philip (1554 - 1586)

Sir Philip Sidney (November 30, 1554 – October 17, 1586) became one of the Elizabethan Age's most prominent figures. Famous in his day in England as a poet, courtier and soldier, he remains known as the author of Astrophil and Stella (1581, pub. 1591), The Defence of Poesy (or An Apology for Poetry, 1581, pub. 1595), and The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1580, pub. 1590). From the Wikipedia article on Sir Philip Sidney.

• Luminarium resources on Sir Philip Sidney.
• Sir Philip Sidney World Bibliography, from Saint Louis University.
• Sir Fulke Greville's Life of Sir Philip Sidney, First Published 1652, from Google Book Search, full-view.

Works

• The complete text of Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Stella.
• The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1590), from Renascence Editions, U. of Oregon.
• The Lady of May, from Renascence Editions, U. of Oregon.
• The Psalmes of David, from Renascence Editions, U. of Oregon.
• Selected Poetry and Prose of Sir Phillip Sidney (U of Toronto).
• A Defense of Poesie and Poems, from Project Gutenberg.
• The Complete Poems of Sir Philip Sidney, vol. I, vol. II, vol. III, ed. Alexander Grosart, 1877, from Google Book Search, full view.

Articles and Criticism

• Jowitt, Claire. "'Et in Arcadia Ego': The Politics of Pirates in the Old Arcadia, New Arcadia and Urania". EMLS Special Issue 16 (October, 2007).
• Wood, Richard." 'The representing of so strange a power in love': Philip Sidney's Legacy of Anti-factionalism". EMLS Special Issue 16 (October, 2007).

• "Robert Southwell," from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21). Volume IV. Prose and Poetry: Sir Thomas North to Michael Drayton.
• "Robert Southwell," in The English Poets, ed. T. H. Ward, 1901, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
• Southwell resources from the Luminarium.
• The Poetical Works of the Rev. Robert Southwell, ed. William B. Turnbull, 1856, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
• The Complete Poems of Robert Southwell, ed. Alexander B. Grosart, 1872, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
• The Complete Works of R. Southwell, with life and death (1876) from Internet Archive, in various formats.
• A Foure-Fold Meditation, Robert Southwell, 1606, Isham Reprints, 1895, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.  The same work from Internet Archive in various formats.
• The triumphs over death : together with 'the epistle to his father, the letter to his brother, the letter to his cousin "W.R." and soliloquy (1914), ed. J. W. Trotman, from Internet Archive in various formats.

Important modern books:

• Pilarz, Scott R.  Robert Southwell and the Mission of Literature, 1561-1595: Writing Reconciliation, Ashgate Publishing, 2004.

Speed, John (1552? - 1629)

John Speed (1542[sic]–1629) was a historian, now best remembered as the cartographer whose maps of English counties are often found framed in homes throughout the United Kingdom...While working in London, his knowledge of history led him into learned circles and he joined the Society of Antiquaries where his interests came to the attention of Sir Fulke Greville, who subsequently made Speed an allowance to enable him to devote his whole attention to research. As a reward for his earlier efforts, Queen Elizabeth granted him the use of a room in the Custom House. It was with the encouragement of William Camden that he began his Historie of Great Britaine, which was published in 1611...his work as a historian is considered mediocre and secondary in importance to his map-making, of which his most important contribution is probably his town plans, many of which provide the first visual record of the British towns they depict...His atlas The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine was published in 1610/11 and contained the first set of individual county maps of England and Wales besides maps of Ireland [5 in all] and a general map of Scotland...In 1611, he also published The genealogies recorded in the Sacred Scriptures according to euery family and tribe with the line of Our Sauior Iesus Christ obserued from Adam to the Blessed Virgin Mary, a biblical genealogy, reprinted several times during the 17th century. From the Wikipedia article on Speed. In his description of Warwickshire, Speed says of Fulke-Greville, "'Whose merits tome-ward I do acknowledge, in setting this hand free from the daily employments of a manual trade, and giving it his liberty thus to express the inclination of my mind, himself being the procurer of my present estate.'"  It was a boon that made possible his great works. Interestingly, John Speed, like John Stow, his fellow British antiquarian, were both friends of William Camden, which one would expect, but were also both members of the Merchant Taylor's Company and practicing tailors most of their lives.  Speed and his wife are buried at St Giles-without-Cripplegate in London and his monument, erected by the Merchant Taylor's Company, remarkably survived the blitz in 1940-41.  Of Speed's resting place Fuller says, "He died in London, anno 1629: and was buried in Saint Giles without Cripplegate, in the same parish with Master John Fox; so that no one church in England containeth the corpse of two such useful and voluminous historians. Master Josias Shute preached his funeral sermon : and thus we take our leaves of Father Speed, truly answering his name, in both the acceptions thereof, for celerity and success" Fuller's Worthies of England, v. I, p. 277.

About John Speed

• The first part of an extensive biography by Ashley Baynton-Williams at mapforum.com.
• "Speed, John" in the Dictionary of National Biography, Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee, Robert Blake, Christine Stephanie Nicholls, 1909, p. 726.
• "John Speed" in Fuller's History of the Worthies of England, vol. I p. 277.  Dr. Thomas Fuller, The History of the Worthies of England, 1662.  Fuller's delightful Worthies was first published in 1662 in a single folio volume, and is available in a 3-volume reprint from 1840 edited by  P. Austin Nuttall:  Vol. I, Vol. II, Vol. III.
• John Speed, a web site maintained by Dr. Maryanne Horowitz of Occidental College containing numerous scans from Speed's maps.

Major Works [Note:  You can find "No Preview" versions of these titles at GBS, and are linked as such below for the benefit of bibliographic searchers, but full and even snippet view are unavailable.  Just why this should be so with books so long out of copyright remains mysterious.  Certain of Speed's books are of significant monetary value to antiquarian booksellers, primarily because of the maps they contain.]

From The theatre of the empire of Great Britaine, 1611

• The Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine: Presenting an Exact Geography of the Kingdomes of England, Scotland, Ireland, and the Iles Adioyning: with the Shires, Hundreds, Cities and Shire-townes, Within Ye Kingdome of England - 1611
• The History of Great Britaine Under the Conquests of Ye Romans, Saxons, Danes and Normans: Their Originals, Manners, Warres, Coines & Seales: with Ye Successions, Lives, Acts & Issues of the English Monarchs from Iulius Caesar, to Our Most Gracious Soueraigne King Iames - 1611
• The genealogies recorded in the Sacred Scriptures according to euery family and tribe with the line of Our Sauior Iesus Christ obserued from Adam to the Blessed Virgin Mary - 1611
• A Cloud of Witnesses: Confirming the Humanitie of Christ Jesus Through the Fathers, Patriarkes, and Prophets - 1616 [link is to the 1628 edition].
• A Prospect of the Most Famous Parts of the World - 1627

Spenser, Edmund (1552 - 1599)

Edmund Spenser (c. 1552–13 January 1599) was an English poet and Poet Laureate. Spenser is a controversial figure due to his zeal for the destruction of Irish culture and colonisation of Ireland, yet he is one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy. Spenser is best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem celebrating, through fantastical allegory, the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. From the Wikipedia article on Spenser.

• The Edmund Spenser Page from Richard Bear at the University of Oregon. 
• The Edmund Spenser Home Page
• SparkNotes Study Guide to The Faerie Queene
• Edmund Spenser resources at the Luminarium.
• Edmund Spenser World Bibliography, from Saint Louis University.
• Works of Spenser:
  • The Faerie Queene from Renascence Editions.
  • The Poetical Works of Edmund Spenser, vol. 5, ed. C. C. Clarke, W. P. Nimmo, 1868, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 330 pages; containing Spenser's An Hymn in Honour of Love.
• Complete Works of Edmund Spenser, ed. R. Morris, 1897, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.

Stanley, Ferdinando, Lord Strange, Later the 5th Earl of Derby (1559 - 1594)

Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby (c. 1559 – April 16, 1594) was the son of Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby and Lady Margaret Clifford. His mother was heiress presumptive of Elizabeth I of England from 1578 to her own death in 1596... He was a supporter of the arts, enjoying music, dance, poetry, and singing, but above all he loved the theatre. He was the patron of many writers including Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, , Edmund Spenser and William Shakespeare. Shakespeare may have been employed by Strange in his early years as part of Lord Strange's Men when this troupe of acrobats and tumblers was reorganized in 1592, emphasizing acting. By 1590, Strange's was allied with the Admiral's Men, performing at The Theatre (owned by James Burbage, father of Richard). From the Wikipedia article on Ferdinando Stanley.

• Brief biography of Ferdinando Stanley, from TudorPlace.
• Ferdinando Stanley's properties and patronage, especially of player, from REED.

Stanley, William, 6th Earl of Derby (1561 - 1642)

William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby (1561 – 29 September 1642) was an English nobleman. He was a son of Henry Stanley, 4th Earl of Derby and Lady Margaret Clifford. His mother was heiress presumptive of Elizabeth I of England from 1578 to her own death in 1596. His maternal grandparents were Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland and Lady Eleanor Brandon. Eleanor was the third child of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk and Mary Tudor. Mary was the fifth child of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. He married Elizabeth de Vere, daughter of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford and Anne Cecil. The latter's maternal grandparents were William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and his second wife Mildred Cooke. Mildred was the eldest daughter of Anthony Cooke and his wife Anne Fitzwilliam. From the Wikipedia article on William Stanley, 6th Earl of Derby.

• Biographical article of William Stanley, from TudorPlace.
• On William Stanley's patronage of players, from REED.

John Stow (1525 - 1605)

John Stow.  The work for which Stow is best known is his Survey of London, published in 1598, not only interesting for the quaint simplicity of its style and its amusing descriptions and anecdotes, but of unique value for its minute account of the buildings, social condition and customs of London in the time of Elizabeth I. A second edition appeared in his lifetime in 1603, a third with additions by Anthony Munday in 1618, a fourth by Munday and Dyson in 1633, a fifth with interpolated amendments by John Strype in 1720, and a sixth by the same editor in 1754.  (From the Wikipedia article on John Stow.) Here is a thumbnail sketch of Stow from Seccombe and Allen's The Age of Shakespeare: "His Survey of London was published in 1598, and again in 1603. He wrote with the naked and unadorned plainness of a Defoe. He digressed freely, and devoted to the Tudor reigns nearly half the space of his Annals from the earliest times. He moralizes a great deal but criticises never, and he conveys without stint from his predecessors, as they had done from the older chroniclers. Holinshed had done the same. In this way Shakespeare had the benefit of a sort of Homeric tradition on which to base his Histories. ... The Survey of London (1598) is an invaluable guide-book to Elizabethan London, its rivers, bridges, customs and streets. It was revised and brought up to date early in the eighteenth century." See my blog post "John Stow" for details.

• "Stow, John" in the Dictionary of National Biography, 1909 edition, vol. 19  pp. 3-6, Leslie Stephen, Sidney Lee, et al. eds.
• John Stow, from NNDB

• C. L. Kingsford published an edition in 1908 reprinted from the 1603 edition:  A survey of London By John Stow, Charles Lethbridge Kingsford, ed., Published by The Clarendon Press, 1908, Vol. I, Vol. II.  An excellent HTML edition can be found here.
• Another version of the 1603 text, A Svrvay of London: Contayning the Originall, Antiquity, Increase, Moderne Estate, and Description of that Citie, Written in the Year 1598, edited by Henry Morley, Routledge, 1890, is also available.
• Three of Stow's surviving manuscripts were printed as Three Fifteenth-century Chronicles: with historical memoranda by John Stowe, the antiquary, and contemporary notes of occurances written by him in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, edited by James Gairdner for the Camden Society in 1880.
• An excellent HTML rendering of the 1720 John Strype edition is available here, and a site showing just the famous map illustrations from the edition here.

Tallis, Thomas (c. 1505 - 1585)

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 - 1585) has been called the Father of English Music.  Thanks to Henry VIII's love of music (and personal musicality) the choir of the Chapel Royal became remarkable throughout Europe.  Their first known performance was in 1510, and Henry cultivated his choir in order to impress foreign visitors and for the pure love of music.  Most of the music performed by the highly trained choir was composed by its members, William Cornish, its early master, Robert Fairfax and later Thomas Tallis. Tallis joined the Chapel Royal in 1542 after Waltham Abbey, where he had been organist and choir master, was dissolved in the sweeping changes Great Harry made to the English religious establishment.  (The abbey was actually dissolved in 1540).  Henry had heard Tallis sing at Waltham and had been duly impressed, and Tallis' talents as composer, singer and organist were recruited into the Chapel Royal. Tallis wrote a good deal of music during the reign of Henry VIII--and continued to write for the courts of Edward VI and Mary I, surviving the religious controversies of those turbulent times by dint of his native talent--but his great achievements were made during the reign of Elizabeth.  He is best known for his Lamentations and Spem in alium from that time.  Interestingly, in 1575 Elizabeth granted to Tallis and William Byrd, his one time student, a twenty-one year monopoly on polyphonic music and a patent to print and publish music.

• Wikipedia article on Thomas Tallis
• A brief biography of Tallis from Chris Whent, WBAI New York
• Biography from NNDB.
• Thomas Tallis entry in the 1909 Sidney Lee DNB.

Tilney, Edmund (1536 - 1610)

Edmund Tilney (c. 1536-1610) was a courtier best known now as Master of the Revels to Elizabeth I and James I...Tilney occupied this position [Master of the Revels, which he held from 1578 - 1610] as it underwent a significant change in focus. When he began his work, it consisted principally of planning and conducting royal entertainments, as a unit of the Lord Chamberlain's office. This charge remained unchanged; in fulfilling it, though, Tilney relied more heavily on the developing public, commercial theater of the period. He extended his power to review plays for royal performance into the public arena, in effect becoming the official censor of the period's drama. The duties of his office required him to examine and approve all plays for performance before they could be staged. From the Wikipedia article on Edmund Tilney.

• DNB entry for Edmund Tilney (1898).
• Chambers, E. K.  Notes on the History of the Revels Office Under the Tudors, A. H. Bullen, 1906, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF.
• Gildersleeve, V. C.  Government Regulation of Elizabethan Drama, Columbia University Press, 1908, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 259 pages.

Works

• The Flower of Friendship, Preview only, from Google Book Search.

Walsingham, Sir Francis (1532 - 1590)

Sir Francis Walsingham (c. 1532 – April 6, 1590) is remembered by history as the "spymaster" of Queen Elizabeth I of England. An admirer of Machiavelli, Walsingham is remembered as one of the most proficient espionage-weavers in history, excelling in the use of intrigues and deception to secure the English Crown. He is widely considered as one of the fathers of modern Intelligence. From the Wikipedia article on Sir Francis Walsingham.

• Article on Sir Francis Walsingham from the Luminarium Encyclopedia Project.

Walsingham in modern fiction:

• Walsingham is portrayed by Geoffrey Rush (none too accurately) in Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchett.  The film won the Academy Award in 1998.
• He is also portrayed by Patrick Malahide in the better Elizabeth I, with Helen Mirren as the Queen and Jeremy Irons as Dudley.
• He appears, this time personated by Stephan Murray, in the great, 1970 Elizabeth R, with Glenda Jackson as Elizabeth and Robert Hardy as Dudley.
• In print, he appears in the great Anthony Burgess' A Dead Man in Deptford, (the last novel published during Burgess' lifetime, who also published a novel on the early life and loves of Shakespeare, Nothing Like the Sun, and a Shakespeare Biography).

Webster, John (1580 - 1634)

• Wikipedia article on John Webster.
• John Webster resources from the Luminarium.
• Works of Webster:
  • Larry A. Brown's web edition, with notes and commentaries, of  The Ducehss of Malfi.
  • The Duchess of Malfi from Renascence Editions.
  • The Duchess of Malfi (Project Gutenberg)
  • The White Devil (Project Gutenberg)
  • A Monumental Column, from Renascence Editions.
  • The Works of John Webster, edited by Alexander Dyce, 1877, from Google Book Search, full view and PDF, 383 pages.

Weever, John (1576 - 1632)

John Weever (1576 - 1632), English poet and antiquary was a native of Lancashire. He was educated at Queens' College, Cambridge; where he resided for about four years from 1594, but he took no degree. In 1599 he published Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion, containing a sonnet on Shakespeare, and epigrams on Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, Ben Jonson, William Warner and Christopher Middleton, all of which are valuable to the literary historian. From the Wikipedia article on John Weever.

• Shakespeare and Queens', having to do with the many references by Weever to Shakespeare.  Weever was a resident at Queen's College, Cambridge, for four years, though he did not take a degree.  His Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare, (Epigram 22 in Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion), an encomium to Shakespeare's narrative poetry (1599) is notable for testifying to the attitude to honey-tongued Shakespeare among young college men in the late 1590s.  "The Mirror of Martyrs (1601), for example, reports that "thousands flock" to see Julius Caesar (probably first performed late in 1599, at the opening of the Globe) and the work as a whole is clearly a reply to Henry IV, defending Sir John Oldcastle (the original of Falstaff) as a noble Protestant hero. Faunus and Melliflora (1600) has a section with close verbal echoes of the nunnery scene in Hamlet, and the importance of this is that the date of Hamlet is one of the most fiercely-disputed topics in literary history" (from Shakespeare and Queens').
• Shakespeare and Queens' Part II.
• Epigrammes in the Oldest Cut and Newest Fashion, from the Internet Archive.

Wilkins, George (c.1575-1618)

Wilkins was associated with the King's Men, and was thus a colleague of Shakespeare. A number of studies have attributed to Wilkins a share in Shakespeare's Pericles, Prince of Tyre (which does not appear in Shakespeare's First Folio, but was published only in a textually-corrupt quarto). This may have been collaboration, or perhaps Wilkins was the original author of Pericles and Shakespeare remodelled it. Alternatively, Pericles may be a Shakespearian play remodelled by Wilkins. However it may be, Wilkins published in 1608 a novel entitled The Painful Adventures of Pericles, Prynce of Tyre, being the true history of Pericles as it was lately presented by ... John Gower, which sometimes follows the play very closely. The editors of the 1986 Oxford Edition of Shakespeare make the assumption that Wilkins was the co-author of Pericles and draw heavily upon The Painful Adventures in their controversial reconstructed text of the play. From the Wikipedia article on George Wilkins.

Wotton, Sir Henry (1568 - 1639)

Sir Henry Wotton (1568 - December, 1639) was an English author and diplomat. (Wikipedia). He is best known in Shakespeare studies for his letter to his nephew, dated July 2, 1613, in which he relayed the news of the burning down of the Globe Theatre just three days before, on June 29, 1613.  Here is the relevant part of the letter: Now, to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what hath happened this week at the Bank's side. The King's players had a new play, called All is true, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry VIII, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage ; the Knights of the Order with their Georges and garters, the Guards with their embroidered coats, and the like : sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now, King Henry making a masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain chambers being shot off at his entry, some of the paper, or other stuff, wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very grounds. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabric, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit put it out with bottle ale. The rest when we meet; till when, I protest every minute is the siege of Troy. God's dear blessings till then and ever be with you. Your poor uncle and faithful servant, HENRY WOTTON. From Logan Pearsall Smith, The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, vol. II, Clarendon, 1907.

• Wikipedia article on Sir Henry Wotton.
• The Life of Sir Henry Wotton, by Izaak Walton, transcribed by Irene C. Teas, from Project Canterbury.
• Sir Henry Wotton, from TudorPlace.
• The Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton, by Logan Pearsall Smith, Clarendon, 1907, in two volumes: vol. I, vol. II.

Wriothesley, Henry, 3rd Earl of Southampton (1573 - 1624)

Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton (October 6, 1573 – November 10, 1624), one of William Shakespeare's patrons, was the second son of Henry Wriothesley, 2nd Earl of Southampton, and his wife Mary Browne, daughter of the 1st Viscount Montagu...Venus and Adonis (1593) was dedicated to Southampton in terms expressing respect, but no special intimacy; but in the dedication of Lucrece (1594) the tone is very different. "The love I dedicate to your lordship is without end ... What I have done is yours; what I have to do is yours; being part in all I have, devoted yours." From the Wikipedia article on Henry Wriothesley.

• Brief biography of Henry Wriothesley from Tudorplace.com.ar.
• Wriothesley in the Britannica guide to Shakespeare.
• The Earl of Southampton, from the PBS companion web site to James Wood's In Search of Shakespeare.
• That's No Lady Thats... A 2002 newspaper piece from the Observer Review by Anthony Holden showing the "Norton" portrait of a very young, androgynous Southampton.  Before its identification it was thought to be a portrait of Lady Norton.  See also, from the BBC, "Painting Sparks Bard Sexuality Debate," 22 April, 2002.
• See the Life & Times page for the dedications by Shakespeare to Southampton.

Wriothesley as he appeared in later life (c. 1624).

Wyatt, Thomas (1503 - 1542)

• Wikipedia article on Thomas Wyatt
• Anniina Jokinen's Sir Thomas Wyatt page from the Luminarium.
• Selected Poetry of Sir Thomas Wyatt from the University of Toronto.

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Last modified 09/21/09
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