Thomas Heywood (early 1570s— 16 August 1641) was a prominent
EnglishEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
playwright, actor, and author whose peak period of activity falls between late Elizabethan and early Jacobean theatre.
Early years
Few details of Heywood's life have been documented with certainty. Most references indicate that the county of his birth was most likely
LincolnshireLincolnshire is a county in the east of England. It borders Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, Rutland, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, South Yorkshire, and the East Riding of Yorkshire. It also borders Northamptonshire for just 19 metres, England's shortest county boundary...
, while the year has been variously given as 1570, 1573, 1574 and 1575. It has been speculated that his father was a country parson and that he was related to the half-century-earlier dramatist
John Heywood"Rome wasn't built in a day" redirects here, for the Morcheeba song see Rome Wasn't Built in a DayJohn Heywood was an English writer known for his plays, poems, and collection of proverbs.-Life:...
, whose death year is, again, uncertain, but indicated as having occurred not earlier that 1575 and not later than 1589.
Heywood is said to have been educated at the
University of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge , located in the City of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom, is the second oldest university in the English-speaking world and the fourth oldest in Europe...
, eventually becoming a fellow of
PeterhousePeterhouse is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the oldest college of the University, having been founded in 1284 by Hugo de Balsham, Bishop of Ely...
. Subsequently, however, he moved to
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, where the first mention of his dramatic career is a note in the diary of theatre entrepreneur
Philip HenslowePhilip Henslowe was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his "Diary", a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London.-Life:...
recording that he wrote a play for the
Admiral's MenThe Admiral's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras...
, 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 MenLord Strange's Men was an Elizabethan playing company, comprising retainers of the household of Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange . They are best known in their final phase of activity in the late 1580s and early 1590s. After Sept...
and
Worcester's MenThe Earl of Worcester's Men was an acting company in Renaissance England. An early formation of the company, wearing the livery of William Somerset, 3rd Earl of Worcester, is among the companies known to have toured the country in the mid-sixteenth century...
(who subsequently became known as
Queen Anne's MenQueen Anne's Men was a playing company, or troupe of actors, in Jacobean era London. -Formation:...
). 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
masqueThe masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in sixteenth and early seventeenth century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio Masque involved music and dancing, singing and acting, within an elaborate stage design, in which...
s have survived that are accepted by historians as wholly or partially authored by him.
Creative activity
Heywood's first play may have been
The Four Prentises of LondonThe Four Prentices of London is an Elizabethan play by English Renaissance playwright Thomas Heywood, thought to have originated c. 1592.The play is known to have been acted by the Admiral's Men on July 19, 1594...
(printed 1615, but acted some fifteen years earlier). This tale of four apprentices who become
knightA knight was a "gentleman soldier" or member of the warrior class of the Middle Ages in Europe. In other Indo-European languages, cognates of cavalier or rider are more prevalent suggesting a connection to the knight's mode of transport...
s and travel to
JerusalemJerusalem is the capital of Israel and its largest city in both population and area, with a population of 747,600 residents over an area of if disputed East Jerusalem is included...
may have been intended as a
burlesqueBurlesque is a genre of entertainment also known as Travesty. Prior to Burlesque becoming associated with striptease, it was a form of musical and theatrical parody in which an opera or piece of classical theatre is adapted in a broad, often risqué style very different from that for which it was...
of the old
romanceAs a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about the marvelous adventures of a chivalrous, heroic knight errant,...
s, but it is more likely that it was meant seriously to attract the apprentice spectators to whom it was dedicated. Its popularity was satirized in
Beaumont and FletcherBeaumont and Fletcher were the English dramatists Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, who collaborated in their writing during the reign of James I....
's travesty of the middle-class taste in drama,
The Knight of the Burning PestleThe Knight of the Burning Pestle is a play by Francis Beaumont, first performed in 1607 and first published in a quarto in 1613. It is notable as the first whole parody play in English...
. Heywood's two-part history plays
Edward IVEdward IV, Parts 1 and 2 is a two-part Elizabethan history play, often attributed to Thomas Heywood, perhaps with collaborators.The two parts were entered into the Stationers' Register together on August 28, 1599, and were published together later that year in a quarto issued by the bookseller John...
(printed 1600), and
If You Know Not Me, You Know NobodyIf You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody is a two-part play by Thomas Heywood, depicting the life and reign of Elizabeth I of England, written very soon after the latter's death. The title deliberately echoes that of Samuel Rowley's 1605 play When You See Me You Know Me.Part 1 is a chronicle history of...
, or, The Troubles of Queene ElizabethElizabeth I was Queen of England and Queen of Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called the Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
(1605 and 1606) concern, respectively, The Wars of the Roses and the life of the Queen contrasted with that of the preeminent merchant and financier
Thomas GreshamSir Thomas Gresham was an English merchant and financier who worked for King Edward VI of England and for Edward's half-sister Queen Elizabeth I of England.-Family and Childhood:...
.
He wrote for the stage, and (perhaps disingenuously) protested against the printing of his works, saying he had no time to revise them. Johann Ludwig Tieck called him the "model of a light and rare talent", and Charles Lamb wrote that he was a "prose Shakespeare"; Professor Ward, one of Heywood's most sympathetic editors, pointed out that Heywood had a keen eye for dramatic situations and great constructive skill, but his powers of characterization were not on a par with his stagecraft. He delighted in what he called "merry accidents", that is, in coarse, broad
farceA farce is a comedy written for the stage or film which aims to entertain the audience by means of unlikely, extravagant, and improbable situations, disguise and mistaken identity, verbal humour of varying degrees of sophistication, which may include sexual innuendo and word play, and a fast-paced...
; his fancy and invention were inexhaustible.
Heywood's best known plays are his domestic tragedies and comedies (plays set among the English middle classes); his masterpiece is generally considered to be
A Woman Killed with KindnessA Woman Killed with Kindness is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragedy written by Thomas Heywood. Acted in 1603 and first published in 1607, the play has generally been considered Heywood's masterpiece, and has received the most critical attention among Heywood's works...
(acted 1603; printed 1607), a domestic tragedy about an adulterous wife, and a widely admired
PlautineTitus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are among the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
farce
The English Traveller (acted approximately 1627; printed 15 July1633), which is also known for its informative "Preface", giving Heywood an opportunity to inform the reader about his prolific creative output. His citizen comedies are noteworthy because of their physicality and energy. They provide a psycho-geography of the sights, smells, and sounds of London's wharfs, markets, shops, and streets which contrasts with the more conventional generalisations about the sites of commerce, which are satirised in city comedies.
Heywood wrote numerous prose works, mostly pamphlets about contemporary subjects, of interest now primarily to historians studying the period. His best known long essay is
An Apology for Actors, a moderately-toned and reasonable reply to
PuritanA Puritan of 16th and 17th-century England was an associate of any number of religious groups advocating for more "purity" of worship and doctrine, as well as personal and group piety. Puritans felt that the English Reformation had not gone far enough, and that the Church of England was tolerant...
attacks on the stage, which contains a wealth of detailed information on the actors and acting conditions of Heywood's day. It is in the "Epistle to the Printer" in this 1612 work that Heywood writes about
William JaggardWilliam Jaggard was an Elizabethan and Jacobean printer and publisher, best known for his connection with the texts of William Shakespeare, most notably the First Folio of Shakespeare's plays...
's appropriation of two of Heywood's poems for the same year's edition of
The Passionate PilgrimThe Passionate Pilgrim is an anthology of poems, published in 1599, which according to the title-page were "By W. Shakespeare".-Editions:The Passionate Pilgrim was published by William Jaggard, later the publisher of Shakespeare's First Folio...
.
Final two decades
Between 1619 and 1624, Heywood seems to have inexplicably ceased all activity as an actor or playwright, but from 1624, until his death seventeen years later, his name frequently appears in contemporary accounts. There were continuous productions of new plays as well as revivals of old ones. Numerous volumes of his prose and poetry were also being published, including two lengthy poetic works,
Gunaikeion (1624), described as "nine books of various history concerning women" and, eleven years later, "The Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels". As a measure of Heywood's popular standing in the final years of his life,
Love's Mistress or the Queen's Masque, a play published in 1636, but performed since 1634, was reported to have been seen by
King Charles ICharles I, , the second son of James VI of Scotland and I of England, was King of England, Scotland and Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution. Charles famously engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England...
and his queen three times in eight days.
According to writings of the period, Thomas Heywood had been living in
ClerkenwellClerkenwell is an area of central London in the London Borough of Islington. Clerkenwell was once known as London's "Little Italy" because of the large number of Italians living in the area between the 1850s and the 1960s.-Clerks' Well:...
since 1623 and it was there, at
St. James's ChurchSt James Church, Clerkenwell belongs to the Church of England and is located in Clerkenwell, London, England.- Nunnery of St. Mary: c.1100 - 1539 :...
that he was buried eighteen years later. Because of the uncertainty regarding the year of his birth, his age can only be estimated, but he was likely in his late sixties, possibly having reached seventy. The date of the burial, 16 August1641, the only documented date, also appears in a number of reference books as Heywood's death date, although he may actually have died days earlier. It may be presumed, however, that due to a possible August heatwave, the burial occurred on an expedited basis.
Primary literary output
- The Royall King and the Loyall Subject (acted circa 1600; printed 1637)
- the two parts of The Fair Maid of the West or a Girle Worth Gold
The Fair Maid of the West, or a Girl Worth Gold, Parts 1 and 2 is a work of English Renaissance drama, a two-part play written by Thomas Heywood that was first published in 1631.-Date:...
(both parts printed 1631)
- The Fayre Maid of the Exchange (printed anonymously 1607), a play doubtfully attributed to Heywood
- The Late Lancashire Witches
The Late Lancashire Witches is a Caroline era stage play, written by Thomas Heywood and Richard Brome, published in 1634. The play is a topical melodrama on the subject of the witchcraft controversy that arose in Lancashire in 1633.-Performance:...
(1634), written with Richard BromeRichard Brome was an English dramatist of the Caroline era.-Life:Virtually nothing is known about Brome's private life. Repeated allusions in contemporary works, like Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, indicate that Brome started out as a servant of Jonson, in some capacity...
and prompted by an actual trial in the preceding year
- A Mayden-Head Well Lost (1634)
- A Challenge for Beautie (1636)
- The Wise-Woman of Hogsdon
Hoxton is an area in the London Borough of Hackney, immediately north of the financial district of the City of London. The area of Hoxton is bordered by Regents Canal on the north side, Wharf Road and City Road on the west, Old Street on the south, and Kingsland Road on the east.-Origins:'Hogesdon'...
(printed 1638), the witchcraft in this case being matter for comedy, not seriously treated as in the Lancashire play
- Fortune by Land and Sea
Fortune by Land and Sea is a Jacobean era stage play, a romantic melodrama written by Thomas Heywood and William Rowley. The play has attracted the attention of modern critics for its juxtaposition of the themes of primogeniture and piracy.-Publication:...
(printed 1655), with William RowleyWilliam Rowley was an English Jacobean dramatist, best known for works written in collaboration with more successful writers. His date of birth is estimated to have been c. 1585; he was buried on February 11, 1626...
- The five plays called respectively The Golden Age, The Silver Age, The Brazen Age and The Iron Age (the last in two parts), dated 1611, 1613, 1613 and 1632, are series of classical stories strung together with no particular connection except that "old Homer
Homer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey...
" introduces the performers of each act in turn
- Loves Maistresse or The Queens Masque (printed 1636), the story of Cupid and Psyche
The legend of 'Cupid and Psyche' first appeared as a digressionary story told by an old woman in Lucius Apuleius' novel, The Golden Ass, written in the second century A.D...
as told by ApuleiusLucius Apuleius Platonicus was a Latin prose writer remembered most for his bawdy picaresque novel, the Metamorphoses, otherwise known as The Golden Ass...
- The Tragedy of the Rape of Lucrece (1608), which chronicles the rise and fall of Tarquin
Lucius Tarquinius Superbus was the seventh King of Rome, reigning from 535 until the Roman revolt in 509 B.C. which would lead to the establishment of the Roman Republic. He is more commonly known by his cognomen Tarquinius Superbus and was a member of the Etruscan dynasty of Rome...
as presented by a "merry lord", ValeriusValerius originally was a Roman nomen of the gens Valeria, one of the oldest patrician families of the city. The name was in use throughout Roman history...
, who lightens the gloom of the situation by singing comic songs
- A series of pageants, most of them devised for the City of London, or its guilds, by Heywood, printed in 1637
- In volume iv of his Collection of Old English Plays (1885), A. H. Bullen printed for the first time a comedy by Heywood, The Captives, or The Lost Recovered (licensed 1624), and in volume ii of the same series, Dicke of Devonshire, which he tentatively assigns to the same hand
- Troia Britannica, or Great Britain's Troy (1609), a poem in seventeen canto
The canto is a principal form of division in a long poem, especially the epic. The word comes from Italian, from the Latin canto, meaning "I sing," and has a corollary in the Sanskrit , or "chapter." Famous examples of epic poetry which employ the canto division are Valmiki's The Ramayana ,...
s "intermixed with many pleasant poetical tales" and "concluding with an universal chronicle from the creation until the present time"
- An Apology for Actors, Containing Three Brief Treatises (1612), edited for the Shakespeare Society in 1841
- Gynaikeion or Nine Books of Various History Concerning Women (1624)
- England's Elizabeth, Her Life and Troubles During Her Minority from Time Cradle to the Crown (1631)
- The Hierarchy of the Blessed Angels (1635), a didactic poem in nine books;
- A Woman Killed with Kindness
A Woman Killed with Kindness is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragedy written by Thomas Heywood. Acted in 1603 and first published in 1607, the play has generally been considered Heywood's masterpiece, and has received the most critical attention among Heywood's works...
- Pleasant Dialogue, and Dramas Selected Out of Lucian
Lucian of Samosata was an Assyrian rhetorician, and satirist who wrote in the Greek language. He is noted for his witty and scoffing nature.-Biography:...
, etc. (1637)
- The Life of Merlin
Merlin is a legendary figure best known as the wizard featured in the Arthurian legend. The standard depiction of the character first appears in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written c. 1136, and is based on an amalgamation of previous historical and legendary figures...
surnamed Ambrosius (1641)
See also
- Appius and Virginia
Appius and Virginia is an early seventeenth-century stage play, a tragedy by John Webster . It is the third and least famous of his tragedies, after The White Devil and The Duchess of Malfi.-Heywood:...
- A Cure for a Cuckold
A Cure for a Cuckold is a late Jacobean era stage play, a comedy written by John Webster and William Rowley. The play was first published in 1661, though composed some four decades earlier.-Date and performance:...
- A New Wonder, a Woman Never Vexed
A New Wonder, a Woman Never Vexed is a Jacobean era stage play, often classified as a city comedy. Its authorship was traditionally attributed to William Rowley, though modern scholarship has questioned Rowley's sole authorship; Thomas Heywood and George Wilkins have been proposed as possible...
- Swetnam the Woman-Hater
Swetnam the Woman-Hater Arraigned by Women is a Jacobean era stage play, an anonymous comedy that was part of an anti-feminist controversy of the 1615–20 period.-Performance and publication:...
- The Thracian Wonder
The Thracian Wonder is a stage play of English Renaissance drama, a work that constitutes a long-standing and persistent problem for scholars and historians of the subject.- Publication :...
External links