“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Heywood HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1497
John Heywood was born, likely in Coventry, or perhaps at London. He would relocate from Coventry to the big city at some time during his late teens.
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
John Heywood “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1509
April 22, Sunday (Old Style): In England, the demise of King Henry VII, leading to the accession of Prince Henry. At this point the 12-year-old John Heywood may have been a chorister.
LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Heywood HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1513
During this year and the following one, without taking a degree, John Heywood may have been at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College, Oxford).
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
John Heywood “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1515
The first certain record we have of “Iohn Haywoode” is that in this year he was one of King Henry VIII’s singing men at a wage of eightpence per day. Presumably he had been a choir boy and had then been retained as a singer at the Chapel Royal. Possibly also he was active in the training of companies of boy actors, for court performances.
Archbishop of York Thomas Wolsey became a Catholic Cardinal, and Lord Chancellor of England. His monarch made him a royal present, of Hampton Court:
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
John Heywood “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1519
After having spent a year or two at Broadgates Hall (now Pembroke College, Oxford), John Heywood was receiving 100 shillings each quarter-year for being a “synger” at the court of King Henry VIII.
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Heywood HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1521
February 12, Tuesday (1520, Old Style): John Heywood was designated to receive an annuity of ten marks as a king’s servant of King Henry VIII, in the form of annual rents from properties in Essex that had reverted to the Crown.
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Heywood HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1523
March 3, Tuesday (1522, Old Style): With some assistance from King Henry VIII, John Heywood was admitted as a Freeman of the City of London. He became a member of the Mercers’ Company (we have no indication, however, that he ever worked with cloth). Records of London Freemans indicate that Heywood was already married with Joan Rastell, daughter of John Rastell the printer. Through this marriage Heywood would have entered into a theater family. Rastell was a composer of interludes himself, and the very first publisher of plays in England. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1524
Turkeys were gobbled for the first time at the English Court.
James V became King of Scotland (-1542).
John Rastell built his own house at Finsbury Fields, with a stage explicitly for the performance of plays. His wife made costumes. The whole family appeared to be involved in these productions, including Thomas More. In this private theatre, John Heywood would have found an audience for his early works, and a strong artistic influence in his father-in-law John Rastell. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1525
In the 1520s and 1530s, John Heywood was writing and producing interludes for the royal court. He enjoyed the patronage of Edward VI and Mary I. While some of his plays call for music, no songs or texts survive. In this year, with Will Somer as King Henry VIII’s fool at court, Heywood wrote “Witty and Witless.” At Michaelmas a court payment of £6 13s 4d was made to him as “player of the Virginals.”1
1. This virginal was a small harpsichord popular during the 16th and 17th centuries. Its strings ran from side to side of its rectangular box, and were plucked by means of little quill or leather plectrums (rather than being struck by felt hammers). On the continent the instrument was being referred to as a “Clavicimbalum.” Princess Mary was a player of the instrument, and at the age of 4½, in July 1520, before a visiting French delegation, had given a public performance. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1526 HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
In this year also, John Heywood received compensation for being a “player of the Virginals.”2 HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
2. This virginal was a small harpsichord popular during the 16th and 17th centuries. Its strings ran from side to side of its rectangular box, and were plucked by means of little quill or leather plectrums (rather than being struck by felt hammers). On the continent the instrument was being referred to as a “Clavicimbalum.” Princess Mary was a player of the instrument, and at the age of 4½, in July 1520, before a visiting French delegation, had given a public performance. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1528
Christmas: The initial royal quarterly payment to John Heywood against an “annual pension” of £10 per annum (such payments would be being recorded in the account books for 1528-1531, for 1538-1541, for 1545, and for 1547- 1551, all the records which still exist). HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1529
It was perhaps in this year that John Heywood created “Pardoner and Frere.”
March: A royal quarterly payment of 50s was made to John Heywood as “player at virginals.”
Christmas: “A Play of Love,” possibly by John Heywood, was performed at Lincoln’s Inn.
DATE: John Heywood’s “A Dialogue on Wit and Folly.” DIALOGUE ON WIT AND FOLLY HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1530
By this point John Heywood had translated “La farce du pasté” from French into English as “Johan Johan.” In about this year his “The Play called the foure PP; a newe and a very mery interlude of a palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler” was being performed at court. Birth of Heywood’s son Ellis Heywood.
January 20, Thursday (1529, Old Style): John Heywood, as a citizen and Stationer of London and one of the king’s servants, was presented as the “Comen Mesurer or meter of Lynnen Clothes” of the Mercers’ Company (though he never appears to have worked in any way with cloth).
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
John Heywood “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1533
John Heywood’s “The Mery Play betwene Johan Johan, the Husbande, Tyb, his Wyf, and Syr Jhan, the Preest.” THE MERY PLAY BETWENE...
By this point hid “The Play of Love,” “The Mery Play between the Pardoner and the Frere, the Curate and Neybour Pratte” and “The Play of the Wether, a new and mery interlude of all maner of Wethers” were all being performed at court. W. Rastell printed “The Play called the foure PP; a newe and a very mery interlude of a palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler.” On New Year’s Day, Heywood received a “gilte cuppe with a cover weing xxiii oz” from King Henry VIII. During this year the monarch, who had fallen out of favor with Pope Clement VII due to his setting aside of Queen Consort Catherine of Aragón who had failed to provide him with a male heir and marriage to Anne Boleyn who was pregnant with his child (that would be another girl, Elizabeth), and had consequently declared himself to be the head of the Church of England and the Church of Ireland, declared that the princess Mary Stuart, as a product of Catherine of Aragón, was illegitimate and not in the royal succession, and would in the future be addressed by the court as “The Lady Mary” rather than as “Princess.”
February 5, Wednesday (Old Style): The Ambassador of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V recorded the departure of the previous French Ambassador and the arrival of Dinteville. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
February 12, Wednesday (Old Style): W. Rastell printed John Heywood’s “Johan Johan” without attribution of HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
authorship. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
February 24, Monday (Old Style): Anne Boleyn hosted a banquet for the French Ambassador.
Shrovetide: John Heywood’s “The Play of the Wether, a new and mery interlude of all maner of Wethers” seems to have been performed at court. It would be printed in this year by W. Rastell.3
April 5, Saturday (Old Style): W. Rastell printed John Heywood’s “Pardoner and Frere” without attribution of authorship.
July 11, Friday (Old Style): Pope Clement VII condemned King Henry VIII’s marriage to Anne Boleyn. It didn’t matter that she had been some three months with the princess Elizabeth. The monarch was given till September to return to Queen Consort Catherine of Aragón under threat of excommunication. Henry would respond by renouncing the Papal supremacy, and Thomas Cranmer, his Archbishop of Canterbury, would cooperatively declare the old marriage of Henry and Catherine to have been void and the new marriage of Henry and Anne to be real and lawful.
LONDON Follow the money: Henry would confiscate all the holdings of the Church and proclaim himself Supreme Head of the Church in England. He would out-Luther Luther, beginning an English Reformation.
September 7, Sunday (Old Style): At Greenwich, a daughter, named Elizabeth, was born to Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII about six months subsequent to their nuptials. People said there wasn’t an heir on her head — with this birth, however, Catherine of Aragón’s daughter Mary would no longer be a “princess.”
3. Shrovetide — the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday carnival preceding Ash Wednesday and the fasting of Lent. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1534
John Heywood dedicated his ballad “Give place ye Ladies” to the Princess Mary (or rather due to all the changes at court, to the former Princess Mary).
In the Act of Supremacy, King Henry VIII of England separated his Anglican church from the Holy Roman Catholic Church at Rome and set himself at its head.
During the turmoil of the 16th Century Baliol College in Oxford had been steadfast in its allegiance to the Holy Roman Catholic Church and the Pope in Rome. When the English monarch made his demand for acknowledgement of his supremacy over the Pope, the Master and five Fellows signed and sealed their submission only after adding that they intended “nothing to prejudice the divine law, the rule of the orthodox faith, or the doctrine of the Holy Mother Catholic Church” (other colleges, in making their corporate submissions, seem to have ventured no such qualifications).
John Fisher, the Catholic Bishop of Rochester, was committed to Bell Tower of the Tower of London for having refused to take the oath of submission to King Henry VIII as the new supreme head of the English church. Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More was also committed to Bell Tower. Since he would persist in declining to take the oaths for the Act of Supremacy and for the Act of Succession, he would be found guilty of treason. More was also protesting the divorce of Catherine of Aragón, who had given Henry a living child, the Princess Mary. When the prisoner More was found to be in communication with his friend, he would be deprived of ink — whereupon he would continue to write using a coal. While imprisoned he would be writing both TREATISE ON THE PASSION and DIALOGUE OF COMFORT AGAINST TRIBULATION. LONDON
January 15, Thursday (1533, Old Style): John Heywood was named on the title page of “The Play of Love,” printed by W. Rastell. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1535
At about this point Henry Howard, Early of Surrey got married with Lady Frances de Vere, the daughter of John de Vere, 15th Earl of Oxford and Elizabeth Trussell, Countess of Oxford. The couple would produce five children.
This would be a poor harvest year in Europe. The London Exchange began operation.
In London, John Heywood’s son Jasper Heywood was born.4 As a lad he would be page of honor to Princess Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of King Henry VIII with Queen Consort Anne Boleyn.
4. In addition to the poet and translator Jasper Heywood, John Heywood would have a daughter named Elizabeth Heywood (Syminges), and one of his grandsons would be the poet and preacher, John Donne. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1536
Shortly after Princess Mary Stuart had been disinherited on account of her Catholicism and her refusal to embrace the new Church of England headed by her father King Henry VIII, John Heywood wrote a poem in her defense. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1537
January (1536, Old Style): We have a record of payments, that in this timeframe John Heywood was making music for Lady Mary, the former Princess Mary Stuart.
Catharine of Aragón, formerly the queen consort of King Henry VIII (afterward the Dowager Princess of Wales), the mother of the Princess Mary Stuart (afterward the Lady Mary), died at the age of 50 at Kimbolton Castle in Cambridgeshire.
Sir Francis Bigod of Settrington in the North Riding of Yorkshire led an armed Roman Catholic rebellion in Cumberland and Westmorland against King Henry VIII and the English Parliament. Bigod would be convicted of treason, and executed.
Allesandro “il Moro” de’ Medici, Duke of Florence was assassinated. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1538
John Heywood had gotten married with Joan Rastell, a niece of Sir Thomas More, and Sir Thomas had introduced him to the former Princess Mary Tudor. This was the year in which, finally, Heywood became attached to her retinue. During this year a collection of his favorite epigrams was published, and was entitled PROVERBS (what I have to show you here is a recent reprint of the 1562 edition). HEYWOOD’S PROVERBS HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
March: John Heywood received compensation for “playing an interlude with his children” before the former Princess HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
Mary. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1539
Shrovetide: John Heywood’s “Masque of King Arthur’s Knights” was performed for Lord Cromwell.
February 22, Saturday (1538, Old Style): John Heywood’s “Masque of King Arthur’s Knights” was again performed, this time at court. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1543
John Heywood was arrested during the suppression of a plot to arraign Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer for heresy, along with John More, and eventually would be walked to the gallows. He and More, by recanting, would obtain pardons. A contemporary writer, Sir John Harington, would comment that Heywood had escaped being hanged by the excellent deployment of “his mirth.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1544
The name of John Heywood appeared on the title pages of “The Play called the foure PP; a newe and a very mery interlude of a palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler” and “The Play of the Wether, a new and mery interlude of all maner of Wethers,” printed by Middleton.
February 15, Friday (1543, Old Style): John Heywood, implicated with John More in a plot to arraign Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer for heresy, was indicted at Westminster.
April 12, Saturday (Old Style): John More, implicated with John Heywood in a plot to arraign Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer for heresy, recanted and was pardoned.
July 6, Sunday (Old Style): John More having recanted and been pardoned for his role in a plot to arraign Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer for heresy, at this point John Heywood also was pardoned. Afterward, at St Paul’s Cross, he read a recantation. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1545
For the following approximately four years, Thomas Whythorne would be serving as John Heywood’s “servant and skoller.” Heywood would be authoring the play “Parts of Man” for Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1546
Bear-baiting was popular in London. While associated with brothels and taverns, its patrons included King Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth, and some of the events were supervised by the actor Edward Alleyn as “master of the king’s games of bears, bulls and dogs” (the derogatory term “blood sport” is a rather recent coinage). Since bears were considerably more expensive than bulls, these events would soon return to the use of bulls. However, this engraving is from the 17th Century rather than from the 16th:
John Heywood’s DIALOGUE OF PROVERBES was printed by T. Berthelet, the King’s printer (what I have to HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
show you here is a recent reprint of the 1562 edition). HEYWOOD’S PROVERBES HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1547
At Oxford, John Warner became the 1st Professor of Medicine.
Oxford
Jasper Heywood matriculated at Merton College, Oxford.
January 28, Friday (1546, Old Style): Henry VIII died. Immediately, what this meant was that the headchopping of Henry Howard, Early of Surrey’s father Thomas Howard, 3d Duke of Norfolk for treason, which had been slotted to occur on the following day, would no longer need to take place. The day’s schedule had been freed up for other thingies (GENERAL PRINCIPLE, you cannot betray a monarch who’s dead as a doornail – or something like that).
[Jonathan Swift would write this marginalia into one of his books: “I wish he had been flayed, his skin stuffed and hanged upon a gibbet. His bulky guts and flesh left to be devoured by birds and beasts for a warning to his successors forever. Amen.”]
This would mean the accession of King Edward VI, ten years of age, under regency. As a sincere Roman Catholic, John Heywood would get into some trouble during this Church-of-England reign, for making an attempt to deny the monarch’s spiritual supremacy — although in the end he will seem to have been induced to offer a public recantation of his denial.
With the death of this monarch, the English Maisters of Defence lost their exclusive control over prices for fencing instruction within the City of London (this would allow the creation of rival schools, the most famous of which would be opened in 1576 by the Italian Rocco Bonnetti).
A pamphlet controversy would be breaking out in England over who should and who should not be informed about political decisions. At this point, however, no one was advocating anything nearly so extreme as that the average person had a right to be –at best– more than cursorily informed about such matters. It was a settled issue, or no issue at all, that the common run of people had no business meddling in politics, that they needed to keep their noses firmly attached to their grindstones. They needed to seem to be uninterested in the affairs of their betters. AN INFORMED CITIZENRY HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1550
In London, the first church for French Huguenot worship was founded, on Threadneedle Street.
John Heywood’s “The Play of Love” was printed by J. Waley and his AN HUNDRED EPIGRAMMES was printed by T. Berthelet (what I have to show you here is a recent reprint of the 1562 edition). HEYWOOD’S EPIGRAMMESA
William Hunnis’s CERTAYNE PSALMES CHOSEN OUT OF THE PSALTER OF DAVID, AND DRAWEN FURTH INTO ENGLISH METER, BY WILLIAM HUNNIS, SERUANT TO THE RYGHT HONORABLE SYR SYLLYAM HARBERDE KNIGHT, NEWLY COLLECTED AND IMPRINTED (Imprinted at London in Aldersgate Streete by the wydowe of Jhon Herforde, for Jhon Harrington the yeare of our Lord MDL. cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum). He became a member of the Chapel Royal of King Edward VI. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1552
February 13, Saturday (1551, Old Style): The King’s drummer and fifer, John Heywood, Master Sebastian Westcott, and the children of St Paul’s played for the Princess Elizabeth. Heywood received 30s. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
March 4, Friday (1551, Old Style): John Heywood became groom of the chamber and his pension increased to £40. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1553
Jasper Heywood received the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Merton College, Oxford.
A Flemish woman was introducing into England the practice of starching linen.
The chartering of Christ’s Hospital, a school for poor boys at Newgate outside London.
At least by this year of King Edward VI’s reign, William Hunnis was singing in the King’s Choir while serving as one of the 32 Protestant gentleman of the Chapel Royal. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
July 10, Monday (Old Style): King Edward VI of England, the only remaining son of King Henry VIII, died of tuberculosis at the age of 16. In accordance with a paper he signed before his death, the Duke of Northumberland proclaimed Lady Jane Grey as Queen of England. Her reign would endure all of nine days. The throne would then pass first to Edward’s sister Princess Mary and then to his other sister the Princess Elizabeth — the one who would reign big time as Queen of England. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1554
During this year the Tower of London hosted the Princess Elizabeth, for a couple of months before she was relocated to Woodstock (when Queen Mary would die in 1558 this former resident of the Tower would become Queen of England). LONDON
Jasper Heywood was elected probationary fellow of Merton College, Oxford, where he would distinguish himself in public and private disputations, in writing verse translations of Seneca’s dramas, and in acting as Lord of Misrule at the Christmas festivities (he was known among the students as a wild carouser). HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
July 19, Tuesday (Old Style): Lady Jane Grey’s reign ended on its 9th day as support was thrown to Lady Mary Tudor,
daughter of King Henry VIII with Catherine of Aragón while she had been Queen Consort of England. In a pageant, John Heywood delivered a Latin oration and was undoubtedly “in complete sympathy with her policy in Church and State.” There is evidence that he was a favorite with Mary, who could take, as Dr. Adolphus William Ward says “an intelligent delight” in his accomplishments and his wit. He wrote poems in her honour and is said to have been present at her last moments. Heywood’s humor has been defined by Dr. Adolphus William Ward as “of a kind peculiarly characteristic of those minds which, while strongly conservative at bottom, claim a wide personal liberty in the expression of opinion, and are radically adverse to all shams.” The Roman Catholic bishops recovered their power over England. During the reign of Queen Mary I (1553- 1558) so many non-Roman Catholics and political rivals, such as John Hooper and Thomas Cranmer, would be either imprisoned or executed that she is known to us as “Bloody Mary.”
In this year Thomas Stucley would be taken to the Tower of London (he would escape, however, and make his way abroad). LONDON
September 30, Saturday (Old Style): The coronation of Queen Mary. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1555
A court payment was made to John Heywood as “player on the virginals.” Heywood’s TWO HUNDRED EPIGRAMS was printed by T. Berthelet. HEYWOOD’S EPIGRAMS
April 5, Friday (Old Style): Queen Mary and her consort Philip II of Spain confirmed John Heywood’s annuities originating in 1528 and in 1551-1552. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1556
Conrad Gesner’s edition of the works of Claudius Aelianus.
Queen Mary chartered the Stationers’ Company, a guild of London printers with a monopoly over the books they published. Henceforth, as an extension of the state power of censorship under the reinstated heresy laws, all books were to be submitted for official approval and were to be entered on this company’s register. Any printing which had not received such prior governmental authorization, or any failure to so register with the Stationers’ Company (this would primarily be non-Roman Catholic publication, but by no means exclusively), was to henceforth be subject to such punishment as the Court of Star Chamber should decree.
The Oundle grammar school was founded.
John Heywood’s poem “Spider & flie” was printed by T. Powell. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1557
John Heywood’s “Breefe balet of Scarborow castell” was printed by T. Powell.
Christmas: At Lincoln’s Inn, Jasper Heywood was Lord of Misrule. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1558
England lost Calais, the last of its possessions on the mainland of Europe, and became an island nation.
Jasper Heywood, a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, was compelled to resign on account of carousing, but was then elected a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford (at the beginning of the reign of the Princess Elizabeth as Queen of England he would, for reasons of religious conscience, give up this fellowship at Alsolne Colledge in Oxenforde as well and journey to Rome, where in 1570 he would be received into the Society of Jesus). HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
November 17, Thursday (Old Style): “Bloody” Mary Tudor was succeeded by the Princess Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of King Henry VIII with Queen Consort Ann Bolyn, who became the Queen regnant Elizabeth of England and Ireland. Since Elizabeth was Church of England, the courtier John Heywood, who as a Roman Catholic and poet and musician had been in great favor during the reign of Queen Mary, would lose favor.
Chronological observations of America to the year of Christ 1673.
Queen Mary dyed.
Elizabeth Queen of England began to Raign November the Seventeenth.
From the year of World BY John Josselyn Gent.
After the accession of the Lady Elizabeth, the gaunt William Hunnis would suddenly one day toward the end of the month be released from the Tower of London and provided with clothing against the cold weather. He stepped back into his old office as choirmaster in “the Queene’s Chappell” with an appearance considerably altered by his experiences. The conspiracies that during the regime of Mary had made him seem the traitor, during the ascendancy of Elizabeth would make him seem the patriot.
Martin Luther had held that witches should be burnt for making a pact with the Devil even if they harmed no one, and then at Wittenburg in his absence four persons had indeed been executed as witches (I do not know that they were female, or that they were burned). The Reverend John Calvin was instructing Protestants that “The BIBLE teaches us that there are witches and that they must be slain. This law of God is a universal law.” Bishop John Jewell, who was living in exile in Geneva, would bring witchhunting with him on his return to England in 1559 and would preach before the new Queen that: It may please your Grace to understand that witches and sorcerers within these last few years are marvelously increased within your Grace’s realm, Your Grace’s subjects pine away even unto the death, their colour fadeth, their flesh rotteth, their HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
speech is benumbed, their senses are bereft. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1559
Jasper Heywood, a fellow of All Souls College of Oxford University (Alsolne Colledge in Oxenforde), translated the Troades (“Troas,” which was what we now refer to as “The Trojan Women”), the 1st of three of the ten tragedies of Seneca the Younger that he would translate into English verse. This play had been written around 54 CE, largely based on Euripides’s The Trojan Women and Hecuba. This was the initial rendering of the material into English, and was not a straightforward translation. Heywood not only took liberties with the Latin text but also introduced material of his own creation.
Matthew Parker became Archbishop of Canterbury.
William Hunnis got married with the recently widowed Margaret Brigham. By about the middle of the year she was on her deathbed, and made him sole heir of everything she had, and executor of her will, with the exception that she left her Allmes House, the tenements and mansion house lying at Westchester, to her cousin Francis Brigham, with her husband William being allowed the use of that home for his lifetime. By the 12th of October she was dead, for that was the date on which her will was proved by Thomas Willot “procurator for William Hunnis.”5
5. It seems that this inheritance was contested by a Brigham relative and that the decision was in his favor, but that when he ousted William Hunnis from the Allmes House, Queen Elizabeth took care of the matter by the granting to her choirmaster of other patents. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
The Anglican church was restored in England and the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER was published.6
6. The edition illustrated is THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE SACRAMENTS, AND OTHER RITES AND CEREMONIES OF THE CHURCH, ACCORDING TO THE USE OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND: TOGETHER WITH THE PSALTER OR PSALMS OF DAVID, PRINTED AS THEY ARE TO BE SUNG, OR SAID, IN CHURCHES, that would be printed by John Baskett, printer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty, for the University of Oxford in 1716. There is a phrase “noble army of Martyrs” in the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER that may explain Henry Thoreau’s remark about becoming willing to kill, or to die, to end enslavement. The phrase may have come into the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER from the TE DEUM, quite a bit older. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
August 7, Monday (Old Style): John Heywood’s “Nice Wanton” was performed at Nonsuch Palace by the children of St Paul’s, before Queen Elizabeth. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1560
Queen Elizabeth was presented with presumably the 1st pair of black silk stockings made in the West.7
(Although this English queen can be fitly acclaimed as the 1st lady to wear sexy black silk stockings of local manufacture, she has also been acclaimed as the 1st to translate Horace’s ARS POETICA into English verse. The fact of that matter, however, is that although this queen of England did prepare a full translation into English of the works of Boethius, we cannot actually say that she prepared the ARS POETICA because only fragments of such an effort still exist — it is possible that she didn’t get very far into this project and it is likely that she wouldn’t have wanted anyone to see what she had managed to complete.)
Jasper Heywood, a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford (Alsolne Colledge in Oxenforde), translated the Thyestes, the 2d of three of the ten tragedies of Seneca the Younger that he would translate into English verse. The play had been written at some time during the 1st Century CE. This was the initial rendering of the material into English, and was not a straightforward translation. Heywood not only took liberties with the Latin text but also introduced material of his own creation.
John Heywood’s “The Play of the Wether, a new and mery interlude of all maner of Wethers” was printed by A. Kytson, his “Play called the foure PP; a newe and a very mery interlude of a palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler” was printed by W. Copland, and his A FOURTH HUNDRED OF EPYGRAMS was printed by T. Berthelet. HEYWOOD’S EPYGRAMS
7. Of course, instantly one wonders when presented with such Eurocentric factoids, for how many centuries such articles of apparel had been being fashioned in the East! HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1561
During Queen Elizabeth of England’s reign the guest apartments at the Tower of London would be kept full. Bishops, archbishops, knights, barons, earls and dukes would be languishing for months, some for years, in its various towers. In this year Sir Anthony Fortescue was taken to the Tower (this one would make good an escape). LONDON
Jasper Heywood, a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford (Alsolne Colledge in Oxenforde), translated the Hercules Furens (The Madness of Hercules), the 3d of three of the ten tragedies of Seneca the Younger that he translated into English verse. This was the initial rendering of the material into English, and was not a straightforward translation. Heywood not only took liberties with the Latin text but also introduced material of his own creation. (His verse translations of Seneca would be supplemented by translations of other of Seneca’s ten tragedies contributed by Alexander Neville, Thomas Nuce, John Studley, and Thomas Newton, and collected by Newton in 1581 into a single edition, SENECA, HIS TENNE TRAGEDIES TRANSLATED INTO ENGLYSH (1581). HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1562
JOHN HEYWOODES WOORKES was printed by T. Powell (this did not include any of his plays), and his “A ballad against sklander & detraccion” was printed by J. Allde.
Jasper Heywood was received into the Society of Jesus at Rome, while the pope was Pius IV. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1564
Having completed two years at the Roman College, Jasper Heywood was made a professor of moral theology and controversy in the Jesuit College at Dillingen, Swabia, Bavaria. After a few years of this he would begin to complain of being in this college “a useless appendage.” Then he would enter offensively into local affairs by preaching at the court of the Duke of Bavaria that business contracts at 5% interest were usurious and illicit.
July 20, Thursday (Old Style): After publication of the Act of Uniformity against Roman Catholics in England and Ireland, John Heywood and his wife fled from England to Flanders. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1569
During the academic year 1569/1570 Giles Fletcher (the Elder) was awarded the B.A. Bachelor of Arts degree at King’s College of Cambridge University. He would achieve the M.A. Master of Arts degree in 1573 and the LL.D. Doctor of Divinity degree in 1581.
John Heywood’s “Play called the foure PP; a newe and a very mery interlude of a palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler” was printed by J. Allde.
Catholic rebellion in northern England. Sir Peter Carew laid claim to Fitzgerald and Butler estates in Desmond. James Maurice Fitzgerald led unsuccessful rebellion; escaped to Continent. IRELAND HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1570
Jasper Heywood took full Jesuit vows.
Early in this decade Thomas Heywood would be born, most likely in Lincolnshire, perhaps in the family of a country parson. It is not clear that he was related to John and Jasper Heywood (note that John and Jasper had been Roman Catholics, whereas Thomas was Anglican). He is said to have been educated at Cambridge University and to have become a fellow of Peterhouse College, the oldest and smallest of the schools.
The end of Round #3 of the eight Civil Wars between Huguenots and Catholics in France (characterized for some obtuse reason by historians as “Wars of Religion”):
Civil Began: Ended: War
1.) 1552 1563 2.) 1567 1568 3.) 1568 1570 4.) 1572 1573 5.) 1574 1576 6.) 1577 1577 7.) 1580 1580 8.) 1585 1589 HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1572
The beginning of Round #4 of the eight Civil Wars between Huguenots and Catholics in France (characterized for some unknown reason by historians as the “Wars of Religion”):
Civil Began: Ended: War
1.) 1552 1563 2.) 1567 1568 3.) 1568 1570 4.) 1572 1573 5.) 1574 1576 6.) 1577 1577 7.) 1580 1580 8.) 1585 1589
Early in this year reports began to circulate, that Jasper Heywood SJ, professor of moral theology and controversy in the Jesuit College at Dillingen, Swabia, Bavaria, was experiencing acute terror every night, troubled by what he termed a “demon.” The professor would be sent for a vacation at Augsburg, and by the end of the year the affliction would have waned. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1573
The 4th Round of the eight Civil Wars between Huguenots and Catholics in France, characterized for some unknown reason by historians as the “Wars of Religion,” came to an end:
Civil Began: Ended: War
1.) 1552 1563 2.) 1567 1568 3.) 1568 1570 4.) 1572 1573 5.) 1574 1576 6.) 1577 1577 7.) 1580 1580 8.) 1585 1589
When Queen Elizabeth offered to allow John Heywood to return to England, that family, at Malines in Brabant, sat tight. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1575
April 18, Monday (Old Style): John Heywood wrote to William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, chief adviser to Queen Elizabeth, trying to persuade him that the sole reason why he had not returned from the continent to England was that he had no funds to do so. Presumably, he wanted the Baron to believe that had he been able to make the trip, he would of course have taken the Queen up on her kind proffer of clemency. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1576
In this year the commercial stage was initiated in London, in the form of 1.) Burbage’s public stage in Shoreditch, in the “Liberty”8 of Norton Folgate north of the East End and just outside London’s wall, and 2.) the elite little indoor theater in the “Liberty” of Blackfriars on the city side of the wall that protected Westminster and the Inns of Court, on Fleet Street backing toward the Thames River.
John Heywood sought refuge, with his son Ellis Heywood, at the Jesuit College in Antwerp.
Richard Edwardes’s collection THE PARADYSE OF DAYNTY DEUISES APTLY FURNISHED WITH SUNDRY PITHIE AND LEARNED INVENTIONS DEUISED AND WRITTEN FOR THE MOST PART BY M. EDWARDS, SOMETIME OF HER MAIESTIES CHAPPELL, THE REST BY SUNDRY LEARNED GENTLEMEN BOTH OF HONOR AND WORSHIP, VIZ. / S. BARNARD / JASPER HEYWOOD / E.O. [presumably the Earl of Oxford] / F.K. [Francis Kinwelmarsh] / L. VAUX / M. BEW [possibly Webbe] / D.S. [possibly Dr. Edwin Sandys] / R. HILL / M. YLOOP [Pooley] WITH OTHERS (Imprinted at London by Henry Disle, dwelling in Paule’s Churchyard, at the South West Doore of St. Paule’s Church and are there to be solde), the most popular poetical miscellany of the 16th Century, comprising writers from the reigns of King Edward VI, Queen Mary, and the early days of Queen Elizabeth (William Hunnis is represented in this 1st edition despite the fact that his name is omitted from the title page. Ten poems by Edwardes and four by “Iasper Heyvvood” found their way into this edition.)9
8. A “Liberty” was a zone, ordinarily centuries old, originally set up to safeguard one or another religious institution from secular politics, that had by this point come to be administered by the Crown — and was thus to some extent insulated from the interference of London municipal authorities. 9. It is possible that Edwardes, at that point ten years in the grave, had compiled this manuscript. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
PARADYSE OF DAYNTY DEUISES HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1577
The 6th Round of the eight Civil Wars between Huguenots and Catholics in France (characterized for some ungodly reason by historians as “Wars of Religion”):
Civil Began: Ended: War
1.) 1552 1563 2.) 1567 1568 3.) 1568 1570 4.) 1572 1573 5.) 1574 1576 6.) 1577 1577 7.) 1580 1580 8.) 1585 1589
Jasper Heywood had become restive in his duties as professor of moral theology and controversy in the Jesuit College at Dillingen, Swabia, Bavaria, and the Society of Jesus was coming to consider him to represent a disciplinary problem.
January 16, Wednesday (1576, Old Style): John Heywood made his will. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1578
October 2, Thursday (Old Style): John Heywood and his son Ellis Heywood had fled from Antwerp to Cologne and Louvain. On this day the son died. Then John died, presumably in Mechlin in the Netherlands/Belgium. His chief writings consist of: • three interludes (i.e. “short comic pieces containing an element of action that entitles them to be called dramatic”) of which the most famous was “The Play called the foure PP; a newe and a very mery interlude of a palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler” (“PP” would now be written as “P’s” and was being pronounced “pease”). These pieces form a dramatic link between the morality plays and comedy proper, the personified abstractions of the morality being superseded by personal types. In “Play called the foure PP; a newe and a very mery interlude of a palmer, a pardoner, a potycary, a pedler,” Heywood presented a corrupt Pardoner, but at the end of the play the Pedler chastises the Pothecary for “raylynge her openly / At pardons and relyques so leudly.” The Palmer ends the play with the blessing “besechynge our lorde to prosper you all / In the fayth of hys churche universall.” This has been construed an indication of Heywood’s desire to persuade King Henry VIII to refrain from creating any sort of schism with the Pope at Rome. Heywood was therefore more conciliatory than his famous uncle-in-law Thomas More who was executed for his religious beliefs in the face of Henry’s creation of himself as the head of a Church of England. • “The Play of the Weather,” a kind of mythological morality. • “The Play of Love,” a disputation between four characters, with slight dramatic action. • “The Dialogue of Wit and Folly.” • “Proverbs and Epigrams.” All the above are comprised in the edition of Heywood’s works issued by the Early English Drama Society (2 volumes, London, 1905-1906). • “An Allegory of the Spider and the Fly,” in which the flies are the Catholics and the spiders Protestants, and Queen Mary the maid with a broom sweeping away cobwebs (not reprinted since 1556). HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1581
Summer: Father Jasper Heywood was sent to England as superior of the Jesuit mission (the leniency he displayed in regard to the ancient fast-days in this office would be found unsatisfactory by his superiors in the order, who would recall him). Thomas Newton’s SENECA, HIS TENNE TRAGEDIES TRANSLATED INTO ENGLYSH, made up of verse translations prepared by Newton, Jasper Heywood, Alexander Neville, Thomas Nuce, and John Studley. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1583
December: Jasper Heywood had been recalled as superior of the Jesuit mission in England because the leniency he exercised was unsatisfactory to his superiors in the order. On his way to the Continent a violent winter storm drove his ship back onto the English coast. He was taken by the priest-catchers and imprisoned, and examined several times by the Privy Council, but extraordinary efforts to induce him to abjure his beliefs would be unavailing. He was brought up for trial at Westminster with other priests, but before the trial finished, was taken to the Tower of London and closely imprisoned. He would be held at the Tower for seventeen months. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1584
Christmas Eve: Jasper Heywood had been incarcerated for his failure to abandon the Catholic religion, initially at Clink Prison and then in the Tower of London. Heywood was a nephew of Sir Thomas More, who suffered similarly. His sister Elizabeth Syminges brought her eldest son, the 12-year-old John Donne, and an undercover Catholic priest, William Weston, to the Tower, by passing this off as a family visit at Christmas. The priest who was with Mrs. Syminges and the young Donne wrote in his memoirs, 27 years later, that: I accompanied her [Mrs. Syminges] to the Tower, but with a feeling of great trepidation as I saw the vast battlements, and was led by the warder past the gates with their iron fastenings, which were closed behind me. So I came to the cell where the Father [Jasper Heywood, SJ] was confined. We greeted one another, and then, as was natural, exchanged the information we had about the affairs that concerned us.... At last, when I had finished talking to Father Heywood –we spent almost the whole day together– I embraced him and said goodbye. Then I returned the same way that I had come; and the moment I reached safety outside the walls I felt as if I had been restored to the light of day. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1585
January: It seems that under interrogation while being closely held in the Tower of London, Jasper Heywood provided the valuable information (or derogatory misinformation) that Robert Persons had conspired with George Gifford (a regular performer at tournaments staged by the court) to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. He was then put ashore on the coast of France along with 15 other Catholic priests, in perpetual exile from England on pain of death. He would take refuge at the Jesuit College at Dôle in Burgundy. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1589
The eight Civil Wars between Huguenots and Catholics in France, characterized for some unknown reason by historians as the “Wars of Religion,” at this point came to an end. Was everybody dead?
Civil Began: Ended: War
1.) 1552 1563 2.) 1567 1568 3.) 1568 1570 4.) 1572 1573 5.) 1574 1576 6.) 1577 1577 7.) 1580 1580 8.) 1585 1589
Jasper Heywood was sent from the Jesuit College at Dôle in Burgundy to Rome. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1598
January 9, Monday (1597, Old Style): Jasper Heywood died at the age of 63 at Naples while still in “perpetual exile from England on pain of death.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1841
During approximately this year Henry Thoreau made entries in his 1st Commonplace Book in regard to poems by William Collins, which he was perusing in the pages of Volume 13 of Alexander Chalmers’s THE WORKS OF THE ENGLISH POETS, FROM CHAUCER TO COWPER:
— “Eclogue II. Hassan; or the Camel-Driver” (which would appear in EXCURSIONS 139-140) — “Oriental Eclogues” — “Ode to Evening” — “Ode on the Death of Mr. Thomas” — “Ode on the Popular Superstitions of the Highlands; Considered as the Subject of Poetry”10 PERUSE VOLUME XIII WILLIAM COLLINS
We also discover a copy of Jasper Heywood’s “Looke on Yon Leafe” in these pages, although we do not know from what source Thoreau copied (it’s not in A PARADISE OF DAINTY DEVICES).
10. It should give us pause, that here we find Thoreau consulting Volume 13, a volume which we have no record of his having checked out from the library — clearly the extant record of the books Thoreau consulted, despite its impressiveness, must be merely partial. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
December 2, Thursday: Henry Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, the two volumes of SELECT BEAUTIES OF ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY. WITH REMARKS BY HENRY HEADLEY, A.B. (London, printed for T. Cadell, in the Strand, MDCCLXXXVII). ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY ANCIENT ENGLISH POETRY
He also checked out the four volumes of Thomas Evans and Robert Harding Evans (1778-1857)’s OLD BALLADS, HISTORICAL AND NARRATIVE, WITH SOME OF MODERN DATE: COLLECTED FROM RARE COPIES AND MSS (Printed for T. Evans in the Strand, 2 volumes, 1777; 4 volumes, 1784; revised and enlarged by R.H. Evans, London, 1810). THOMAS EVANS’S BALLADS I THOMAS EVANS’S BALLADS II THOMAS EVANS’S BALLADS III THOMAS EVANS’S BALLADS IV
(He would copy from this source into his 1st Commonplace Book “The Lordling Peasant,” John Heywood’s “Description of a Most Noble Lady [Princess Mary Tudor, February 18, 1516-November 17, 1558, crowned Mary on July 19, 1553] Advewed by John Heywoode,”11 Richard Edwards’s “The Renuing of Love,” “The Shepherd’s Love for Philliday” from the Muses Garden, “King Alfred and the Shepherd,” “The Banishment of the Dukes of Hereford and Norfolk...,” “A Praise of Her Lady,” “The Lamentable Fall of the Dutchess of Gloucester, Wife to good Duke Humphry, with the manner of her doing penance in London streets, and of her exile to the Isle of Man, where she ended her days,” “The lamentable Song of the Lord Wigmore, Governor of Warwick Castle, and the Fair Maid of Dunsmore, as a warning to all Maids to have a care how they yield to the wanton delights of young Gallants,” “Sonnet Sung Before Queen Elizabeth, supposed to have been written by the Earl of Essex” “The MURDER of PRINCE ARTHUR in Rouen Caftle,” “The Lady and the Palmer,” “Hirlas Owain, or, The Drinking-Horn of Owen,” and “Venus’s Search for Cupid,” and some of the material would find its way into A WEEK and WALDEN.)
11. In Thoreau’s journal for 1842-1844 we find, undated, the following one-liner from this poem honoring the feminine charms of that red-headed shorty ice queen, Queen Mary, that had been printed originally in TOTTEL’S MISCELLANY in 1557, and has been attributed to John Heywood:
The difference between the severe beauty of Greek art and the luxury of modern taste — is felt in the contrast presented by the expressions which respectively designate them. — Τό καλον and beau idéal. The former is a chaste and reserved beauty — the ideal beau idéal — a pure core of light, which reminds us of the line “Her beauty twinkleth like a star within the frosty night.” It leaves our grosser duller conceptions, as the nucleus of a comet its lurid train, behind. The latter is more like the lurid flitting light of a will-o’-the wisp a meadowy boggey light — not a Ροδοδακτυλος εως HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
GIVE place, you ladies, and begone! Her rosial colour comes and goes Boast not yourselves at all! With such a comely grace, For here at hand approacheth one More ruddier, too, than doth the rose, Whose face will stain you all. Within her lively face.
The virtue of her lively looks At Bacchus’ feast none shall her meet, Excels the precious stone; Ne at no wanton play, I wish to have none other books Nor gazing in an open street, To read or look upon. Nor gadding as a stray.
In each of her two crystal eyes The modest mirth that she doth use Smileth a naked boy; Is mix’d with shamefastness; It would you all in heart suffice All vice she doth wholly refuse, To see that lamp of joy. And hateth idleness.
I think Nature hath lost the mould O Lord! it is a world to see Where she her shape did take; How virtue can repair, Or else I doubt if Nature could And deck in her such honesty, So fair a creature make. Whom Nature made so fair.
She may be well compared Truly she doth so far exceed Unto the Phoenix kind, Our women nowadays, Whose like was never seen or heard, As doth the jeliflower a weed; That any man can find. And more a thousand ways.
In life she is Diana chaste, How might I do to get a graff In troth Penelopey; Of this unspotted tree? In word and eke in deed steadfast. — For all the rest are plain but chaff, — What will you more we say? Which seem good corn to be.
If all the world were sought so far, This gift alone I shall her give; Who could find such a wight? When death doth what he can, Her beauty twinkleth like a star Her honest fame shall ever live Within the frosty night. Within the mouth of man. — John Heywood
WALDEN: Such was the part of creation where I had squatted;– “There was a shepherd that did live, And held his thoughts as high As were the mounts whereon his flocks Did hourly feed him by.” What should we think of the shepherd’s life if his flocks always wandered to higher pastures than his thoughts?
THE SHEPHERD’S LOVE FOR PHILLIDAY. [From the Muses Garden.]
There was a shepherd that did live, And held his thoughts as high, As were the mounts whereon his flocks HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
Did hourly feed him by. He from his youth, his tender youth. Which was unapt to keep Or hopes, or fears, or loves, or cares. Or thoughts but of his sheep ; Did with his dog as shepherds do. For shepherds wanting wit Devise some sports, though foolish sports. Yet sports for shepherds fit. The boy that yet was but a boy. And so desires were hid. Did grow a man, and men must love. And love this shepherd did. He loved much, none can too much Love one so high divine As but herself, none but herself So fair, so fresh, so fine, He vowed by his shepherd’s weed. An oath which shepherds keep, That he woidd follow Phillyday Before a flock of sheep.
A WEEK: In my short experience of human life, the outward PEOPLE OF obstacles, if there were any such, have not been living men, but A WEEK the institutions of the dead. It is grateful to make one’s way through this latest generation as through dewy grass. Men are as innocent as the morning to the unsuspicious. “And round about good morrows fly, As if day taught humanity.” Not being Reve of this Shire, “The early pilgrim blithe he hailed, That o’er the hills did stray, And many an early husbandman, That he met on the way”; — thieves and robbers all, nevertheless. I have not so surely foreseen that any Cossack or Chippeway would come to disturb the honest and simple commonwealth, as that some monster institution would at length embrace and crush its free members in its scaly folds; for it is not to be forgotten, that while the law holds fast the thief and murderer, it lets itself go loose. When I have not paid the tax which the State demanded for that protection which I did not want, itself has robbed me; when I have asserted the liberty it presumed to declare, itself has imprisoned me. Poor creature! if it knows no better I will not blame it. If it cannot live but by these means, I can.
CHARLES COTTON THOMAS EVANS HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
A WEEK: The violence of love is as much to be dreaded as that of PEOPLE OF hate. When it is durable it is serene and equable. Even its famous A WEEK pains begin only with the ebb of love, for few are indeed lovers, though all would fain be. It is one proof of a man’s fitness for Friendship that he is able to do without that which is cheap and passionate. A true Friendship is as wise as it is tender. The parties to it yield implicitly to the guidance of their love, and know no other law nor kindness. It is not extravagant and insane, but what it says is something established henceforth, and will bear to be stereotyped. It is a truer truth, it is better and fairer news, and no time will ever shame it, or prove it false. This is a plant which thrives best in a temperate zone, where summer and winter alternate with one another. The Friend is a necessarius, and meets his Friend on homely ground; not on carpets and cushions, but on the ground and on rocks they will sit, obeying the natural and primitive laws. They will meet without any outcry, and part without loud sorrow. Their relation implies such qualities as the warrior prizes; for it takes a valor to open the hearts of men as well as the gates of castles. It is not an idle sympathy and mutual consolation merely, but a heroic sympathy of aspiration and endeavor. “When manhood shall be matched so That fear can take no place, Then weary works make warriors Each other to embrace.”
RICHARD EDWARDES HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
1846
Fall: A reference to Sir Thomas Browne’s RELIGIO MEDICI appeared in Henry Thoreau’s journal:
Sir Thomas Browne says nobly for a Christian that “they only had the advantage of a bold and noble faith, who lived before his coming, and upon obscure prophecies and mystical types, could raise a belief.”
Thoreau included in his journal a snippet of Thomas Heywood that he had copied into his Literary Notebook from his reading of a 1637 comedy by Heywood entitled “The Fair Maid of the Exchange.” This has been alleged by the scholars to have been copied from an 1845 New-York edition in Emerson’s library, Charles Lamb’s SPECIMENS OF ENGLISH DRAMATIC POETS, WHO LIVED ABOUT THE TIME OF SHAKESPEARE (New- York: Wiley and Putnam, 161 Broadway, 1845): Nor speak I this, that any here exprest Should think themselves less worthy than the rest Whose names have their full syllables and sound; Or that Frank, Kit, or Jack, are the least wound Unto their fame and merit. I for my part (Think others what they please) accept that heart, Which courts my love in most familiar phrase; And that it takes not from my pains or praise, If any one to me so bluntly come: I hold he loves me best that calls me Tom. Thomas Heywood.
LAMB’S SPECIMENS, 1845
However, as you can see, that 1637 comedy is simply not present in this 1845 New-York edition. If it were that edition that Emerson had in his library, then Thoreau could only have obtained his access to this 1637 comedy elsewhere, such as for instance from pages 186-90 in this 1835 London edition: LAMB’S SPECIMENS, 1835
Thoreau included in his journal a snippet from “Specimens from the Writings of Fuller” in THE PROSE WORKS OF CHARLES LAMB (London: Edward Moxon, 1838):
If history is a lifeless record and dust accumulates in libraries as well as on the ruins of cities –and books may easily deceive or be mistaken– The traveller has not far to seek for more unquestionable and living testimony–As Fuller said commenting on the zeal of Camden –“A broken urn is a whole evidence; or an old gate still surviving, out of which the city is run out.” LAMB’S PROSE WORKS, I HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2015. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Prepared: January 21, 2015
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project John Heywood HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX
JOHN HEYWOOD JOHN HEYWOOD
Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with