Blackwell Reference Online

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John Heywood spent most of his long life (c.1497–c.1578) in or near the English royal court, as a musician, boy and man. After a brief but obscure period at Broadgates Hall in Oxford University, he became a writer of interludes in the 1520s and a participant in their presentation for many years. He wrote poetry and later in life he published four collections of proverbs. He was a lifelong Catholic and maintained his religious faith through the vicissitudes of the onset of the Reformation at the time of the royal divorce and the subsequent changes in official religion at court in the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary (to whom he was closest), and Elizabeth I. It was only after the Elizabethan Act of Uniformity (1564) that he went into voluntary exile in the Low Countries. His family connections, arising from his marriage to Joan Rastell (by 1523), ensured that he was very close to the momentous changes in public affairs and many of his writings reflect his responses to them, embodying his Catholic viewpoint. His wife was the niece of Sir Thomas More, and Heywood worked with her father, John Rastell, and with her brother William, both of whom were active as printers during the 1520s and 1530s. His social position was sustained by royal patronage and gifts. King Henry's pension for his musical activities, beginning in 1529, was continued for the rest of his life and it was increased ... log in or subscribe to read full text