Thomas Heywood (early
1570s—16 August1641) was a prominent
English playwright, actor and miscellaneous author whose peak period of activity falls between late
Elizabethan and early
Jacobean theatre.
Few details of Thomas Heywood's life have been documented with certainty. Most references indicate that the county of his birth was most likely
Lincolnshire, 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, whose death year is, again, uncertain, but indicated as having occurred not earlier that 1575 and not later than 1589.
Thomas 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.
Heywood's first play may have been
The Four Prentises of London (printed 1615, but acted some fifteen years earlier). This tale of four
apprentices who become
knights and travel to
Jerusalem may have been intended as a
burlesque of the old
romances, 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 Fletcher's travesty of the middle-class taste in drama,
The Knight of the Burning Pestle. Heywood's two-part
history plays King Edward the Fourth (printed 1600), and
If You Know Not Me, You Know Nobody, or, The Troubles of Queene Elizabeth (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 Gresham.
Heywood 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
farce; 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 Kindness (acted 1603; printed 1607), a domestic tragedy about an adulterous wife, and a widely admired
Plautine 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.
Thomas 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
Puritan 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 Jaggard's appropriation of two of Heywood's poems for the same year's edition of
The Passionate Pilgrim.
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 I and his queen three times in eight days.
According to writings of the period, Thomas Heywood had been living in Clerkenwell since 1623 and it was there, at St. James's Church 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.
rss feed