Richard Edwardes
{{other people||Richard Edwards (disambiguation)}}
{{short description|16th-century English writer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2015}}
{{Use British English|date=August 2015}}
Richard Edwardes (also Edwards, circa 1523 – 31 October 1566) was an English poet, playwright, and composer; he was made a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and was master of the singing boys. He was known for his comedies and interludes.
Life
Richard Edwardes was born around 1523 in Somerset.{{cite DNB |wstitle= Edwards, Richard |volume= 17 |last= Bullen |first= Arthur Henry |author-link= Arthur Henry Bullen |page= 125 |short= 1}}
Edwardes began his studies at Corpus Christi College, Oxford in May 1540 and joined Christ Church, Oxford as it opened in 1546. He joined Lincoln's Inn but did not take up law as a career. He joined the Chapel Royal by 1557 and was appointed Master of the Children in 1561. He married Helene Griffith in 1563.{{cite book|title=The Mistresses of Henry VIII |first=Kelly| last=Hart |edition=First |date=1 June 2009 |page=[https://archive.org/details/mistressesofhenr0000hart/page/23 23] |publisher=The History Press |isbn=978-0-7524-4835-0 |url=https://archive.org/details/mistressesofhenr0000hart|url-access=registration }} After he died in 1566, he was succeeded by William Hunnis.{{Cite Grove1900 |wstitle= Edwards, Richard |volume= 1:16 | page= 483 |last= Husk |first= William Henry |author-link= William Henry Husk |year=1900 |short=1}}
Works
=Plays=
In 1566, Edwardes' Palamon and Arcite was performed before Elizabeth I at Oxford when the stage fell — three people died and five were injured as a result. Despite the tragic accident, the show continued to play that night.
The excellent Comedie of two the moste faithfullest Freendes, Damon and Pithias (written in 1564, published in 1571), a comedy, is his only extant play.
=Poems=
Ten of Edwardes' poems appear in the first edition of the Paradise of Dainty Devices, though publisher Henry Disle says the poems are "written for the most part by M. [Master] Edwards." Edwardes possibly compiled the manuscript on which the Paradise of Dainty Devices is based.
=Verses on the court of Mary I=
Verses by Edwardes describe eight ladies in waiting to Mary I of England, and particularly praise the beauty of Jane Dormer, "of lively hue", and Frances Bayneham, "as beautiful as nature can devise".Ros King, The Collected Works of Richard Edwards: Politics, Poetry and Performance in Sixteenth-Century England (Manchester, 2001), pp. 19, 187–188: David Loades, Mary Tudor (Blackwell, 1989), p. 140: David Loades, The Tudor Court (Headstart, 1992), pp. 210–214. The ladies were named as Howard, Dacres, Baynam, Arundel, Dormer, Mansell, Cooke, and Bridges.Ros King, The Collected Works of Richard Edwards: Politics, Poetry and Performance in Sixteenth-Century England (Manchester, 2001), pp. 231-2. The verses are found in a British Library manuscript, (Cotton MS Titus A XIV), and were not included in the Paradise.Hannah Leah Crummé, 'Jane Dormer's Recipe for Politics', Nadine Akkerman & Birgit Houben, The Politics of Female Households: Ladies-in-waiting across Early Modern Europe (Brill, 2014), p. 54.Thomas Park, Nugae Antiquae, 2 (London, 1804), 392–94 citing BL Cotton Titus A. xxiv.
=Music=
Edwardes was less well known as a composer, but several of his compositions survive, including three pieces in the Mulliner Book: "O the syllye man," ascribed to him by the book, and two anonymous pieces usually attributed to him, "In goinge to my naked bedde" and "When grypinge griefes." Other pieces include a song from Damon and Pithias, "Awake, ye woeful wights," and a setting of the Lord's Prayer in Richard Day's Psalter of 1563.
References
{{Reflist}}
Sources
- {{SBDEL |wstitle= Edwards, Richard |volume= | page= 128 |last= Cousin |first= John William |author-link= John William Cousin |year=1910|short=1}}
- Paradise of Dainty Devices (linked below)
External links
{{wikiquote}}
- [http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=9014 Literary Encyclopedia - Damon and Pythias]
- [http://www.elizabethanauthors.com/damon101.htm Damon and Pythias online] dead link
- [https://archive.org/details/paradiseofdainty027377mbp Paradise of Dainty Devices online]
{{Authority control}}
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Category:16th-century English composers
Category:16th-century English dramatists and playwrights
Category:16th-century English male writers
Category:16th-century English poets
Category:English male dramatists and playwrights
Category:English Renaissance dramatists