Thomas May
Encyclopedia
Thomas May was an English poet
, dramatist and historian
of the Renaissance
era.
, graduating B.A. in 1613.. He wrote his first published poem while at Cambridge, an untitled three-stanza contribution to the University's memorial collection of poems on the death of Henry Prince of Wales in 1612. Although the majority of this volume's poems are in Latin, May's (along with a few others) is in English. It uses the trope of Pythagorean transmigration, which he re-employs in later works.
in London. There is no record of what he did for the next five years.
During the 1620s May was associated with dramatic circles. In 1620 his romantic comedy, The Heir, was performed by the Players of the Revels. Although this company usually performed at the rowdy, open-air Red Bull Theatre
, May's play was first performed privately (according to its only published edition), and is tonally ill-suited to a plebeian city audience. During the early 1620s May befriended the courtier, poet and diplomat Thomas Carew
, who contributed a poem to the published text of The Heir in 1622, and probably also Philip Massinger
. Massinger wrote at least one play for the short-lived Revels company (The Virgin Martyr
, with Thomas Dekker) and shared May's generally Roman interests. In 1629 May wrote a commendatory poem for Massinger's The Roman Actor
, describing him as his 'very deserving friend'. May knew Ben Jonson
personally by the late 1620s, if not earlier.
In 1625 May was responsible for the verse translations in Kingsmill Long's translation of William Barclay's Arcadian political allegory.
Bellum Civile
. Lucan's is an unfinished narrative of the downfall of the Roman republic
in the civil wars
between Pompey
and Julius Caesar
: it laments the loss of republican liberty and institutions and condemns Caesar's immoral ambition. The first three books of May's translation appeared in 1626 and the full ten a year later (with different printers); it was reprinted in 1631, 1635 and 1650, each time with minor corrections. The 1627 edition boasted dedications of Books II to IX to prominent English noblemen, many of whom were actual or suspected opponents of Charles I
's ongoing attempts to tax without Parliament
. The overall work was dedicated to William, 2nd Earl of Devonshire. May compares the fortitude and patriotism of these aristocrats to the patrician heroes of Lucan's doomed republic. These dedications disappear from later editions and there is some evidence they were defaced or removed, possibly by censors.
In June 1627 May composed a poem celebrating Charles I as absolute ruler of the seas, probably as part of the upswell of support for the Isle de Rhé expedition. It re-uses the Pythagorean trope May first employed in his poem of 1612.
Cleopatra, although it isn’t known where or by whom; it was printed later in 1639. A manuscript version in the British Library, of uncertain date, contains a number of small but interesting textual variants. During the next few years he wrote two further classical tragedies, Antigone (published 1631) and Julia Agrippina (1639); the first was probably never staged but the second claims a 1628 performance on its title page. May’s tragedies are modelled on Jonson and are also plausibly influenced by Massinger; they concentrate on political themes, rather than erotic passions; Cleopatra and Antigone draw linguistically and thematically on Lucan.
During the later 1620s May also published two further translations of Latin poetry: Virgil
’s Georgics
(1628) and a selection from the Epigrams of Martial
(1629). The latter hints at biographical content, highlighting Martial’s poverty and his decision to abandon a legal career for poetry. Neither work was republished.
– hardly the best prospective patron.
in March 44 BC; it was republished in 1633 and 1650. This work may have led to May developing an appetite for historical poetry. He wrote works on Henry II
and Edward III
during the next five years, each also in seven-book form. All three works were aimed at and seemingly well-received at court
: they were dedicated to Charles I, probably with the king’s encouragement. It was later claimed that May was paid for these efforts. A story also survives of Charles intervening to prevent May being struck by a nobleman at a court entertainment. That said, May did not find regular employment at court and, with the exception of Carew, doesn’t seem to have been acquainted with the band of amorous, courtly Cavalier poets. This may have been in part due to a lack of shared interests: unlike the Cavaliers, May had no obvious interest in love poetry (no examples by him survive) or indeed erotic themes in general. If he wrote any significant court entertainments, they have perished.
the then Earl of Clarendon, Edward Hyde
, recorded that before the Civil War
he and May had belonged to a close-knit circle of lawyers and writers grouped around the heavyweight figure of Ben Jonson. This group seems to have been closer and more serious than the ‘tribe of Ben’, a group of writers who simply styled themselves on Jonson without necessarily knowing him well. According to Hyde, the grouping also contained Carew, John Selden
, the lawyer John Vaughan
(who was later one of Selden’s executors), Charles Cotton
and the courtier Sir Kenelme Digby
. There is some difficulty in identifying exactly when this circle was in operation, but it probably began during the 1620s: both Vaughan and Jonson wrote dedicatory poems to May’s translation of Lucan, and as we have seen Carew was friendly with May by 1622.
Together with Jonson (and probably because of him) May became intimate with Sir Kenelme Digby, later Jonson’s literary executor and sponsor of his 1640 Folio Works. Jonson and May were the first two poets in a manuscript collection of poems commemorating the unfortunate death of Digby’s wife, Venetia, in 1633. Their shared poetic concerns also surface in a short treatise written by Digby on Edmund Spenser
(Elizabethan author of The Faerie Queene
), apparently at May’s request. This work talks of Jonson as Spenser’s literary heir. May complimented Digby for his Spenserian criticism in an effusive sonnet
, and later dedicated the published version of Cleopatra to him.
Jonson died in 1637 and the following year May contributed an elegy
to the memorial collection Jonsonius Virbius: it began by comparing Jonson to Lucan. During the 1640s a story arose that May had expected to be given Jonson’s royal pension, and became disaffected when it passed instead to William Davenant
. This story was designed to paint May as an ingrate, and reflects less what he did or thought at the time than his later activities as a writer for the Parliamentary cause.
A comedy of May’s, The Old Couple, later published in 1658, claims to have been performed in 1636.
scholarship, and received dedications from a number of Dutch intellectuals including Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn and Nicolaus Heinsius. Letters from Heinsius's father Daniel to Patrick Young, the Royal Librarian, and John Selden indicate that May wrote the translation while in the Netherlands (on what business is unclear). It retained the Continuation’s dedication to Charles I, although it has plausibly been argued that it expresses greater hostility to Caesar and monarchy than the original.
of Strafford
before switching sides (Hyde) or retiring to his Welsh estates (Vaughan). Another ex-Jonsonian, John Selden
, remained a moderate and respected Parliamentarian until his death in the early 1650s.
eering, May was commissioned by the House of Commons to compose a History of the Parliament, which appeared in 1647 in Folio. A shining example of rhetorical humanist historiography
, complete with plentiful classical citations (especially from Lucan), May presented recent English history as the wrecking of a peaceful and prosperous Elizabethan polity
by the greed and stupidity of the Stuarts
.
In October 1649, following the regicide and the emergence of an English republican government, May contributed a dedicatory epistle to Charles Sydenham's attack on the Leveller John Lilburne, addressing the members of the Rump Parliament, Roman style, as 'Senators'. May's epistle counsels against legislating for greater freedom of conscience, arguing that it is alienating the regime from potential allies such as the Presbyterians. He dismisses Lilburne and fellow democratic agitators for having no landed interest in the kingdom (echoing the position taken up by Ireton in the Putney Debates of 1647) and warns MPs to heed the 'better sort'. The regicide and subsequent events are hailed as miracles of God.
In 1650 May published a revised history of Parliament eschewing (for the most part) classical citations and other rhetorical adornments in favour of a curt, Sallust
ian Latin prose style. First published in Latin in April 1650, the Breviarium was swiftly rendered into English, presumably by May himself, as the Breviarie; it appeared in June 1650.
In November 1650 May died. Royalist propaganda later held he had suffocated on the strings of his sleeping bonnet after a heavy drinking binge, but there is no particular reason to believe this: he was already fifty-five. The republicans Henry Marten and Thomas Chaloner were charged by the Council of State with seeing to May's 'burial', setting aside £100 for the purpose, and both men and Sir James Harrington with finding a replacement historian of Parliament. May was interred in Westminster Abbey
, his epitaph
(supposedly written by the journalist Marchamont Needham
) saluting him as the ‘defender of the English commonwealth [Vindex Reip. Anglicae]’. In later writings Nedham claims to have known May as a friend. The grave was removed in the Restoration.
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, dramatist and historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
of the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...
era.
Early life and career until 1630
May was born in Mayfield, Sussex, the son of Sir Thomas May, a minor courtier. He matriculated at Sidney Sussex, CambridgeUniversity of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, graduating B.A. in 1613.. He wrote his first published poem while at Cambridge, an untitled three-stanza contribution to the University's memorial collection of poems on the death of Henry Prince of Wales in 1612. Although the majority of this volume's poems are in Latin, May's (along with a few others) is in English. It uses the trope of Pythagorean transmigration, which he re-employs in later works.
Acquaintance with Carew, Massinger and Jonson
In 1615 May registered as a lawyer at Gray's InnGray's Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
in London. There is no record of what he did for the next five years.
During the 1620s May was associated with dramatic circles. In 1620 his romantic comedy, The Heir, was performed by the Players of the Revels. Although this company usually performed at the rowdy, open-air Red Bull Theatre
Red Bull Theatre
The Red Bull was a playhouse in London during the 17th century. For more than four decades, it entertained audiences drawn primarily from the northern suburbs, developing a reputation for rowdy, often disruptive audiences...
, May's play was first performed privately (according to its only published edition), and is tonally ill-suited to a plebeian city audience. During the early 1620s May befriended the courtier, poet and diplomat Thomas Carew
Thomas Carew
Thomas Carew was an English poet, among the 'Cavalier' group of Caroline poets.-Biography:He was the son of Sir Matthew Carew, master in chancery, and his wife, Alice daughter of Sir John Rivers, Lord Mayor of the City of London and widow of Ingpen...
, who contributed a poem to the published text of The Heir in 1622, and probably also Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger was an English dramatist. His finely plotted plays, including A New Way to Pay Old Debts, The City Madam and The Roman Actor, are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and social themes.-Early life:The son of Arthur Massinger or Messenger, he was baptized at St....
. Massinger wrote at least one play for the short-lived Revels company (The Virgin Martyr
The Virgin Martyr
The Virgin Martyr is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragedy written by Thomas Dekker and Philip Massinger, and first published in 1622. It constitutes a rare instance in Masssinger's canon in which he collaborated with a member of the previous generation of English Renaissance dramatists —...
, with Thomas Dekker) and shared May's generally Roman interests. In 1629 May wrote a commendatory poem for Massinger's The Roman Actor
The Roman Actor
The Roman Actor is a Caroline era stage play, a tragedy written by Philip Massinger; it was first performed in 1626, and first published in 1629...
, describing him as his 'very deserving friend'. May knew Ben Jonson
Ben Jonson
Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems...
personally by the late 1620s, if not earlier.
In 1625 May was responsible for the verse translations in Kingsmill Long's translation of William Barclay's Arcadian political allegory.
Bellum Civile translation
May's career-defining work was his translation of the Latin poet Lucan'sMarcus Annaeus Lucanus
Marcus Annaeus Lucanus , better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, born in Corduba , in the Hispania Baetica. Despite his short life, he is regarded as one of the outstanding figures of the Imperial Latin period...
Bellum Civile
Pharsalia
The Pharsalia is a Roman epic poem by the poet Lucan, telling of the civil war between Julius Caesar and the forces of the Roman Senate led by Pompey the Great...
. Lucan's is an unfinished narrative of the downfall of the Roman republic
Roman Republic
The Roman Republic was the period of the ancient Roman civilization where the government operated as a republic. It began with the overthrow of the Roman monarchy, traditionally dated around 508 BC, and its replacement by a government headed by two consuls, elected annually by the citizens and...
in the civil wars
Roman civil wars
There were several Roman civil wars, especially during the late Republic. The most famous of these are the war in the 40s BC between Julius Caesar and the optimate faction of the senatorial elite initially led by Pompey and the subsequent war between Caesar's successors, Octavian and Mark Antony in...
between Pompey
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
and Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
: it laments the loss of republican liberty and institutions and condemns Caesar's immoral ambition. The first three books of May's translation appeared in 1626 and the full ten a year later (with different printers); it was reprinted in 1631, 1635 and 1650, each time with minor corrections. The 1627 edition boasted dedications of Books II to IX to prominent English noblemen, many of whom were actual or suspected opponents of Charles I
Charles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
's ongoing attempts to tax without Parliament
Ship money
Ship money refers to a tax that Charles I of England tried to levy without the consent of Parliament. This tax, which was only applied to coastal towns during a time of war, was intended to offset the cost of defending that part of the coast, and could be paid in actual ships or the equivalent value...
. The overall work was dedicated to William, 2nd Earl of Devonshire. May compares the fortitude and patriotism of these aristocrats to the patrician heroes of Lucan's doomed republic. These dedications disappear from later editions and there is some evidence they were defaced or removed, possibly by censors.
In June 1627 May composed a poem celebrating Charles I as absolute ruler of the seas, probably as part of the upswell of support for the Isle de Rhé expedition. It re-uses the Pythagorean trope May first employed in his poem of 1612.
Other works and translations
1626 also saw the performance of May’s tragedyTragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
Cleopatra, although it isn’t known where or by whom; it was printed later in 1639. A manuscript version in the British Library, of uncertain date, contains a number of small but interesting textual variants. During the next few years he wrote two further classical tragedies, Antigone (published 1631) and Julia Agrippina (1639); the first was probably never staged but the second claims a 1628 performance on its title page. May’s tragedies are modelled on Jonson and are also plausibly influenced by Massinger; they concentrate on political themes, rather than erotic passions; Cleopatra and Antigone draw linguistically and thematically on Lucan.
During the later 1620s May also published two further translations of Latin poetry: Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
’s Georgics
Georgics
The Georgics is a poem in four books, likely published in 29 BC. It is the second major work by the Latin poet Virgil, following his Eclogues and preceding the Aeneid. It is a poem that draws on many prior sources and influenced many later authors from antiquity to the present...
(1628) and a selection from the Epigrams of Martial
Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis , was a Latin poet from Hispania best known for his twelve books of Epigrams, published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan...
(1629). The latter hints at biographical content, highlighting Martial’s poverty and his decision to abandon a legal career for poetry. Neither work was republished.
May in the 1630s
Until 1630 May seems to have lacked much reward or recognition for his literary efforts. None of the dedicatees to his early works, including the eight titled nobles addressed in his 1627 translation of Lucan, can be connected to his later activities. In dedicating his Georgics May even turned to a fellow alumnus of his old college, Sir Christopher Gardiner, a well-known Catholic philanderer who left shortly afterwards for the New WorldNew World
The New World is one of the names used for the Western Hemisphere, specifically America and sometimes Oceania . The term originated in the late 15th century, when America had been recently discovered by European explorers, expanding the geographical horizon of the people of the European middle...
– hardly the best prospective patron.
Continuation
May’s fortunes probably improved towards the end of the decade. In 1630 a seven-book Continuation of Lucan appeared, in which May took the narrative up to Caesar’s assassinationAssassination of Julius Caesar
The assassination of Julius Caesar was the result of a conspiracy by approximately forty Roman senators who called themselves Liberators. Led by Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus, they stabbed Julius Caesar to death in the Theatre of Pompey on the Ides of March 44 BC...
in March 44 BC; it was republished in 1633 and 1650. This work may have led to May developing an appetite for historical poetry. He wrote works on Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
and Edward III
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
during the next five years, each also in seven-book form. All three works were aimed at and seemingly well-received at court
Noble court
The court of a monarch, or at some periods an important nobleman, is a term for the extended household and all those who regularly attended on the ruler or central figure...
: they were dedicated to Charles I, probably with the king’s encouragement. It was later claimed that May was paid for these efforts. A story also survives of Charles intervening to prevent May being struck by a nobleman at a court entertainment. That said, May did not find regular employment at court and, with the exception of Carew, doesn’t seem to have been acquainted with the band of amorous, courtly Cavalier poets. This may have been in part due to a lack of shared interests: unlike the Cavaliers, May had no obvious interest in love poetry (no examples by him survive) or indeed erotic themes in general. If he wrote any significant court entertainments, they have perished.
May and Ben Jonson
May did have acquaintances. After the RestorationEnglish Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
the then Earl of Clarendon, Edward Hyde
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon was an English historian and statesman, and grandfather of two English monarchs, Mary II and Queen Anne.-Early life:...
, recorded that before the Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
he and May had belonged to a close-knit circle of lawyers and writers grouped around the heavyweight figure of Ben Jonson. This group seems to have been closer and more serious than the ‘tribe of Ben’, a group of writers who simply styled themselves on Jonson without necessarily knowing him well. According to Hyde, the grouping also contained Carew, John Selden
John Selden
John Selden was an English jurist and a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law...
, the lawyer John Vaughan
John Vaughan (judge)
Sir John Vaughan SL , of Trawsgoed, was a British justice.-Life:He was born in Ceredigion, Wales, the eldest of eight children of Edward Vaughan and his wife Letitia Stedman of Strata Florida, and was educated initially at The King's School, Worcester between 1613 and 1618, when he was admitted to...
(who was later one of Selden’s executors), Charles Cotton
Charles Cotton
Charles Cotton was an English poet and writer, best known for translating the work of Michel de Montaigne from the French, for his contributions to The Compleat Angler, and for the highly influential The Compleat Gamester which has been attributed to him.-Early life:He was born at Beresford Hall...
and the courtier Sir Kenelme Digby
Kenelm Digby
Sir Kenelm Digby was an English courtier and diplomat. He was also a highly reputed natural philosopher, and known as a leading Roman Catholic intellectual and Blackloist. For his versatility, Anthony à Wood called him the "magazine of all arts".-Early life and career:He was born at Gayhurst,...
. There is some difficulty in identifying exactly when this circle was in operation, but it probably began during the 1620s: both Vaughan and Jonson wrote dedicatory poems to May’s translation of Lucan, and as we have seen Carew was friendly with May by 1622.
Together with Jonson (and probably because of him) May became intimate with Sir Kenelme Digby, later Jonson’s literary executor and sponsor of his 1640 Folio Works. Jonson and May were the first two poets in a manuscript collection of poems commemorating the unfortunate death of Digby’s wife, Venetia, in 1633. Their shared poetic concerns also surface in a short treatise written by Digby on Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser
Edmund Spenser was an English poet best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I. He is recognised as one of the premier craftsmen of Modern English verse in its infancy, and one of the greatest poets in the English...
(Elizabethan author of The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English...
), apparently at May’s request. This work talks of Jonson as Spenser’s literary heir. May complimented Digby for his Spenserian criticism in an effusive sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
, and later dedicated the published version of Cleopatra to him.
Jonson died in 1637 and the following year May contributed an elegy
Elegy
In literature, an elegy is a mournful, melancholic or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead.-History:The Greek term elegeia originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter, including epitaphs for tombs...
to the memorial collection Jonsonius Virbius: it began by comparing Jonson to Lucan. During the 1640s a story arose that May had expected to be given Jonson’s royal pension, and became disaffected when it passed instead to William Davenant
William Davenant
Sir William Davenant , also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil...
. This story was designed to paint May as an ingrate, and reflects less what he did or thought at the time than his later activities as a writer for the Parliamentary cause.
A comedy of May’s, The Old Couple, later published in 1658, claims to have been performed in 1636.
The 1640s: May and Parliament
In 1640 May published a Latin adaptation and translation of his Continuation of Lucan, the Supplementum Lucani. Befitting a major work of neo-Latin poetry it was published in Leiden, one of the centres of continental humanistRenaissance humanism
Renaissance humanism was an activity of cultural and educational reform engaged by scholars, writers, and civic leaders who are today known as Renaissance humanists. It developed during the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth centuries, and was a response to the challenge of Mediæval...
scholarship, and received dedications from a number of Dutch intellectuals including Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn and Nicolaus Heinsius. Letters from Heinsius's father Daniel to Patrick Young, the Royal Librarian, and John Selden indicate that May wrote the translation while in the Netherlands (on what business is unclear). It retained the Continuation’s dedication to Charles I, although it has plausibly been argued that it expresses greater hostility to Caesar and monarchy than the original.
Parliamentarian views
During the early 1640s – it is unclear when – May gravitated towards support for Parliament. In 1642, he wrote a tract supporting brief but regular meetings between King and Parliament, probably to agitate for the Triennial Act, which was much republished. It contained harsh criticism of princes (like Charles I) who had sought to rule without consulting Parliament, but also warned against allowing the people too much responsibility, equating popular government with damaging innovation and turbulence. May emerges in this work, his only explicit statement of political analysis or belief, as a cautious and conservative thinker, distrustful of awarding too much power to any one body, and therefore implicitly a constitutionalist Parliamentarian. This stance was shared by other members of the former Jonson circle, such as Hyde or Vaughan, until late 1642: both had participated in early reforms such as the Bill of attainderBill of attainder
A bill of attainder is an act of a legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a judicial trial.-English law:...
of Strafford
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford
Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford was an English statesman and a major figure in the period leading up to the English Civil War. He served in Parliament and was a supporter of King Charles I. From 1632 to 1639 he instituted a harsh rule as Lord Deputy of Ireland...
before switching sides (Hyde) or retiring to his Welsh estates (Vaughan). Another ex-Jonsonian, John Selden
John Selden
John Selden was an English jurist and a scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution and scholar of Jewish law...
, remained a moderate and respected Parliamentarian until his death in the early 1650s.
History of the Parliament and the Breviarium
Partly as a result of his early pamphletPamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
eering, May was commissioned by the House of Commons to compose a History of the Parliament, which appeared in 1647 in Folio. A shining example of rhetorical humanist historiography
Historiography
Historiography refers either to the study of the history and methodology of history as a discipline, or to a body of historical work on a specialized topic...
, complete with plentiful classical citations (especially from Lucan), May presented recent English history as the wrecking of a peaceful and prosperous Elizabethan polity
Polity
Polity is a form of government Aristotle developed in his search for a government that could be most easily incorporated and used by the largest amount of people groups, or states...
by the greed and stupidity of the Stuarts
House of Stuart
The House of Stuart is a European royal house. Founded by Robert II of Scotland, the Stewarts first became monarchs of the Kingdom of Scotland during the late 14th century, and subsequently held the position of the Kings of Great Britain and Ireland...
.
In October 1649, following the regicide and the emergence of an English republican government, May contributed a dedicatory epistle to Charles Sydenham's attack on the Leveller John Lilburne, addressing the members of the Rump Parliament, Roman style, as 'Senators'. May's epistle counsels against legislating for greater freedom of conscience, arguing that it is alienating the regime from potential allies such as the Presbyterians. He dismisses Lilburne and fellow democratic agitators for having no landed interest in the kingdom (echoing the position taken up by Ireton in the Putney Debates of 1647) and warns MPs to heed the 'better sort'. The regicide and subsequent events are hailed as miracles of God.
In 1650 May published a revised history of Parliament eschewing (for the most part) classical citations and other rhetorical adornments in favour of a curt, Sallust
Sallust
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, generally known simply as Sallust , a Roman historian, belonged to a well-known plebeian family, and was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines...
ian Latin prose style. First published in Latin in April 1650, the Breviarium was swiftly rendered into English, presumably by May himself, as the Breviarie; it appeared in June 1650.
In November 1650 May died. Royalist propaganda later held he had suffocated on the strings of his sleeping bonnet after a heavy drinking binge, but there is no particular reason to believe this: he was already fifty-five. The republicans Henry Marten and Thomas Chaloner were charged by the Council of State with seeing to May's 'burial', setting aside £100 for the purpose, and both men and Sir James Harrington with finding a replacement historian of Parliament. May was interred in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
, his epitaph
Epitaph
An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that is inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial...
(supposedly written by the journalist Marchamont Needham
Marchamont Needham
Marchamont Needham was a journalist, publisher and pamphleteer during the English Civil War, who wrote official news and propaganda for both sides of the conflict....
) saluting him as the ‘defender of the English commonwealth [Vindex Reip. Anglicae]’. In later writings Nedham claims to have known May as a friend. The grave was removed in the Restoration.