Thomas Preston (writer)
Encyclopedia
Thomas Preston was an English
master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
and possibly a dramatist.
, in 1537, and was educated at Eton
and at King's College, Cambridge
, where he was elected scholar, 16 Aug. 1553, and fellow, 18 Sept. 1556. He graduated B.A. in 1557 and M.A. in 1561. When Queen Elizabeth
visited Cambridge in August 1564, he attracted the royal favor by his performance of a part in the tragedy of Dido, and by disputing in philosophy with Thomas Cartwright in the royal presence. He also addressed the queen in a Latin
oration on her departure, when she invited him to kiss her hand, and gave him a pension of 20l. a year, with the title of "her scholar." He served as proctor
in the university in 1565. In 1572 he was directed by the authorities of his college to study civil law, and four years later proceeded to the degree of LL.D. In 1581 he resigned his fellowship. He seems to have joined the College of Advocates. In 1584 he was appointed master of Trinity Hall, and he served as vice-chancellor of the university in 1589-90.
Preston died on 1 June 1598, and was buried in the chapel of Trinity Hall. A monumental brass near the altar, placed there by his wife Alice, bears a Latin inscription and a full-length effigy of him in the habit of a Cambridge doctor of laws.
. It was reprinted in Hawkins's Origin of the English Drama (i. 143) and in Dodsley
's Old English Drama (ed. Hazlitt
, iv. 157 sq.). A reference to the death of Bishop Bonner
in September 1569 shows that the piece was produced after that date.
The play illustrates the transition from the morality play
to historical drama. The dramatis personae include allegorical
figures (e.g. Cruelty, Small Ability) as well as historical personages (such as the title character, Cambyses II of Persia
). The plot, characterization, and language are rugged and uncouth. Murder and bloodshed abound. The play is largely written in rhyming fourteener
couplets, with some irregular heroic verse
(as in the speeches of the comic character Ambidexter). The bombastic grandiloquence of the piece became proverbial, and Shakespeare
is believed to allude to it when he makes Falstaff
say "I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein" (Henry IV, Part 1
, ii.4).
On the other hand, Émile Legouis has noted, "The marked and yet artless bad taste of the style has thrown doubt on the authorship, yet the play shows signs of having been written by a humanist
, for Herodotus
is followed step by step, and there are many mythological reminiscences." But it has since been argued that the Herodotean account may have been mediated by a chronicle
such as Johann Carion
's Chronica; a more recent refinement of this theory suggests that Preston used Richard Taverner
's 1539 The Garden of Wysedom, which drew on Carion.
entitled A Lamentation from Rome how the Pope doth bewayle the Rebelles in England cannot prevayle. To the tune of "How well, ye mariners" (London by William Griffith, 1570; reprinted in Collier's Old Ballads, edited for the Percy Society
, and in the Borderer's Table Book by Moses Aaron Richardson
, vii. 154). This ballad is written "in the person of a fly who happens to be lodged in the pope
's nose when news comes about the Catholic uprising in the north of England
" and describes the pope raging and hurling furniture, to the fly's terror. Another ballad, titled A Ballad from the Countrie, sent to showe how we should Fast this Lente is extant and dated 1589. Both the surviving ballads, as well as Cambyses, are subscribed at the end "Quod Thomas Preston".
A third ballad by Preston, not now extant, A geliflower of swete marygolde, wherein the frutes of tyranny you may beholde, was licensed for publication to William Griffith, 1569-70.
and Paul Fagius
(1560), and to Nicholas Carr
's Latin translation of seven orations of Demosthenes
(London, 1571).
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Trinity Hall, Cambridge
Trinity Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It is the fifth-oldest college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich.- Foundation :...
and possibly a dramatist.
Life
Preston was born at Simpson, BuckinghamshireSimpson, Milton Keynes
Simpson is a village and civil parish in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. It was one of the former villages of Buckinghamshire that was included in the New City in 1967. It is located south of the centre, just north of Fenny Stratford, near Walton....
, in 1537, and was educated at Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
and at King's College, Cambridge
King's College, Cambridge
King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college's full name is "The King's College of our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge", but it is usually referred to simply as "King's" within the University....
, where he was elected scholar, 16 Aug. 1553, and fellow, 18 Sept. 1556. He graduated B.A. in 1557 and M.A. in 1561. When Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
visited Cambridge in August 1564, he attracted the royal favor by his performance of a part in the tragedy of Dido, and by disputing in philosophy with Thomas Cartwright in the royal presence. He also addressed the queen in a Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
oration on her departure, when she invited him to kiss her hand, and gave him a pension of 20l. a year, with the title of "her scholar." He served as proctor
Proctor
Proctor, a variant of the word procurator, is a person who takes charge of, or acts for, another. The word proctor is frequently used to describe someone who oversees an exam or dormitory.The title is used in England in three principal senses:...
in the university in 1565. In 1572 he was directed by the authorities of his college to study civil law, and four years later proceeded to the degree of LL.D. In 1581 he resigned his fellowship. He seems to have joined the College of Advocates. In 1584 he was appointed master of Trinity Hall, and he served as vice-chancellor of the university in 1589-90.
Preston died on 1 June 1598, and was buried in the chapel of Trinity Hall. A monumental brass near the altar, placed there by his wife Alice, bears a Latin inscription and a full-length effigy of him in the habit of a Cambridge doctor of laws.
Cambyses
Preston was a pioneer of the English drama, and published in 1569 A lamentable tragedy mixed ful of pleaſant mirth,conteyning the life of CAMBISES King of PERCIA, from the beginning of his kingdome vnto his death, his one good deed of execution, after that many wicked deeds and tirannous murders, committed by and through him, and laſt of all, his odious death by Gods Juſtice appointed, Don in ſuch order as fololueth. By Thomas Preston. There are two undated editions: one by John Allde, who obtained a license for its publication in 1569, and another by Edward AlldeEdward Allde
Edward Allde was an English printer in London during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras. He was responsible for a number of significant texts in English Renaissance drama, including some of the early editions of plays by William Shakespeare.-Life:Edward Allde was part of a family of professional...
. It was reprinted in Hawkins's Origin of the English Drama (i. 143) and in Dodsley
Robert Dodsley
Robert Dodsley was an English bookseller and miscellaneous writer.-Life:He was born near Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, where his father was master of the free school....
's Old English Drama (ed. Hazlitt
William Carew Hazlitt
William Carew Hazlitt was an English bibliographer.The son of barrister and registrar William Hazlitt and grandson of essayist and critic William Hazlitt, Hazlitt was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School and was called to the bar of the Inner Temple in 1861...
, iv. 157 sq.). A reference to the death of Bishop Bonner
Edmund Bonner
Edmund Bonner , Bishop of London, was an English bishop. Initially an instrumental figure in the schism of Henry VIII from Rome, he was antagonized by the Protestant reforms introduced by Somerset and reconciled himself to Roman Catholicism...
in September 1569 shows that the piece was produced after that date.
The play illustrates the transition from the morality play
Morality play
The morality play is a genre of Medieval and early Tudor theatrical entertainment. In their own time, these plays were known as "interludes", a broader term given to dramas with or without a moral theme. Morality plays are a type of allegory in which the protagonist is met by personifications of...
to historical drama. The dramatis personae include allegorical
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
figures (e.g. Cruelty, Small Ability) as well as historical personages (such as the title character, Cambyses II of Persia
Cambyses II of Persia
Cambyses II son of Cyrus the Great , was a king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire. Cambyses's grandfather was Cambyses I, king of Anshan. Following Cyrus the Great's conquest of the Near East and Central Asia, Cambyses II further expanded the empire into Egypt during the Late Period by defeating...
). The plot, characterization, and language are rugged and uncouth. Murder and bloodshed abound. The play is largely written in rhyming fourteener
Fourteener (poetry)
A Fourteener, in poetry, is a line consisting of 14 syllables, usually having 7 iambic heptametric feet, most commonly found in English poetry produced in the 16th and 17th centuries...
couplets, with some irregular heroic verse
Heroic verse
Heroic verse consists of the rhymed iambic line or heroic couplet. The term is used in English exclusively.In ancient literature, heroic verse was synonymous with the dactylic hexameter. It was in this measure that those typically heroic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey and the Aeneid were written...
(as in the speeches of the comic character Ambidexter). The bombastic grandiloquence of the piece became proverbial, and Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
is believed to allude to it when he makes Falstaff
Falstaff
Sir John Falstaff is a fictional character who appears in three plays by William Shakespeare. In the two Henry IV plays, he is a companion to Prince Hal, the future King Henry V. A fat, vain, boastful, and cowardly knight, Falstaff leads the apparently wayward Prince Hal into trouble, and is...
say "I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses' vein" (Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 1
Henry IV, Part 1 is a history play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written no later than 1597. It is the second play in Shakespeare's tetralogy dealing with the successive reigns of Richard II, Henry IV , and Henry V...
, ii.4).
Preston's authorship
Critics objecting to the style of Cambyses have doubted whether the playwright may not have been a different Thomas Preston. M. Channing Linthicum lists some of these possibilities:Those who dislike to think of Cambyses as even a puerile attempt of the Latin scholar Thomas Preston, may entertain ChambersEdmund Kerchever ChambersSir Edmund Kerchever Chambers was an English literary critic and Shakespearean scholar. His four-volume history of Elizabethan theater, published in 1923, remains a standard resource for scholars of the period's drama....
' suggestion that it may have been composed by a popular writer of the same name. He mentions, (Elizabethan Stage, III, 469), a "quarterly waiter at Court" under Edward VIEdward VI of EnglandEdward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...
, and a choirmaster at WindsorThomas Preston (composer)Thomas Preston was an English organist and composer who held posts at Magdalen College, Oxford, Trinity College, Cambridge, and St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle.-Further reading:...
. A "gentleman waiter" of this name was detailed to the service of the Princess of CastileCrown of CastileThe Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
in 1514 (see Letters & Papers of Henry VIIIHenry VIII of EnglandHenry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
, I, ii, entry 2656 [6]); a Thomas Preston was rewarded by Princess Mary TudorMary I of EnglandMary I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death.She was the only surviving child born of the ill-fated marriage of Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded Henry in 1547...
, 1537 (see MaddenFrederic MaddenSir Frederic Madden , was an English palaeographer.-Biography:Madden was the son of an officer of Irish extraction, he was born at Portsmouth. From his childhood he displayed a flair for linguistic and antiquarian studies...
, Privy Purse Expenses of Princess Mary, 59); in 1544, Thomas Preston—presumably the same person—was granted, as the King's "servant" a tenement "called le Crystofer in St Botulphs parishe without Aldrychgate" (see Letters & Papers of Henry VIII, XIX, i, p. 644); "le messuage called le White Beare" was said in 1548, to have been "lately in tenure of Thomas Preston" (see Cal. Pat. RollsPatent RollsThe Patent Rolls are primary sources for English history, a record of the King of England's correspondence, starting in 1202....
, July 25, 1548, m. 34). None of these—if they were different persons—is termed writer or "player," but the references show that the name was not uncommon in London, and the subject needs to be investigated.
On the other hand, Émile Legouis has noted, "The marked and yet artless bad taste of the style has thrown doubt on the authorship, yet the play shows signs of having been written by a humanist
Renaissance 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...
, for Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
is followed step by step, and there are many mythological reminiscences." But it has since been argued that the Herodotean account may have been mediated by a chronicle
Chronicle
Generally a chronicle is a historical account of facts and events ranged in chronological order, as in a time line. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and local events, the purpose being the recording of events that occurred, seen from the perspective of the...
such as Johann Carion
Johann Carion
Johann Carion was a German astrologer, known also for historical writings.-Life:He was court astrologer to Joachim I, Elector of Brandenburg. A prognostication he published in 1521 gained him a later reputation of having predicted the Protestant Reformation, as well as a major flood in 1525 and...
's Chronica; a more recent refinement of this theory suggests that Preston used Richard Taverner
Richard Taverner
Richard Taverner is best known for his Bible translation, The Most Sacred Bible whiche is the holy scripture, conteyning the old and new testament, translated into English, and newly recognized with great diligence after most faythful exemplars by Rychard Taverner, commonly known as Taverner's...
's 1539 The Garden of Wysedom, which drew on Carion.
Ballads
Preston (or the author of Cambyses) also wrote a broadside balladBroadside (music)
A broadside is a single sheet of cheap paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations...
entitled A Lamentation from Rome how the Pope doth bewayle the Rebelles in England cannot prevayle. To the tune of "How well, ye mariners" (London by William Griffith, 1570; reprinted in Collier's Old Ballads, edited for the Percy Society
Percy Society
The Percy Society was a British book-club. It was founded in 1840 and collapsed in 1852.It was a scholarly collective, aimed at publishing limited-edition books of rare poems and songs...
, and in the Borderer's Table Book by Moses Aaron Richardson
Moses Aaron Richardson
-Life:He was the younger son of George Richardson , master of Blackett's charity school, Newcastle; his elder brother was Thomas Miles Richardson, the artist...
, vii. 154). This ballad is written "in the person of a fly who happens to be lodged in the pope
Pope Pius V
Pope Saint Pius V , born Antonio Ghislieri , was Pope from 1566 to 1572 and is a saint of the Catholic Church. He is chiefly notable for his role in the Council of Trent, the Counter-Reformation, and the standardization of the Roman liturgy within the Latin Church...
's nose when news comes about the Catholic uprising in the north of England
Rising of the North
The Rising of the North of 1569, also called the Revolt of the Northern Earls or Northern Rebellion, was an unsuccessful attempt by Catholic nobles from Northern England to depose Queen Elizabeth I of England and replace her with Mary, Queen of Scots.-Background:When Elizabeth I succeeded her...
" and describes the pope raging and hurling furniture, to the fly's terror. Another ballad, titled A Ballad from the Countrie, sent to showe how we should Fast this Lente is extant and dated 1589. Both the surviving ballads, as well as Cambyses, are subscribed at the end "Quod Thomas Preston".
A third ballad by Preston, not now extant, A geliflower of swete marygolde, wherein the frutes of tyranny you may beholde, was licensed for publication to William Griffith, 1569-70.
Latin works
Besides the orations connected to the queen's 1564 Cambridge visit, Preston contributed Latin verses to the university collection on the restitution of Martin BucerMartin Bucer
Martin Bucer was a Protestant reformer based in Strasbourg who influenced Lutheran, Calvinist, and Anglican doctrines and practices. Bucer was originally a member of the Dominican Order, but after meeting and being influenced by Martin Luther in 1518 he arranged for his monastic vows to be annulled...
and Paul Fagius
Paul Fagius
Paul Fagius was a Renaissance scholar of Biblical Hebrew.-Life:Fagius was born at Rheinzabern in 1504. His father was a teacher and council clerk. In 1515 he went to study at the University of Heidelberg and in 1518 was present at the Heidelberg Disputation...
(1560), and to Nicholas Carr
Nicholas Carr (professor)
Nicholas Carr, M.D. was an English classical scholar, regius professor of Greek at Cambridge in 1547, and a physician.-Life:He was born at Newcastle, and at an early age was sent to Christ's College, Cambridge, where he studied under Cuthbert Scot. He subsequently migrated to Pembroke Hall, where...
's Latin translation of seven orations of Demosthenes
Demosthenes
Demosthenes was a prominent Greek statesman and orator of ancient Athens. His orations constitute a significant expression of contemporary Athenian intellectual prowess and provide an insight into the politics and culture of ancient Greece during the 4th century BC. Demosthenes learned rhetoric by...
(London, 1571).
Editions of Cambyses
- Craik, T.W. (1974) Minor Elizabethan tragedies, new ed. London. Dent.
- Creeth, E. (1966) Tudor plays: an anthology of early English drama. Garden City. Anchor/Doubleday.
- Fraser, R.A. and Rabkin, N.C. (1976) Drama of the English Renaissance, vol. 1. New York. Macmillan.
- Johnson, R.C. (1975) A critical edition of Thomas Preston's Cambises. Salzburg. Institut für Englische Sprache und Literatur, Universität Salzburg.
External links
- Dodsley/Hazlitt edition of Cambyses: Google Books copy 1, Google Books copy 2, archive.org
- Cambises, plaintext ed. Gerard NeCastro (closer to original spelling) in his collection Medieval and Renaissance Drama
- Wynne's Growth of English Drama (gutenberg.org) - discusses the place of Cambyses in the tradition of Interludes (intermedii) and includes a summary of the play's grievous incidents, whose overabundance and comic touches the author sees as risking a "near caricature" of tragedy despite an element of "unaffected pathos."