William Cartwright was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 dramatist and churchman.

Early life

Cartwright was born at Northway, Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....

, the son of William Cartwright of Heckhampton, Gloucestershire. He was educated at the free school of Cirencester

Cirencester

Cirencester is a market town in east Gloucestershire, England, 93 miles west northwest of London. Cirencester lies on the River Churn, a tributary of the River Thames, and is the largest town in the Cotswold District. It is the home of the Royal Agricultural College, the oldest agricultural...

 and at Westminster School

Westminster School

The Royal College of St. Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain's leading independent schools, with the highest Oxford and Cambridge acceptance rate of any secondary school or college in Britain...

. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church, Oxford

Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...

 on 24 February 1632 aged 20, and was awarded BA on 5 June 1632. He was awarded MA on 15 April 1635. Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood

Anthony Wood or Anthony à Wood was an English antiquary.-Early life:Anthony Wood was the fourth son of Thomas Wood , BCL of Oxford, where Anthony was born...

 gives an account of his origin as son of a country gentleman turned innkeeper which is contradicted by statements made in David Lloyd's Memoirs.

Career

Cartwright became reader in metaphysics at Oxford University and was, according to Wood, the most florid and seraphical preacher in the university. In 1642 he was made succentor of Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury Cathedral, formally known as the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an Anglican cathedral in Salisbury, England, considered one of the leading examples of Early English architecture....

, and in 1643 he was chosen junior proctor of the university. Cartwright was a successor to 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...

 and is often counted among the Sons of Ben

Sons of Ben

The phrase Sons of Ben is a mildly problematic term applied to followers of Ben Jonson in English poetry and drama in the first half of the seventeenth century....

, the group of dramatists who practiced Jonson's style of comedy. The collected edition of his poems (1651) contains commendatory verses by Henry Lawes

Henry Lawes

Henry Lawes was an English musician and composer.He was born at Dinton in Wiltshire, and received his musical education from John Cooper, better known under his Italian pseudonym Giovanni Coperario, a famous composer of the day...

, who set some of his songs to music, by Izaak Walton

Izaak Walton

Izaak Walton was an English writer. Best known as the author of The Compleat Angler, he also wrote a number of short biographies which have been collected under the title of Walton's Lives.-Biography:...

, Alexander Brome

Alexander Brome

Alexander Brome was an English poet.He was by profession an attorney, and was the author of many drinking songs and of satirical verses in favor of the Royalists and in opposition to the Rump Parliament...

, Henry Vaughan

Henry Vaughan

Henry Vaughan was a Welsh physician and metaphysical poet.Vaughan and his twin brother the hermetic philosopher and alchemist Thomas Vaughan, were the sons of Thomas Vaughan and his wife Denise of 'Trenewydd', Newton, in Brecknockshire, Wales...

 and others. Cartwright and Lawes maintained an important working relationship, for perhaps a decade prior to Cartwright's death in 1643; in one view, Lawes made a significant contribution to Cartwright's conception of drama.

Civil War

Cartwright was nominated one of the council of war at Oxford in 1642. He died of camp fever at Oxford aged 32 and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral. It is said that King Charles I of England

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...

 wore mourning on the day of his funeral.

Works

His plays are, with the exception of The Ordinary, far-fetched in plot, and stilted and artificial in treatment. They are:

• The Royal Slave (1636), produced by the students of Christ Church before the king and queen, with music by Henry Lawes
• The Lady Errant (acted, 1635-1636; printed, 1651)
• The Siege, or Love's Convert (printed 1651)

In The Ordinary (1635?) he produced a comedy of real life, in imitation of Jonson, representing pot-house society. It is reprinted in Robert 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 Plays (ed. William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt

William Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Yet his work is...

, vol. xii.).