William Haughton
Encyclopedia
William Haughton was an English
playwright
in the age of English Renaissance theatre
. During the years 1597 to 1602 he collaborated in many plays with Henry Chettle
, Thomas Dekker, John Day
, Richard Hathwaye
and Wentworth Smith
.
Most of what little biographical information there is about him is derived from the papers of Philip Henslowe
, proprietor of the Rose Theatre
. Henslowe's earliest reference to him refers to him as "young" Haughton. He wrote all his known dramatic work for Henslowe, for production by the Admiral's Men
and Worcester's Men
. (Henslowe's papers refer to Haughton as Hawton, Hauton, Haughtoun, Haulton, Howghton, Horton, Harton, and Harvghton—a fine example of the famously flexible Elizabethan orthography. His name is spelled Houghton in his 1605 will.)
A merry comedy entitled Englishmen for My Money
, or A Woman will have her Will (1598) is ascribed to his sole authorship, and Fleay credits him with a considerable share in Patient Grissel
(1599). The latter attribution has been confirmed and refined by W. L. Halstead and by Cyrus Hoy (1980), giving the subplot concerning Sir Owen the Welsh Knight and his wife Gwenthyan, as well as that concerning the Duke's sister Julia and her three foolish suitors to Haughton, leaving the main plot to Dekker and Chettle.
On March 10, 1600, Henslowe lent Haughton ten shilling
s "to release him out of The Clink
".
The Devil and his Dame, mentioned as a forthcoming play by Henslowe in March 1600, is identified by Fleay
as Grim the Collier of Croydon
, which was printed in 1662. In this play an emissary is sent from the infernal regions to report on the conditions of married life on earth. This attribution has recently been confirmed by William M Baillie (see below).
Grim is reprinted in vol. viii, and Englishmen for My Money iii, vol. 5, of WC Hazlitt
's edition of Dodsley
's Old Plays. Englishmen for My Money was edited in old-spelling by A. C. Baugh in 1917, and appeared as a Tudor Facsimile Text in 1911. Grim has been edited by William L. Baillie as part of A Choice Ternary of English Plays: Gratiae Theatrales (1984), and appeared as a Tudor Facsimile Text in 1912. Patient Grissell appears in Fredson Bowers' edition of Dekker's Dramatic Works.
Haughton made his will on June 6, 1605, with his sometime dramatic collaborator Wentworth Smith and one Elizabeth Lewes as witnesses. It was proved July 20, 1605. He was of Allhallows, Stainings, at that time. He left a widow Alice and children.
Known plays by Haughton, either singly or in conjunction with others, include:
Haughton's hand has been sought in several anonymous plays of the period, including Wiley Beguiled, The Wit of a Woman, The Merry Devil of Edmonton
, Captain Thomas Stukeley and A Warning For Fair Women.
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...
playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
in the age of English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre
English Renaissance theatre, also known as early modern English theatre, refers to the theatre of England, largely based in London, which occurred between the Reformation and the closure of the theatres in 1642...
. During the years 1597 to 1602 he collaborated in many plays with Henry Chettle
Henry Chettle
Henry Chettle was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer of the Elizabethan era.The son of Robert Chettle, a London dyer, he was apprenticed in 1577 and became a member of the Stationer's Company in 1584, traveling to Cambridge on their behalf in 1588. His career as a printer and author is...
, Thomas Dekker, John Day
John Day (dramatist)
John Day was an English dramatist of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.-Life:He was born at Cawston, Norfolk, and educated at Ely. He became a sizar of Caius College, Cambridge, in 1592, but was expelled in the next year for stealing a book...
, Richard Hathwaye
Richard Hathwaye
Richard Hathwaye , was an English dramatist. Little is known about Hathwaye's life. There is no evidence that he was related to his namesake Richard Hathaway, the father of Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway. Hathwaye is not heard of after 1603....
and Wentworth Smith
Wentworth Smith
Wentworth Smith , was a minor English dramatist of the Elizabethan period who may have been responsible for some of the plays in the Shakespeare Apocrypha, though no work known to be his is extant.-Life and career:...
.
Most of what little biographical information there is about him is derived from the papers of Philip Henslowe
Philip Henslowe
Philip Henslowe was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London...
, proprietor of the Rose Theatre
The Rose (theatre)
The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre , the Curtain , and the theatre at Newington Butts The Rose was an Elizabethan theatre. It was the fourth of the public theatres to be built, after The Theatre (1576), the Curtain (1577),...
. Henslowe's earliest reference to him refers to him as "young" Haughton. He wrote all his known dramatic work for Henslowe, for production by the Admiral's Men
Admiral's Men
The Admiral's Men was a playing company or troupe of actors in the Elizabethan and Stuart eras...
and Worcester's Men
Worcester's Men
The Earl of Worcester's Men was an acting company in Renaissance England. An early formation of the company, wearing the livery of William Somerset, 3rd Earl of Worcester, is among the companies known to have toured the country in the mid-sixteenth century...
. (Henslowe's papers refer to Haughton as Hawton, Hauton, Haughtoun, Haulton, Howghton, Horton, Harton, and Harvghton—a fine example of the famously flexible Elizabethan orthography. His name is spelled Houghton in his 1605 will.)
A merry comedy entitled Englishmen for My Money
Englishmen for My Money
Englishmen for My Money, or A Woman Will Have Her Will is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by William Haughton that dates from the year 1598...
, or A Woman will have her Will (1598) is ascribed to his sole authorship, and Fleay credits him with a considerable share in Patient Grissel
Patient Grissel
Patient Grissel is a play by Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and William Haughton. It was mentioned in Henslowe's diary in the entry for December 1599...
(1599). The latter attribution has been confirmed and refined by W. L. Halstead and by Cyrus Hoy (1980), giving the subplot concerning Sir Owen the Welsh Knight and his wife Gwenthyan, as well as that concerning the Duke's sister Julia and her three foolish suitors to Haughton, leaving the main plot to Dekker and Chettle.
On March 10, 1600, Henslowe lent Haughton ten shilling
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
s "to release him out of The Clink
The Clink
The Clink was a notorious prison in Southwark, England which functioned from the 12th century until 1780 either deriving its name from, or bestowing it on, the local manor, the Clink Liberty . The manor and prison were owned by the Bishop of Winchester and situated next to his residence at...
".
The Devil and his Dame, mentioned as a forthcoming play by Henslowe in March 1600, is identified by Fleay
Frederick Gard Fleay
Frederick Gard Fleay was an influential and prolific nineteenth-century Shakespeare scholar.Fleay, the son of a linen draper, graduated from King's College London and Trinity College, Cambridge , where he received mathematical training that was key to his later achievements...
as Grim the Collier of Croydon
Grim the Collier of Croydon
Grim the Collier of Croyden; or, The Devil and his Dame: with the Devil and Saint Dunston is a seventeenth-century play of uncertain authorship, first published in 1662. The play's title character is an established figure of the popular culture and folklore of the time who appeared in songs and...
, which was printed in 1662. In this play an emissary is sent from the infernal regions to report on the conditions of married life on earth. This attribution has recently been confirmed by William M Baillie (see below).
Grim is reprinted in vol. viii, and Englishmen for My Money iii, vol. 5, of WC 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...
's edition of 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. Englishmen for My Money was edited in old-spelling by A. C. Baugh in 1917, and appeared as a Tudor Facsimile Text in 1911. Grim has been edited by William L. Baillie as part of A Choice Ternary of English Plays: Gratiae Theatrales (1984), and appeared as a Tudor Facsimile Text in 1912. Patient Grissell appears in Fredson Bowers' edition of Dekker's Dramatic Works.
Haughton made his will on June 6, 1605, with his sometime dramatic collaborator Wentworth Smith and one Elizabeth Lewes as witnesses. It was proved July 20, 1605. He was of Allhallows, Stainings, at that time. He left a widow Alice and children.
Known plays by Haughton, either singly or in conjunction with others, include:
- Englishmen for My MoneyEnglishmen for My MoneyEnglishmen for My Money, or A Woman Will Have Her Will is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy written by William Haughton that dates from the year 1598...
, or A Woman Will Have Her Will. Stationers' RegisterStationers' RegisterThe Stationers' Register was a record book maintained by the Stationers' Company of London. The company is a trade guild given a royal charter in 1557 to regulate the various professions associated with the publishing industry, including printers, bookbinders, booksellers, and publishers in England...
entry August 3, 1601. Printed 161, 1626, 1631. - The Poor Man's Paradise, August 1599. Not printed; possibly not finished.
- Cox of Collumpton, with Day, November 1599. Not printed, although an eyewitness report of a performance survives in Simon FormanSimon FormanSimon Forman was arguably the most popular Elizabethan astrologer, occultist and herbalist active in London during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I of England. His reputation, however, was severely tarnished after his death when he was implicated in the plot to kill Sir Thomas Overbury...
's casebook. - Thomas Merry, or Beech's Tragedy, with Day, November–December 1599. Not printed. It has been suggested that this survives as part of Yarington's Two Lamentable Tragedies, though this is more likely to be an analog handling the same murder.
- The Arcadian Virgin, with Chettle, December 1599. Not printed; possibly not finished.
- Patient GrisselPatient GrisselPatient Grissel is a play by Thomas Dekker, Henry Chettle, and William Haughton. It was mentioned in Henslowe's diary in the entry for December 1599...
, with Chettle and Dekker, October–December 1599. - The Spanish Moor's Tragedy, with Day and Dekker, February 1600. Not Printed; possibly not finished, though it is now usually identified with Lust's Dominion from the Dekker canon.
- The Seven Wise Masters, with Chettle, Day, and Dekker, March 1600. Not printed.
- Ferrex and Porrex, March–April 1600. Not printed.
- The English Fugitives, April 1600. Not printed; possibly not finished.
- The Devil and His Dame, May 1600. Probably the extant anonymous play Grim the Collier of CroydonGrim the Collier of CroydonGrim the Collier of Croyden; or, The Devil and his Dame: with the Devil and Saint Dunston is a seventeenth-century play of uncertain authorship, first published in 1662. The play's title character is an established figure of the popular culture and folklore of the time who appeared in songs and...
. - Strange News Out of Poland, with "Mr. Pett," possibly fl.]] 1600), May 1600. Not printed.
- Judas, May 1600; apparently finished by William Bird and Samuel RowleySamuel RowleySamuel Rowley was a 17th century English dramatist and actor.Rowley first appears in the historical record as an associate of Philip Henslowe in the late 1590s. Initially he appears to have been an actor, perhaps a sharer, in the Admiral's Men, who performed at the Rose Theatre...
, December 1601. Not printed. - Robin Hood's Pennorths, December 1600-January 1601. Not printed; possibly not finished.
- The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, Part II, with John Day, January–July 1601. Not printed.
- The Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green, Part III, with John Day, January–July 1601. Not printed.
- The Conquest of the West Indies, with Day and Smith, April–September 1601. Not printed.
- The Six Yeomen of the West, with Day, May–June 1601. Not printed.
- Friar Rush and the Proud Woman of Antwerp, with Chettle and Day, July 1601–January 1602. Not printed.
- Tom Dough, Part II, with Day, July–September 1601. Not printed; possibly not finished.
- The Six Clothiers, Part I, with Richard Hathwaye and Wentworth Smith, October–November 1601. Not printed.
- The Six Clothiers, Part II, with Hathwaye and Smith, October–November 1601. Not printed; possibly not finished.
- William Cartwright, September 1602. Not printed; possibly not finished.
Haughton's hand has been sought in several anonymous plays of the period, including Wiley Beguiled, The Wit of a Woman, The Merry Devil of Edmonton
The Merry Devil of Edmonton
The Merry Devil of Edmonton is an Elizabethan era stage play, a comedy about a magician, Peter Fabel, nicknamed the Merry Devil.Scholars have conjectured dates of authorship for the play as early as 1592, though most favor a date in the 1600–4 period...
, Captain Thomas Stukeley and A Warning For Fair Women.