Nicholas Udall

Rev. Nicholas Udall (1504 - 23 December 1556) was an English playwright, cleric, and schoolmaster, the author of Ralph Roister Doister, generally regarded as the earliest comedy written in the English language.

Ralph Roister Doister. Illustration by Henry Morley, from Old English Plays, 1891, after Hans Holbein, 1515-16. Courtesy Luminarium.

Life

Overview

Udall was born in Hampshire, and educated at Oxford. In 1534 he became headmaster of Eton, from which he was dismissed for misconduct, 1541. In 1537 he became Vicar of Braintree, in 1551 of Calborne, Isle of Wight, and in 1554 headmaster of Westminster School. He translated part of the Apophthegms of Erasmus, and assisted in making the English version of his Paraphrase of the New Testament. Other translations were Peter Martyr's Discourse on the Eucharist and Thomas Gemini's Anatomia; but he is best remembered by Ralph Roister Doister (1553?), the earliest English comedy, a rude but lively piece.

Youth and education

Nicholas Udall or Uvedale was a native of Hampshire. His relationship with the Uvedale family of Wickham in Hampshire (a member of which, living in 1449, bore the christian name of Nicholas), is undetermined (cf. Surrey Archæological Collections, iii. 185).

Nicholas was born in or around 1505.

He was elected a scholar of Winchester College in 1517, when he was described as being 12 years old (Kirby, Winchester Scholars, 108).

Proceeding to Oxford, he was admitted a scholar of Corpus Christi College on 18 June 1520. He earned a B.A. on 30 May 1524, and became a probationer-fellow of his college on 30 May 1524. He took some part in the college tuition (Fowler, Hist. Corpus Christi Coll. Oxford, Oxf. Hist. Soc., 86, 89, 370-3711).

In 1526 and the following years he purchased books of a Lutheran tendency of Thomas Garret, an Oxford bookseller, who personally sympathised with Lutheran doctrines. Udall thus gained the reputation of being 1 of the earliest adherents of the protestant movement among Oxford tutors (Foxe, Actes, ed. Townsend, v. 421 seq.). As a consequence, it is said, he was not permitted to earn the degree of M.A. until 1534 — 10 years after his graduation.

Early career

In the interim Udall made some reputation in the university as a writer of Latin verse. He became the intimate friend of John Leland the Latin poet and antiquary, and Leland acknowledged with enthusiasm Udall's liberality and attainments in 2 Latin epigrams (Collectanea, v. 89, 105).

The friends combined in May 1533 to write verses in both Latin and English for the pageants with which the lord mayor and citizens of London celebrated the entry of Anne Boleyn into the city after her marriage to Henry VIII. The whole collection is preserved in manuscript at the British Museum among the Royal manuscripts (18. A. lxiv.). It was printed in Nichols's Progresses of Queen Elizabeth and in Dr. Furnivall's Ballads from Manuscripts (Ballad Society, 1870, i. 379–401).

Headmaster of Eton

About 1534 Udall became headmaster of Eton College, and he held the office for nearly 8 years. Before taking up the appointment he published for the use of his pupils a selection from Terence, which was entitled Flovres for Latine Spekynge; selected and gathered oute of Terence and the same translated into Englysshe. A Latin dedication addressed by Udall to his pupils was dated from the ‘Augustinian Monastery,’ London, 28 February. Leland and Edmund Jonson contributed prefatory eulogies in Latin. The work was printed by Thomas Berthelet; the 1st edition, which is of great rarity, is dated 1533. Other editions followed in 1538, 1544, and 1560; an edition of 1575, which was enlarged by John Higgins, reappeared in 1581.

According to an early ‘Consuetudinary’ of Eton, plays of Terence and Plautus were acted annually by the boys under the headmaster's direction "about the feast of St. Andrew," i.e. 30 November, and occasionally English pieces were suffered to take the place of the Latin. It is possible that Udall's English comedy or interlude of Ralph Roister Doister was prepared by him to be acted by his pupils at Eton.

Courtesy The Life of Nicholas Udall (1504-1556), Luminarium].

As a schoolmaster Udall had the reputation of severely enforcing corporal punishment. Thomas Tusser was one of his pupils, and he states in his autobiography, prefixed to his Five Hundreth Points of Good Husbandrie (1573), that he received from Udall 53 stripes for "fault but small or none at all." Tusser exclaims, "See, Udall, see the mercy of thee to mee, poor lad!"

Udall's connection with Eton was terminated under disgraceful and somewhat mysterious circumstances. Early in 1541, 2 of his scholars, Thomas Cheney and John Horde, along with his servant Gregory, were charged with stealing silver images and other plate belonging to the college. Their statement not merely threw on Udall the suspicion that he was cognizant of the theft, but led to an accusation against him of unnatural crime. He was summoned before the privy council for examination on 14 March 1540-1, and he then confessed that he was guilty of the 2nd charge.

Reportedly, this 2nd charge was an offense (or offenses) under the Buggery Act of 1533. The felony of buggery, like all other felonies, carried a sentence of capital punishment by hanging, but Udall wrote an impassioned plea to his old friends from Cromwell's household Thomas Wriothesley and Sir Ralph Sadler, then joint principal secretaries of state, and his sentence was reduced to just under a year in the Marshalsea prison. That the pupils in question were not also prosecuted suggests that they were under what was then taken as of the "age of discretion", i.e., 14 years or older..

He was committed to the Marshalsea prison (Proceedings of the Privy Council, vii. 153). Dismissal from the head-mastership of Eton followed immediately, but Udall's imprisonment was of short duration, and his reputation was not permanently injured.

On gaining his liberty he piteously petitioned an unnamed patron probably at court to procure his restitution to Eton, while he professed a wish to pay off his debts and to amend his way of life (printed from Cotton. MS. Titus B. viii. 371, in Letters of Eminent Literary Men, Camden Soc., 1 sqq.). A year after his dismissal the bursars of Eton paid him the full arrears of his salary (Lyte, Hist. of Eton, 114).

At court

Other means of livelihood were at his command. He had on 27 September 1537 become vicar of Braintree, and that benefice he retained on his departure from Eton. He held it for nearly 7 years, resigning it on 14 Sept. 1544. His increased leisure he devoted to literary work. In September 1542 he published an English version of the 3rd and 4th books of Erasmus's Apophthegms. His literary capacity was noticed favorably by Henry VIII's new queen, Catherine Parr, whose theological views inclined, like his own, to Lutheranism.

Under Catherine Parr's patronage he assisted in translating into English the 1st volume of Erasmus's Paraphrase of the New Testament. The work occupied him between 1543 and 1548. He himself translated the paraphrase of the gospel of St. Luke, which he finished in 1545, and he dedicated it to Queen Catherine. His rendering of the text of the gospel follows that of the Great Bible of 1539. He also superintended the publication of the work and wrote a general dedication addressed in terms of extravagant eulogy to Edward VI, and another to the reader, besides prefacing the translations of the gospel of St. John and of the Acts with dedications to Queen Catherine. The volume was 1st published in 1548; the title-page of the 2nd edition of 1551 stated that Udall had "conferred" the text with the Latin and "thoroughly corrected" it. (The 2nd volume came out in 1549, but in that Udall had no hand.)

Edward VI showed Udall much favor. When Gardiner preached before the young king on 29 June 1548, and he was expected to deny the authority of the king to make religious changes during his minority, Udall was directed to report the sermon by "a noble personage of this realm" (Foxe). The "noble personage" was doubtless Protector Somerset. Foxe printed Udall's report of Gardiner's sermon in his Acts and Monuments.

In 1549 a more responsible task was entrusted to Udall. He was ordered to reply to the catholic rebels of the west, who had put forward "certen artycles of us the comoners of Devonsheir and Cornwall in divers campes by Est and West of Exeter." The insurgents demanded the restoration of the mass, of the abbey lands, and of the Six Articles, together with the recall of Cardinal Pole from exile. Udall's answer bears the title An answer to the articles of the comoners of Devonsheir and Cornewall, declaring to the same howe they haue been seduced by evell persons, and howe their consciences may be satysfyed and stayed, concerning the sayd artycles, sette forthe by a countryman of theirs, much tendering the welth, bothe of their bodyes and solles. Udall reasoned with great force against the catholic arguments, and defended the royal authority in matters of religion. His tract, which runs to 80 closely written folio pages, is preserved at the British Museum (Royal MS. 18, B. xi.). It was printed for the 1st time by the Camden Society in Troubles connected with the Prayer Book of 1549, which was edited by Nicholas Pocock in 1884.

Further literary work of similar tendency followed. About 1550 he issued an English translation (from the Latin) of Peter Martyr's Discourse or Traictise … concernynge the Sacrament of the Lordes Supper. He contributed Latin poems to the 2 collections of elegies published in 1551, respectively on Henry and Charles Brandon, dukes of Suffolk, and Martin Bucer. In 1552 he translated the Compendiosa totius Anatomie delineatio of Thomas Gemini, whose copperplate engravings give the work high artistic interest. The book was dedicated to the king.

Edward VI marked his approbation by issuing letters patent securing to Udall exclusive rights in the original Latin version of Peter Martyr's Treatise of the Eucharist, as well as in the English translation; and at the same time gave Udall permission "to preynt the Bible in Englyshe as well in the large volume for the use of the churches wth in this our Realme and other Dominions as allso in any other convenient volume." Of this privilege Udall does not seem to have availed himself.

Despite the circumstances attending Udall's dismissal from Eton, scholastic employment was also found for him by the ministers of his royal patron, and he was appointed "schoolmaster" of the young Edward Courtenay, then a prisoner in the Tower (Trevelyan Papers, Camden Soc. ii. 31, 33).

At the same time Edward VI bestowed new church preferment on Udall. In November 1551 he was nominated to a prebend at Windsor, but he failed to take up his residence there, and continued to preach elsewhere. He was consequently held in the following year to have forfeited his rights to the emoluments of the prebend. But in September 1552 a royal letter directed the dean and chapter of Windsor to pay Udall the income of the preferment "during the time of his absence." On 26 March 1553 he was presented to the rectory of Calborne in the Isle of Wight.

The accession of Queen Mary in no way injured his fortunes. She had taken part with him in the translation of Erasmus's paraphrase, and Udall knew how to adjust his sails to the passing breeze. In 1553 he endeavored to extract from the protestant martyr Thomas Mountain, while in prison, a recantation of protestantism (Nichols, Narratives of the Reformation, Camden Society, 178). The lord chancellor, Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, encouraged Udall's pusillanimity, and gave him the post of schoolmaster in his household, where several boys were brought up under the bishop's superintendence. Gardiner left 40 marks to his "schoolmaster," Udall, in his will, dated 9 November 1555 (Wills from Doctors' Commons, Camden Society, 43, 44).

Udall's repute as a dramatic writer was not exhausted. In 1554 a warrant from Queen Mary directed Udall to prepare "dialogues and interludes," to be performed in the royal presence; and ordered such dresses and apparel to be delivered to him from the office of the revels as from time to time he might require (Losely MSS. ed. Kempe, 63).

Headmaster again

At the close of his life Udall again filled the office of master of a great public school. He succeeded Alexander Nowell about 1554 as headmaster of Westminster school, which Henry VIII had established in 1540; and he held that post until the school was absorbed in the monastery of Westminster, which Queen Mary refounded in November 1556.

Udall died in a month after leaving Westminster, and was buried in the church of St. Margaret's, Westminster, on 23 December. Entries of the burial in the same place of "Katherin Woodall" and of "Elizabeth Udall" figure in the parish register under the respective dates 2 December 1556 and 8 July 1559; but there is no means of determining the relationship of either of these persons to Nicholas Udall.

Writing

Playwright

Udall owes his permanent fame to his work as a dramatist. Bale attributes to him not merely many comedies, but also a Tragœdia de Papatu. Of the last nothing is known. Bale says that Udall translated it for Queen Catherine [Parr]. It is possible that Bale made a confused reference to A Tragedie or Dialoge of the unjuste usurped Primacie of the Bishop of Rome (London, 1549, 8vo), which John Ponet translated from the Italian of Bernardino Ochino.

Subsequent mention was made of another lost play by Udall. When Elizabeth visited Cambridge University in the autumn of 1564 on the night of 8 August there was performed in her presence "an English play called 'Ezekias,' made by Mr. Udall, and handled by King's College men only."

The only extant play by Udall is Ralph Roister Doister, a homely English comedy on the Latin model, which may have been originally written for performance by his pupils at Eton before 1541. A reference (act ii. sc. i.) to a ballad-monger, Jack Raker, who is more than once mentioned by Skelton and is noticed in Udall's play as a contemporary, and Ralph Roister Doister's favorite form of oath, "by the armes of Caleys," suggest that the piece was originally composed in Henry VIII's reign.

It is in rhymed doggerel and is divided into 5 acts, each with numbered scenes varying from 4 to 8. Besides songs which are interspersed through the text, 4 songs to be sung "by those which shall use this comedy" are collected in an appendix. The story, which is crudely developed, deals with the unsuccessful efforts of the swaggering hero, Ralph Roister Doister, to win the hand of a wealthy widow, Dame Christian Custance. It is doubtful if the piece were printed in Udall's lifetime.

A quotation of Ralph's letter to Dame Custance (Ralph Roister Doister, act iii. sc. iv.), which is shown to be capable of expressing 2 directly opposite significations by changes of punctuation, appeared in the 3rd edition of Dr. Thomas Wilson's Rule of Reason, 1553, with the note that the passage was quoted from "An Entrelude, made by Nicolas Vdal."

In 1566 Thomas Hackett obtained a license "for pryntinge of a play intituled Rauf Ruyster Duster." The only early copy now known lacks a title-page; it was accidentally acquired by Rev. Thomas Briggs, an Etonian, in 1818, and may be the edition printed by Hackett, which probably represents a revised version of the piece. The concluding verses plainly refer to Queen Mary or Queen Elizabeth, and were doubtless interpolated at a date subsequent to the composition of the play. In 1818 Briggs reprinted the comedy in London, in an edition of 30 copies, as an anonymous work, and at the same time presented the unique original to Eton College Library, in ignorance of the fact that the play was from the pen of an Eton headmaster. Another reprint followed in 1821; but the anonymous editor again had no information to give respecting the authorship of the play.

John Payne Collier, in a note in Dodsley's Old Plays (1825, ii. 3; cf. History of English Dramatic Poetry, 1831, ii. 445), was the 1st to recognize in Ralph Roister Doister the interlude which Wilson assigned to Udall in 1551. During the 19th century the work was subsequently 4 times reprinted — in Thomas White's Old English Drama (1830, 3 volumes 18mo); in the publications of the Shakespeare Society, 1847; in Arber's English Reprints, 1869; and in Dodsley's Old Plays, edited by W.C. Hazlitt, 1874 (iii. 53–161).

Ralph Roister Doister enjoys the distinction of being the earliest English comedy known, and, in the capacity of its author, Udall is universally recognizzd as one of the most notable pioneers in the history of English dramatic literature.

Miscellaneous

Udall translated part of the Apophthegms by Erasmus, and assisted in the English version of his Paraphrases of Erasmus, published in 1548 as The first tome or volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus vpon the newe testamente. Other works he translated were Pietro Martire's Discourse on the Eucharist and Thomas Gemini's Anatomia. He is the author of a Latin textbook utilizing material from his comedy as well as works by the Roman poet Terence.

With John Leland, he wrote a number of songs to celebrate the coronation of Anne Boleyn on 31 May 1533, using his Latinized name "Udallus". Udall apostrophised Apollo and the Muses in Latin verse, and offered extravagant adulation to the new queen in English poems of very varied meters, some of which imitated Skelton's. Most of the English poems by Udall appear in Arber's English Garner (ii. 52-60).

Collier, in his Bibliographical Catalogue (ii. 176), attributes to Udall, the 1st and last letters of whose surname figure on the undated title-page, a curious doggerel poem in which an old man gives the author much moral counsel. The poem bears the title: "The pleasaunt playne and pythye Pathewaye leadynge to a vertues and honest lyfe, no lesse profytable then delectable. U. L. Imprynted at London by Nicolas Hyll, for John Case," 4to.

Recognition

In popular culture

In Ford Madox Ford's trilogy of historical novels, The Fifth Queen, the character Magister Nicholas Udal is a decidedly heterosexual profligate, who serves as Latin tutor to Mary I of England and Henry VIII's 5th queen,"\ Katharine Howard. He defends himself of charges that he was "thrown out of his mastership at Eton for his foul living" by claiming that he, a Protestant, "was undone by Papist lies."

Roister Doister Act 1 Scene 1

See also

• List of British poets
• List of English-language playwrights

References

•  Lee, Sidney (1899) "Udall, Nicholas" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 58 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 6-9  . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 14, 2018.

External links

Poems

• Rafe Royster Doyster" at My Poetic Side

Books

• Nicholas Udall (1504-1556) at Amazon.com

About

• Udal, Nicholas in the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
• Nicholas Udall (1504-1556) at Luminarium

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Udall, Nicholas