William Hunnis (?1530-1597), A Hyve full of Hunnye (1578). EEBO Editions, 2010. Courtesy Amazon.com.
William Hunnis (?1530 - 6 June 1597) was a Protestant English poet, playwright, and composer.
Life[]
Overview[]
Hunnis was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal to Edward VI, imprisoned during the reign of Mary, but after the accession of Elizabeth was released, and in 1566 made "master of the children" of the Chapel Royal. He wrote metrical versions of the Psalms, as well as some volumes of verse, including A Hiveful of Honey, and A Handful of Honisuckles.[1]
Career[]
Hunnis was as early as 1549 in the service of William Herbert, afterwards earl of Pembroke. His friend Thomas Newton, in a poem prefixed to The Hive of Hunnye (1578), says: “In prime of youth thy pleasant Penne depaincted Sonets sweete,” and mentions his interludes, gallant lays, rondelets and songs, explaining that it was in the winter of his age that he turned to sacred lore and high philosophy.[2] In commendatory verses prefixed to Hunnis's Hyve, Newton also compliments Hunnis on his interludes, none of which are now known, as well as on his sonnets, songs, and "roundletts."[3]
In 1550 Hunnis published Certayne Psalms ... in Englishe metre, and shortly afterwards,[2] was appointed a gentleman of the Chapel Royal by Edward VI.[4]
At Mary's accession he retained his appointment,[2] but he was a protestant, and throughout the reign of Mary engaged in conspiracies against the queen. In 1555 he was one of 12 conspirators elected to assassinate both king and queen, but the plot came to nothing. As an intimate friend of Nicholas Brigham, keeper of the Treasure House at Westminster, and of his wife, Hunnis was invited in the following year to take part in an attempt to rob the treasury in order to provide funds for the conspiracy devised by Sir Henry Dudley, the object of which was "to make the Lady Elizabeth Queene, and to marry her to the Duke of Devonshire' (Froude, Hist. vi. 11, where Hunnis's name appears as Heneage). Hunnis seems to have refused the request of a fellow-conspirator named Dethicke to go to Dieppe, and there, "as having skill in alchemy, to make experiments on a foreign coin called ealdergylders to convert them into gold."[4]
The conspirators were, however, betrayed by their fellow, Thomas Whyte,[2] and on 17 or 18 March 1555 Hunnis, with many of his associates, was arrested and was imprisoned in the Tower. He was arraigned on 5 May at the Guildhall; but whether he was pardoned,[4] or remained in the Tower till the accession of Elizabeth to the throne is uncertain. In May 1557 Hunnis was admitted to the Grocers' Company.[3]
One of Elizabeth's earliest acts as queen was to restore him to his position as gentleman of the Chapel Royal. On 2 June 1559 he married Margaret, widow of Nicholas Brigham (who had died in 1558), but she died in the autumn of the same year. Her will, of which Hunnis was executor, was proved on 12 October 1559.[3] Hunnis married in 1560 the widow of a grocer. He himself became a grocer and freeman of the City of London.[2]
In 1562 Hunnis was appointed custodian of the gardens and orchards at Greenwich, at a salary of 12d. per day, and various perquisites. On 15 November 1566 he succeeded Richard Edwards in the office of master of the children of the Chapel Royal.[3] No complete piece of his is extant, perhaps because of the rule that the plays acted by the Children should not have been previously printed.[2]
In 1568 he received a grant of arms (Harl. MSS. 1359, f.54). In 1570, according to an entry in the Guildhall records, grant was made of "a reversion of the office of collection of the cities rightes, duties, and profittes, cominge and growinge uppon London Bridge, for wheelage and passage, to William Hunnys, citizen and grocer, and also Master of Hir grace's children of hir Chappell Royal." Hunnis appears to have ultimately accepted 40l. in lieu of this reversion.[3]
A device and a copy of verses were written by Hunnis for the entertainment of the queen at Kenilworth in July 1575, and were published in George Gascoigne's Princely Pleasures of Kenilworth, 1576-7.[3]
The emoluments of his post as master of the children were not great. In November 1583 Hunnis stated in a petition to the council that he was unable to maintain "an usher, a man-servant for the boys, and a woman to keep them clean, on an income of 6d. a day each for food and 40l. a year for apparel and all expenses." Nothing, he added, was allowed for the expenses of travelling and lodging when the movements of the court necessitated his carrying the boys with him to various places.[3]
In Harleian MS. 6403 is a story that one of his sons, in the capacity of page, drank the remainder of the poisoned cup supposed to have been provided by Leicester for Walter Devereux, 1st earl of Essex, but escaped with no injury beyond the loss of his hair.[2]
In his later years he purchased land at Barking, Essex.[2]
Hunnis died 6 June 1597, and was succeeded as master of the children by Nathaniel Giles. He left no will, unless we accept as such the following verses which Warton quotes as having been written by Hunnis on the flyleaf of a copy of Sir Thomas More's works:
‘To God my soule I doe bequeathe, because it is
his owne,
My body to be layd in grave, where to my
frends best known.
Executors I wyll none make, thereby great
stryffe may growe,
Because the, goodes that I shall leave wyll not
pay all I owe. ’[3]
Writing[]
His most famous musical compositions are found in a compilation, Seven Sobs of a Sorrowfull Soule for Sinne, which includes A Handful of Honisuckles. Those parts of the compilation which are musical are in a devotional style, and all his music in that collection consists of single-line tunes. Some of his work is for solo voice and viols, for example a setting of his own poem "In terrors trapp'd".
Hunnis published: 1. 'Certayne Psalmes chosen out of the Psalter of David and drawen furth into English meter,' London, 1549. 2. 'A Hyve full of Hunnye, contayning the firste booke of Moses, called Genesis, turned into Englishe meetre,' London, 1578, 4to, dedicated to Robert, earl of Leicester. 3. 'Seven Sobs of a Sorrowfull Soule for Sinne: Comprehending those seven Psalmes of the Princelie Prophet David, commonlie called Pœnitentiall; framed into a forme of familiar praiers, and reduced into meeter by William Hunnis. … Whereunto are also annexed his Handfull of Honisuckles; the Poor Widowes Mite; a Dialog between Christ and a sinner; diuers godlie and pithie ditties, with a Christian confession of and to the Trinitie,' London, 1583 (Brit.Mus.), 1585, 1587, 1597, 1615, 1629, and Edinburgh, 1621. 4. 'Hunnies' Recreations, conteining foure godlie and compendious discourses: Adam's Banishment, Christ his Cribbe, the Lost Sheepe, and the Complaint of Old Age,' London, 1588; another edition, with additions, London, 1595 (Brit. Mus.)[3]
Hunnis also published an Abridgement, or brief Meditation, on certaine of the Psalmes in English metre, by W.H., servant to the Rt. Hon. Sir William Harberde, knyght, London, 1550. Some manuscripts of Hunnis are preserved in the Music School at Oxford.[3]
Recognition[]
12 poems by Hunnis were anthologized in the Elizabethan miscellany The Paradyse of Daynty Devises, London, 1576; and 2 pieces by him appeared in Englands Helicon, London, 1600.[3]
See also[]
References[]
Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). "Hunnis, William". Encyclopædia Britannica. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 932. Wikisource, Web, Jan. 30, 2018.- Sharp, Robert Farquharson (1891) "Hunnis, William" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 28 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 261-262. Wikisource, Web, Jan. 30, 2018.
- Michael Smith: "William Hunnis", Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy (Accessed January 6, 2006), (subscription access)
Notes[]
External links[]
- William Hunnis profile & poem ("A Nosegay Always Sweet") at My Poetic Side
- William Hunnis at PoemHunter
- Books
- William Hunnis at Amazon.com
- About
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the 1911 Edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica.. Original article is at Hunnis, William
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: Hunnis, William
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