=Life.=--Nicholas Udall was born in 1506, of a good family residing
in Hampshire. As a lad of fourteen he entered Corpus Christi College,
Oxford, and took his bachelor's degree there in May, 1524.[285] The
years of his University life came at a period of great religious
fermentation, and young Udall was, according to an old tradition,[286]
one of the young enthusiasts in whom the humanistic tilling of Erasmus
had prepared the soil for Lutheran doctrines from Wittenberg. We may,
therefore, imagine young Udall to have been one of those of whose
heretical perversities Warham complains to Wolsey.[287] Apparently
Udall, as he grew older, grew if not calmer at least more cautious,
and succeeded later in gaining the favour of Mary the Princess, and
in retaining that of Mary the Queen. While at college, he formed a
lasting friendship with John Leland, a friendship of which some poems
of the latter give us a pleasing testimony.[288] Leland, of almost the
same age as Udall, had taken his first degree at Cambridge in 1522,
and according to an old custom, he continued his studies at Oxford,
where Udall's generosity won his heart.[289] In May, 1533, a number
of verses were composed by them in joint authorship, for a pageant at
the coronation of Anne Boleyn.[290] In the same year Udall seems to
have settled at London as a teacher. He may even have contemplated
becoming a monk--like Thomas More thirty years earlier; he certainly
dates his preface to the _Flowers from Terence_ from the Augustinian
Monastery at London, on the last of February, 1534. In the following
June he received the degree of Master of Arts from Oxford, and appears
in the latter part of the same year as "Magister Informator" at Eton,
succeeding Master Richard Coxe.[291] In this capacity he received
payments between the last terms, 1534 and 1541.[292]
We can scarcely judge at this late day of the character of Udall's
educational services, but the fact that he was generally on good terms
with his pupils may reasonably be inferred from the preface to the
edition of the _Flowers_, printed in 1545.
We may further infer with regard to his mastership at Eton, that
he was himself influenced by the Eton custom of performing a
play at Christmas. It appears even possible that the clause in a
"consuetudinary" of Eton (about 1560), allowing the Latin school comedy
to give place to an English one, if it were "witty and graceful,"[293]
may have been a result of Udall's mastership. And it is probable that
_Roister Doister_ was originally one of such plays unpretentiously
offered by Udall to his boys,[294] modestly put aside after the
performance and printed long afterwards. If all this be true, Udall's
mastership deserves immortal fame in the annals of English literature.
But the immortality is unfortunately of a different nature. Udall is
stigmatized by one ungrateful pupil as a second _Orbilius plagosus_,
the realization of Erasmus's executioner. Tusser's often quoted
doggerel runs:
"From Paules I went to Eaton sent
To learn streight waies, the latin phraies,
When fiftie three stripes giuen to mee
At once I had:
For fault but small, or none at all,
It came to pas, thus beat I was,
See Udall see, the mercie of thee,
To me poore lad."[295]
We cannot now decide upon the merits of the case, but we are inclined
to think that Tom Tusser the boy was as shiftless as Thomas Tusser the
man later proved to be, and that, although he may have been a fine
"querister," his "latin phraies" would frequently offend the ear of
the conscientious humanist. Let us suppose that Thomas deserved his
fifty-three stripes twice over, but did not realize that ὁ μὴ δαρεὶς
ἄνθρωπος οὐκ παιδεύεται.[296]
In March, 1541,[297] some abuses were exposed that had lately disgraced
the school. A robbery of plate and silver images was detected, to which
two late Eton scholars and a servant of Udall's confessed; and Udall
himself became "suspect to be counsel of the robbery." The judicial
report states that Udall "having certain interrogatoryes ministred unto
hym toching the sayd fact and other felonious trespasses whereof he was
suspected, did confess that he did comitt a heinous offence with the
sayd cheney [a "scoler" of Eton] sundry tymes hertofore and of late
the vjᵗʰ day of this present monethe in this present yere at London:
whereupon he was committed to the Marshalsey."
Udall was discharged from his office, but did not remain long in
prison (as would have been the case if he had been proved guilty of a
"felonious" crime); and an influential personage unknown to us made
efforts to bring about his "restitucion to the roume of Scholemaister
in Eton." Udall thanked this patron in an interesting letter, which
seems to corroborate the words of the indictment, but states that the
"heinous offence" was committed in London (_not_ in Eton), and that it
resulted in heavy debts. The most careful consideration of the letter
leads me to believe that Udall had nothing to do with the _theft_,
but had neglected his duties as teacher, and had not given the right
example of "frugall livyng."[298] Most likely he had only followed the
royal example; had enjoyed too much "Pastyme with good companye!"
In the same letter Udall petitions for a place where he could show his
"amendment," and which would enable him also "by litle and litle ... to
paye euery man his own."[299]
We do not know of the result of this letter, but it seems that Udall
went "north" in the autumn of the same year. At any rate, in October,
1542, Robert Aldrich, Bishop of Carlisle, received letters "by the
hande of Mr. Vdall";[300] and Leland in a charming little song
addressed to his "snow-white friend," refers to Udall as residing among
the "Brigantes, where Mars now has the rule."[301]
In the same autumn appeared Udall's translation of Erasmus's
_Apophthegms_[302] and--after his return south--he was connected for
the following three years with a great literary undertaking, which was
not only favoured by the Court, but progressing under its auspices and
with its collaboration,--Princess Mary taking the most active part.
This was the English translation of Erasmus's _Paraphrase of the New
Testament_.[303]
Under Edward VI., Udall devoted himself to theological works; he stood
up for the royal prerogative in religious matters in his _Answer to
the articles of the commoners of Devonshire and Cornwall_ (summer
1549[304]); he took his share in a memorial volume published in 1551,
after Bucer's death, and he translated in the same year Peter Martyr's
_Tractatus_ and _Disputatio De Eucharistia_. A royal patent[305] (of
1551) granted him the "privilege and lycense ... to preint the Bible
in Englyshe as well in the large volume for the use of the churches
wᵗʰin this our Realme ... as allso in any other convenient volume."
This privilege was not the only sign of royal favour: we find Udall in
November, 1551, presented by the King to a prebend in Windsor,[306] and
later (in March, 1553) to the Parsonage of Calborne, in the Isle of
Wight.
After such favours received from Edward, and such services in the
Protestant camp, we should expect to find Udall in disgrace under Queen
Mary, and sharing with his fellow-Protestants at least the bitter fate
of exile, but Mary had apparently preserved a grateful memory for her
former fellow-worker in the Erasmian translation. If, indeed, she did
not use him as a theologian, she remembered his dramatic talents, and
so we find that a special warrant was issued, December 3, 1554, which
shows us Udall in the rôle of playwright. The Office of the Queen's
Revels was directed by the warrant referred to, to deliver to Udall
such "apparel" at any time as he might require for the "setting foorth
of Dialogues and Enterludes" before the Queen, for her "regell disporte
and recreacion." In the beginning of the document[307] appears an
allusion to Udall as having shown previously "at soondrie seasons"
his "dilligence" in arranging "Dialogues and Enterludes"--important
documentary evidence of his connection with the "Revels," a connection
apparently begun with the pageant for which he furnished such poor
verses at Anne Boleyn's coronation.
This evidence for the fact that Udall was known as a writer of "plays"
before 1554 is singularly corroborated by the quotation of Roister's
letter to Custance (Act III., Scene iv.) as an example of "ambiguity"
in the 1553 edition of Wilson's _Rule of Reason_.[308]
As to the nature of Udall's "Dialogues," "Enterludes," and "devises,"
we are not entirely without information. The very date of the warrant
would indicate the occasion for Udall's services (December 3, 1554), if
we had not a more definite statement. He was commissioned to get up the
Christmas shows before Mary and Philip.
Udall was in a dangerous position, since any reference to the
Protestant sympathies of the nation might have cost his life, but he
realized the situation, and with good tact presented "divers plaies,"
the "incydents" of which were very innocent:[309] "A mask of patrons
of gallies like Venetian senators, with galley-slaves for their
torche-bearers; a mask of 6 Venuses or amorous ladies with 6 Cupids
and 6 torche-bearers to them," and some "Turkes archers,"[310] "Turkes
magistrates," and "Turkie women," "6 lions' hedds of paste and cement,"
and a few other harmless paraphernalia.
How long Udall served the queen in this capacity we do not know. In
1555, towards the end of his career, we find him at his old calling as
master of Westminster School.[311] When in November of the following
year the old monastery was again opened, naturally Udall's services
became superfluous, and he was doubtless discharged; and so indeed the
darkness enshrouding the last months of his life may cover a period of
great distress. He died in December, 1556, and found his last resting
place in St. Margaret's, Westminster; where almost thirty years before
Skelton had found first a sanctuary and then a grave.
It seems that the queen did not erect a monument over the ashes of her
old friend, at least none is registered by the industrious Weever;[312]
but Udall does not need a monument from Queen Mary, he has erected it
himself--_ære perennius_--in the annals of English literature.
=Date of the Play.=--_Roister Doister_ was formerly assigned to the
time of Udall's mastership at Eton (1534-41).[313] In more recent
years, however, this date has been rejected, and Professor J. W. Hales
has tried to show that "this play was in fact written in 1552, and more
probably written for Westminster school."[314]
The arguments of Professor Hales, as far as I can see, might be
summarized thus:
1. The fact that Wilson--an old Eton boy himself, who left the school
in 1541, and ought to have known of the play if it had ever been
performed there--does _not_ insert the "ambiguous letter" in his first
and second editions of the _Rule of Reason_ (1551, 1552), whereas he
inserts it in the edition of 1553, "_suggests_ that this _comedy was
written between the appearances of the second and the third editions_."