HEYWOOD, JOHN. — A musician and playwright, he lived between 1497 and 1578. Born perhaps at Stock, near Chelmsford, he died at Louvain. He studied at Oxford; from 1519 to 1528 he was first a singer, then “maestro di cappella” and organizer of festivities and performances at the court of Henry VIII. After 1528 he lived by teaching music and writing short dramatic works for the court or for nobles.
He was part of the circle of Sir Thomas More (whose niece he had married) and shared his ideas; and when the Reformation was introduced in England he had to endure imprisonment and other persecutions. He later enjoyed the favor of Queen Mary, but in 1564, with the triumph of Protestant reaction, he left his homeland forever to accept the hospitality of the Jesuits at Mechelen. His son Jasper, who later became a Jesuit, was one of the translators of Seneca; his daughter was the mother of the poet John Donne. H. was a master of the *interludes*, short farces or realistic one-act dialogues aimed at the aristocratic milieu, the best-known of which is *The Four P’s* (c. 1544).