Nicholas Udall

For the American politician and judge, seeNick Udall.

Nicholas Udall(orUvedaleUdal,Woodall,or other variations) (1504 – 23 December 1556) was anEnglishplaywright, cleric, schoolmaster, the author ofRalph Roister Doister,generally regarded as the firstcomedywritten in theEnglish language.

Biography

Udall was born inHampshireand educated atWinchester CollegeandCorpus Christi College, Oxford.He was tutored under the guidance ofThomas Cromwell,who mentions him in a letter to John Creke of 17 August 1523 as 'Maister Woodall' and he appears again in Cromwell's accounts for 1535 as 'Nicholas Woodall Master of Eton'.

After graduation from Oxford, he taught at a London grammar school in 1533. He taughtLatinatEton College,of which he was headmaster from about 1534 until 1541, when he was forced to leave after being convicted of offences against his pupils under theBuggery Act 1533.The felony ofbuggery,like all other felonies, carried a sentence ofcapital punishmentbyhanging,but Udall wrote an impassioned plea to his old friends from Cromwell's householdThomas WriothesleyandSir Ralph Sadler,then jointking's Secretaries,and his sentence was commuted to just under a year, which he served in theMarshalseaprison. The pupils in question were not prosecuted. A former pupil, the poetThomas Tusser,later claimed that Udall had flogged him without cause.

An adherent of theReformedChurch of England,Udall flourished underEdward VIand survived into the reign of the Roman CatholicMary I.In 1547, he became Vicar ofBraintree,in 1551 ofCalborne,Isle of Wight,and in 1554 returned to teaching as headmaster ofWestminster School.

Udall died in 1556 and was buried in the churchyard ofSt Margaret's, Westminster.No monumental inscription can now be traced.

Works

Udall translated part of theApophthegmsbyErasmus,and translated in part and oversaw the English version of theParaphrases of Erasmus,published in 1548 asThe first tome or volume of the Paraphrase of Erasmus vpon the newe testamente.Other works he translated werePietro Martire'sDiscourse on the Eucharistand Thomas Gemini'sAnatomia.His most famous work, the playRalph Roister Doister,was probably presented toQueen Maryas an entertainment around 1553, but not published until 1566.

WithJohn Leland,he wrote a number of songs to celebrate the coronation ofAnne Boleynon 31 May 1533, using hisLatinized name"Udallus".

Likewise, he is the author of a Latin textbook,Flowers for Latin Speaking(1533), which utilizes material from his comedy as well as works by the Roman poetTerence.

Udall wrote a propaganda tract in response to thePrayer Book Rebellionin 1549,An Answer to the Articles of the Commoners of Devonshire and Cornwall Declaring to the Same How they have been Seduced by Evil Persons.This tract has sometimes been wrongly attributed toPhilip Nichols.

It has been argued that Udall is the author of the interludeRespublica,which was acted before Queen Mary in 1553.

Literary character based on him

InFord 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 toMary I of EnglandandHenry VIII's "fifth queen,"Catherine 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."

External links

• Lee, Sidney(1899)."Udall, Nicholas".Dictionary of National Biography.Vol. 58.
• Leach, Arthur Francis(1911)."Udal, Nicholas".Encyclopædia Britannica.Vol. 27 (11th ed.). pp. 554–556.
• Works by Nicholas UdallatProject Gutenberg
• Works by or about Nicholas Udallat theInternet Archive