When all that is to Was ys brought: John Heywood’s ‘rythme declaringe his own life and nature’

Abstract

This essay provides the first edition and discussion of the ballad When all that is to Was ys brought, copied sometime between 1561 and 1585 into a draft account book relating to the will of Dr William Bill, dean of Westminster (Durham Cathedral Add. MS 243, fol. 93r-v). Its last line, ‘Amen Quoth Iohn heywood’, indicates that its author was the court entertainer John Heywood (b. 1496/7–d. in or after 1578) and internal evidence suggests that it was written shortly before he went into exile on account of his Catholic faith in 1564. The ballad includes references to Heywood’s family and allusions to several works of Thomas More, especially A Dialogue of Comfort, suggesting that it is Heywood’s personal reflection on his spiritual life under four English monarchs. Its subject matter makes it likely that it is also the poem described as ‘a rythme declaringe his own life and nature’, which Heywood sent to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and Queen Elizabeth via John Wilson in 1574 to support his petition to be allowed to remain in the Spanish Netherlands.

At the back of a draft ledger for the estate of Dr William Bill, dean of Westminster (Durham Cathedral Add. MS 243) is an untitled copy of a ballad beginning ‘When all that is to Was ys brought’ and ending ‘Amen Quoth Iohn heywood’. ¹ Its thirty-eight stanzas in common metre are in the hand of Bill’s executor, Francis Samwell, auditor of the Exchequer. The ballad is copied in two columns of thirteen stanzas each (fol. 93ra-b) and in one column of twelve stanzas (fol. 93va); near the bottom of the otherwise empty column (fol. 93vb) is the name ‘Thomas Good’. This could be mistaken for the name of the author, and is likely why the ballad has not received prior attention from Heywood scholars. The ballad’s format suggests that Samwell copied it from a printed broadside in three columns with space at the end for the printer’s colophon. ² Perhaps it had been privately printed for distribution among only a few people, like the poetic Epytaphe vpon the Death of M. Rycharde Goodricke Esquier (1562). ³

The ballad’s content initially appears to be an unassuming compilation of commonplaces belonging to the ars moriendi tradition. ⁴ However, in stanza 29, three brothers and five children are mentioned. Such autobiographical references and the ballad’s testamentary nature suggest that it is the last work written by the court entertainer John Heywood before he went into exile in the Spanish Netherlands on 20 July 1564. ⁵ It can be read as the farewell of an old man who is dying or going into exile. Presumably both meanings are intended: now in his old age Heywood is looking back on his life and work and withdrawing from the world in order to prepare for a good death, in the Catholic faith. For these reasons, I conjecture that it is the same work described as ‘a rythme declaringe his own life and nature’, and that Heywood sent it from Mechlin (Malines) in December 1574 via Dr Thomas Wilson to William Cecil, Lord Burghley, in support of his plea to Queen Elizabeth to be allowed to remain overseas. ⁶

In its original form, whether printed or distributed in a few handwritten copies, I suspect the ballad may have had an alternate last line to obscure the identity of Heywood and, consequently, of members of his family and his friends. I conjecture that it read ‘Amen Quoth Thomas Good’, rhyming (as does ‘Iohn heywood’) with ‘Blood’ (line 150), and that in 1574, when Heywood sent his ‘rythme’ to Wilson, he amended the last line by cancelling the name ‘Thomas Good’ and writing in his real name. Samwell could have discovered the ballad in 1575, when Burghley ordered a search to be made in the Exchequer for papers relating to Heywood. It would seem natural for him to write ‘Amen Quoth Iohn heywood’ for line 152 and transpose the cancelled name ‘Thomas Good’ on the same line into the empty right hand column. ⁷

Heywood’s choice of the alias ‘Thomas’ is likely to be in homage to Sir Thomas More, whose English Workes, especially Dyalogue of comforte agaynst tribulacyon, is the source of some of the ballad’s language and significant themes. ⁸ Heywood’s copy of the Workes is likely the one later owned by his grandson, the poet John Donne. ⁹ As is well known, Heywood was personally connected to More, ¹⁰ and his familiarity with More’s works is shown in his ballad Man, yf thow mynd heuen to obtayne, which is a close paraphrase of More’s A godly instruccion (1534). ¹¹ The themes in When all that is that are derived from A dyalogue of comforte allude to More’s prominence as a Catholic martyr (d. 1535), following his refusal to sign the oath of Supremacy to Henry VIII, and to Heywood’s signing of the oath and renouncing his faith in 1544. ¹² In 1563, when Heywood’s recantation was printed in John Foxe’s Actes and Monuments and he simultaneously faced the prospect of having to sign the oath to Elizabeth, he seems to have turned to A dyalogue of comforte’s argument that tribulation might be used as a means for spiritual redemption.

The following edition of When all that is retains the original spelling, punctuation and capitalisation; abbreviations are expanded in italics (omitting bars above certain letters that appear to be decorative); ¹³ stanza and line numbers are editorial; modern spellings are supplied in square brackets.

1WHEN all that is to Was ys brought As all that hath byn is And all that shalbe lykewysse wrought ¹⁴ Then quaylth all worldly Blys ¹⁵

2ALL Worldely welth all worldely woo ¹⁶ 5 All worldely Ioye & payne All youth all Age both Frende & Foo Nought shall here theyn Remayn ¹⁷

3MANKYND that hath byn here & Shall Mans tyme caste in Accompt ¹⁸ 10 More then three dayes no Counte can call Mans Totall tyme too Amounte

4TYME past Dooth yesterdaye include This Daye the tyme present The tyme to comme to morowe vyd vude 15 There Standyth mans lyves Extent

5THE Longest Lyver with the Leesse Can no more tyme Compare But as the Somers Dayes by gesse ¹⁹ More than the wynters Are 20

6AND Death at Ende of Lyffe more Short As moment Lyffe here past ²⁰ The Lyffe & Death to comme Importe in lenght Ever to Last ²¹

7YET in Lyffe Here of sayde Short Somme 25 Grace had Or Lack of Grace For Endles Lyffe Or deth to comme Doth Lyffe Or death purchase ²²

8THEN in this momentarry tyme All you that yonglynges be ²³ 30 Axe [ask] and vse Grace in your Age pryme ²⁴ The first daye of these three

9WICHE First Daye yf hyt from you Stert ²⁵ The next middaye take holde Yf man in myd Age do nat Convert ²⁶ 35 The Devyll wilbe more Bolde

10IF IN theyse too Dayes Vyce so Rage That vertue hath le nonne ²⁷ This Third & last Daye in Last Age Gett Grace Elles Grace is Gonne 40

11WHERE the Tree Fallyth there shall hyt lye ²⁸ Here Scripture tellyth us playne As wee in good or yll State dye So shall wee styll Remayne

12THIS First daye lost the losse is muche ²⁹ 45 The Seconde Daye muche more The thirde Daye most where losse is suche ³⁰ Theare all Dayes ar forlore

13BUT thiesse to [two] First dayes to neclect Presumynge of the thirde 50 As Reprobates to be Reiect A Daunger Depely Sturde

14COMME when thowe wilt welcomme to me A Commefortable Text But From presumpcyon far to Flee 55 Mark what ensuyth here next

15IN OUR First dayes tyll our Last daye haue Grace in us no place Depe is the dreadde that wee then maye Lack Grace to call for Grace ³¹ 60

16VERTUE in youth who nonne will vse Good Custome to begyn honor in Age will hym Refuyse When he wolde honor wyn ³²

17WHEARE Grace in youth takyth suche place 65 That vertue Strykyth the Stroke ³³ Their Custome Traynyth man in suche Trace ³⁴ That Easye is the yoke ³⁵

18WHERE vice in yong hartes yearez bearyth the Swey ³⁶ There doth Custome of Syn 70 So Streight the waye that vertue mey ³⁷ hardlye in Age wynde yn ³⁸

19BUT Dying as youth or mydde yearez Before ouer [our] Olde Last deys The folye then to us Apperes 75 Of Long delayd Deleys

20AND yet dispaire wee in no case Yf too first dayes be lost The thirde Repent & praye for Grace too worke ouer best & most 80

21THE Workeman cumynge with good mynde ³⁹ Into the vyne yarde late At nyght his peny had Assynde In Full Extendyd Rate

22WHEREIN With Shovell & with Spade 85 My penny for to wyn The Sounne at poynt to goo to Glade ⁴⁰ My Dayes worke I Begyn

23PRAYING the master of the worke Fore Loytrynge to forgyve ⁴¹ 90 Of Grace kyndlynge in me somme Spark To worke nowe while I lyve

24THAT this Last daye this Last wroughte Owre ⁴² Maye Lost yerez so Redeme As mercye maye Suppresse the power 95 Of Iustyce in Extreme ⁴³

25AND towardes the worlde Amendes to meve ⁴⁴ As wordes maye make dedes Evyn ⁴⁵ I Axe forgyvenes And forgyve As I wolde be forgevyn ⁴⁶ 100

26REVENGYNG Rankor Layd Apart My Fooes yf Any bee Evyn From the Bottom of my hart All are forgyvyn of me

27GOD and the Worlde in all Respectes 105 Where I Offendyd haue What Fawte so euer me Deyteckes ⁴⁷ Of Both mercy I Crave

28NOWE yn one of my dying Dayes Tyme hastyng doth Full Fast 110 Here take I leave Goyng my ways In this Swannys Songe my last ⁴⁸

29MY Brothers three & Childerne fyve All Fryndes kyn and Alyese ⁴⁹ Longe after me well to Survyve 115 I wysshe in hartie wysse

30TO LYVE in Lymyttes of all Lawes Both Temperall and devyne Omyttyng no one Ioyte or Clawes ⁵⁰ That Dutie doth Asyne 120

31FROM God nor from the Prynce to swerue ⁵¹ In Dewtie Dewly weyde ⁵² Godes Booke Doth byd us both to serve ⁵³ As both maye be Obeyde

32ALL SPECYALTIES wherein to Rate ⁵⁴ 125 That far out Rechyth my Reche I haue sum tyme vsyd to prate ⁵⁵ But no tyme vsyd to preache

33YOU Havyng knoledge more than I howe your Dewe Dewties Growe ⁵⁶ 130 I saye no more but wisshe Dayly Dewe vse of that you knowe ⁵⁷

34IN ALL tymez past All pastymes past That haue passyd Froo me You Seyng me passe hence at Last ⁵⁸ 135 Remembr Vanytee ⁵⁹

35WHEN I am From you out of place ⁶⁰ This first verse in this Song To kype Remembraunce in this cease ⁶¹ Rede and Repete amonge ⁶² 140

36WHEN all that is to was is brought As all that hath byn is And all that shalbe lykewysse wrought Then Quaylth all worldly Blys ⁶³

37SYNCE Bryttle Blisse of worldly Ioye 145 Doth Owrely Euer Quayle ⁶⁴ Good God to us hevynlye Imploye ⁶⁵ The Ioyes that neuer faile ⁶⁶

38AS ALL thy faithfull Generally by thy most blest bled Blood Maye Rest in Rest aye Restyngly ⁶⁷ 150 Amen Quoth Iohn heywood ⁶⁸ Thomas Good

Finis

Heywood’s authorship and dating of ‘When all that is’

The reference to ‘My Brothers three’ (line 113) suggests that the latest year Heywood could have written the ballad is 1568, the year the eldest of his three brothers, William Heywood of Stock, Essex, died. ⁶⁹ William was park keeper of Crondon Park, Essex, which was owned by Sir William Petre. ⁷⁰ Heywood’s other brothers were Richard of Lincoln’s Inn and a protonotary of the court with William Roper, Thomas More’s son-in-law, ⁷¹ and Thomas Heywood, a monk at St Osyth’s, Essex, until it was dissolved, and afterwards a secular priest who conformed yet performed Catholic services. ⁷²

The reference to ‘Childerne fyve’ (line 113) is slightly ambiguous in that Heywood’s eldest daughter Joan was actually the daughter of Richard Pynson Jr (d. 1520), the second husband of Joan (daughter of John Rastell and Elizabeth More, sister of Thomas More), who by 1523 had married Heywood. ⁷³ Joan Pynson was born c.1520, married Christopher Stubbes, a contemporary of her uncle William Rastell at Lincoln’s Inn, ⁷⁴ and seems to have died after 1564 and before 1570 (she is named in her uncle Rastell’s will but not in her uncle Richard Heywood’s). Heywood’s natural daughters were both named Elizabeth, which has confused several biographers, ⁷⁵ but siblings sharing the same name was a relatively common occurrence since the infant mortality rate was high and parents wanted to pass down a family name, in this case, presumably that of Joan’s mother. The elder Elizabeth Heywood (d. after 1591/2) married one Marvyn, and the younger Elizabeth married the Catholic ironmonger John Donne. ⁷⁶ The Heywoods’ two sons, Ellis and Jasper, both became Jesuit priests during Elizabeth’s reign. In specifying five children, the ballad retains an ambiguity, which could afford a degree of protection for Heywood’s family if it had fallen into unsympathetic hands.

The inclusion of Heywood’s name (line 152) is the strongest evidence for his authorship. Heywood includes his name in four poems, which, like the ballad, concern personal matters: two ballads for Mary Tudor and the first and last epigrams of his 1560 collection. ⁷⁷ Geue place, ye ladyes, a lengthy ballad in common metre (like When all that is), was dedicated privately to Mary after Henry had pronounced her illegitimate in 1534. It survives in a manuscript copied by Heywood’s friend, William Forrest, ⁷⁸ a musical priest who claimed to have been Mary’s private chaplain. Heywood’s name is included in the poetic heading as well as in the penultimate stanza, and the use of the personal pronoun ‘I’ in the second half of the ballad (another feature of When all that is) also indicates Heywood’s ‘ownership’ of the views expressed. ⁷⁹

Heywood’s name appears in the title of A Balade specifienge partly the maner, partly the matter, in the most excellent meetyng and lyke mariage betwene our Soueraigne Lord and our Soueraigne Lady, the Kynges and Queenes Highnes Pende by Iohn Heywod (London: Wyllyam Ryddell, 1554). ⁸⁰ This ballad may have been privately printed for Heywood, perhaps as a gift to Philip and Mary, as there is no printer’s colophon on the broadside. As in When all that is and Geue place, ye ladyes, it begins with general statements before using first person. In stanza 8 (of 12) he introduces himself, admitting that he is unable to describe all the celebrations: ‘Plat them who can, for I can not’. ⁸¹

The first epigram (1560), Of weenyng and wotting, contains Heywood’s name in the last two lines. It contrasts those who considered themselves wise or foolish in the past and present (i.e., at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign). Its moral, ‘whoever thinks he is wise is a fool’ (cf. line 7), is reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 1:27: ‘But God hath chosen the folishe thynges of the worlde, to confounde the wyse’. ⁸² The first line brings to mind Thomas More, who told his daughter Meg Roper that he thought God considered him to be a fool, and therefore he did too. ⁸³ In the last line, Heywood is perhaps encouraging himself to be a wise-fool like More:

Wise men in olde time, wold weene them selues fooles. Fooles now in new time, wil weene them selues wise. Weene wise, and wot wise differ in wise schooles: To weene them selues wise, when fooles so deuise. As foolishe as frutelesse, is thenterprise. This case is thus adiudgde, in wisedomes schoole: Who weenth him selfe wise, wisdome wotth him a foole. Made by Iohn Heywood to these fooles euerychone, And made of Iohn Heywood, when he weenth him selfe none. ⁸⁴

The last epigram (1560), Of Heywood, is a dialogue between a person identified as ‘maister’ or ‘sir’ (cf. ‘the master of the worke’, When all that is, line 89) and Heywood himself. It implies that Heywood’s (lucrative) court entertainments have kept him from good works (lines 5–6). It ends with Heywood’s plea for the master to help him to be merry (Cf. Heywood’s ballad Be merye, frends, which paraphrases Philippians 4:4: ‘Bee meery in God, saynt Powle sayth playne, / And yet, sayth he, be mery agayne’). ⁸⁵

Art thou Heywood with the mad mery wit? Ye forsooth maister, that same is euen hit. Art thou Heywood that applieth mirth more then thrift? Ye sir, I take mery mirth a golden gift. Art thou Heywood that hath made many mad plaies? Ye many plaies, fewe good woorkes in all my daies. Art thou Heywood that hath made men mery long? Ye: and will, if I be made mery among. Art thou Heywood that woulde be made mery now? Ye sir: helpe me to it now I beseche yow. ⁸⁶

The eventual inclusion of ‘Iohn heywood’ at the end of When all that is using the word ‘quoth’ (i.e. as part of the signing formula typical of sixteenth-century works) ⁸⁷ clearly attests his authorship. Including his name in this last work also makes it into a testament, especially since doing so asserts the sincerity of his prayer (with ‘Amen’). Heywood’s play Wytty and Witless has a similar conclusion: the phrase ‘Amen quod John Heywod’ is written (though not in his hand) after the final speech by ‘Jerome’, which argues that because God prefers faithful workers above idle fools, everyone should work to obtain due reward in heaven. ⁸⁸ When all that is, which refers to working in God’s vineyard, conveys a similar message.

As mentioned above, When all that is can be read as the author’s preparation for both death and exile: ‘Here take I leave Goyng my wayes’ (line 111), ‘You Seyng me passe hence’ (line 135) and ‘When I am From you out of place’ (line 137). The only allusions to death are general ones: ‘Iustyce in Extreme’ (line 96), i.e., Judgement Day, and ‘Nowe yn one of my dyinge Dayes’ (line 109), i.e., his old age. The wish that his family and friends ‘Longe after me well to Survyve’ (line 115) does not necessarily imply that they will outlive him; and in line 139 ‘this cease’, which hints at ‘decease’ is ambiguous (see below). Since Catholics would have been in danger should the Privy Council learn that they were planning to go overseas without license, the ballad’s ambiguity about the author’s taking leave supports Heywood’s authorship and a date before July 1564.

The references to the last of the three days in the life of man, ‘My Dayes worke’ (line 88) and his ‘Last daye’ (line 93), refer to the author’s old age: Heywood was 67 or 68 when he went into exile. Three days are mentioned in a general way in lines 11, 45–50, 78–9, and are identified as youth (lines 30–32, 73), middle age (lines 35, 73), and old age (lines 39, 74) (cf. Aristotle’s Rhetoric, ii. 12–14). ⁸⁹ However, the author is also looking forward to the future: in lines 13–15 he compares the three days with yesterday (the past), today (the present), and tomorrow (the future), also expressed in lines 1–3 as ‘all that is’, ‘all that hath byn’, and ‘all that shalbe’. This may be an allusion to advice in the Golden Epistle of St Bernard, a practical guide on how to lead a spiritual life, as translated by the monk of Syon and More’s friend, Richard Whitford:

And þat you may be the more apte to praye, call thre thynges oft tymes vnto remembraunce, that is to say: what you have ben, what you be, and what you shalbe… what shal become of your soule, no man in the world can assure you. To remembre than the ioyes of heauen and paynes of hell, and that both be infinite, endles, and without rebate. ⁹⁰

The ballad’s phrase ‘this Swannys Songe my last’ (line 112) suggests that the author was known as a singer and had decided to write no more poems. ⁹¹ Heywood is not known to have written anything after he went into exile, even though he lived about another fourteen years. Before he left—as if Heywood wanted to ensure his legacy—Iohn heywoodes woorkes were printed by Thomas Powell (1562). The title suggests he did not plan future publications. It includes A dialogue conteynyng … prouerbes (1546, and ‘somewhat augmented’ in 1561), reprints of all of his earlier collections of epigrams (500), together with A sixt hundred of Epigrammes. Newly inuented and made by Iohn Heywood.

The reference in the ballad to prating (in stanza 32) implies that the author was admitting to a tendency to prattle at length on topics beyond his learning. Heywood’s lack of formal education is attested by his friend Forrest (mentioned above), who, describing himself as ‘simple and unlearned’, stated that ‘Heywood and I be near one’. ⁹² As seen above in the epigram Of Heywood, a court entertainer might well consider the nature of his work trivial. The word ‘pastymes’ (line 133) seems to be an appropriate description of the entertainments that Heywood had produced at court. It is reminiscent of a phrase in the final speech in Heywood’s Playe called the Foure PP: ‘To passe the tyme … Was the cause why the maker [i.e. Heywood] dyd make it [the play]’. ⁹³ Stanza 34 of the ballad: ‘In all tymes past all pastymes past / That haue passyd Froo me / … / Remembr vanytee’ also suggests the influence of the Golden Epistle: ‘take this lytell worke … and read therin … [or] shyfte vnto some other worke or occupation so that euer you auoyde ydlenesse, and all vayne pastymes, whyche in dede is losse of tyme’. ⁹⁴ The ballad’s estimate of its author concurs with the description of Heywood and his works by John Bale in 1557:

John Heywood, citizen of London, devoted to the arts of music and poetry in his own language, & clever without learning, for the sake of the revellers after carousing and feasts, worked much to lead spectacles and plays, or to display ludicrous characters, and to foster other vanities. ⁹⁵

There is an additional interpretation of the ballad’s references to past times and worldly vanity that helps to confirm Heywood’s authorship. Athough most of his biographers have assumed that Heywood’s wife Joan went into exile with him, Robert Bolwell (although mistakingly calling her Eliza) suggests that she may have died before he left. ⁹⁶ Joan Heywood is not mentioned in her brother William Rastell’s will of 8 August 1564, as one would have expected, since he made small bequests to many members of his extended family including Heywood and all but one of his children. ⁹⁷ Melancholic references to past times in stanza 34 of When all that is are reminiscent of the ‘glad’ remembrance of the ‘Dayes, weekes, and yeares in all tyme past’ in Heywood’s ballad about a long-standing loving marriage: Yf loue for loue of long tyme had. ⁹⁸ In Yf love for love the word ‘joy’ (‘jo’), which can mean ‘dear one, darling’, ⁹⁹ perhaps hints at the name Joan, and its words ‘ioyne with joy’ may pun on the names John and Joan. The third stanza of Yf loue for loue uses the rhyme, place / case: ‘Ye louers all in present place / … / I wysh to you lyke plesant case’. One reading of stanza 35 of the ballad shares this rhyme: ‘When I am From you out of place / … / … kepe Remembraunce in this cease [case]’. ‘This case’, as stanza 36 makes clear, is that worldly bliss comes to an end. In this context, the following stanza (37), which further emphasises the quailing of worldly bliss, may hint that because his worldly Joy (Joan) had died, he was now intent on attaining heavenly joy: ‘Bryttle Bliss of worldly Ioye’ (line 145); ‘Ioyes that neuer faile’ (line 148). ¹⁰⁰

Some lines of the ballad appear to express the wish that the author’s near relations will conform and live ‘in Lymyttes of all Lawes / Both Temporall and devyne’ (lines 117–18); ‘Godes Booke Doth byd us both to serve / As both maye be Obeyde’ (lines 123–4). Heywood’s knowledge of this traditional teaching is attested in works he printed during Philip and Mary’s reign: in A Balade specifienge … mariage ‘we’ pray ‘that all we, their subiects, may / Them and their lawes loue and obay’, and A breefe balet touching the traytorous takynge of Scarborow Castell includes the phrase ‘They [good subjects] know gods law: tobey their Kyng and Queene’. ¹⁰¹

In contrast to these unequivocal statements, the phrase in the ballad ‘Omyttyng no one Ioyte or Clawes / That Dutie doth Asyne’ (lines 119–20) suggests the potential difficulty of obeying the laws of both God and monarch. ¹⁰² Heywood’s desire to avoid signing the oath of Supremacy to Elizabeth is thought to have prompted his decision to go into exile. ¹⁰³ That the two laws are not the same thing is perhaps suggested by the use of the two words ‘Ioyte’ (with its associations with God’s law) and ‘Clawes’ (a legal term). Furthermore, the advice ‘From God nor from the Prynce to swerue / In Dewtie Dewly weyde’ (lines 121–2) introduces the idea that the laws must be weighed against each other, even if it advises against forsaking either. The advice is similar to More’s argument in The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer: when Christ ‘commaunded them [the people] that thei should obserue and fulfyll all their [superiors’] commaundements’ this ‘generaltie’ did not mean ‘that thei shoulde obaye any commaundement that by god wer forbidden, nor to set goddes lawe asyde for mennes tradicions’. ¹⁰⁴

The predicament hinted at in the ballad is broached in Heywood’s collection of newly written epigrams printed in 1562, which begins with two epigrams on rebellion that humourously reveal Heywood’s struggle to come to terms with how he could be true to both God and Elizabeth. In Of Rebellion, Heywood treats his obligations as logically incompatible: he admits (line 1) that he offends God, but in the rest of the poem he emphasizes that hanging is the just consequence of rebellion against the monarch. Three lines can be interpreted with reference to the Catholic faith: line 3 suggests he might rebel with a bodkin (a small dagger or pin). Since ‘bodkins’ was a mild oath meaning ‘God’s dear body!’, ¹⁰⁵ he may be making a reference to transubstantiation. Line 12 refers to fasting, a penitential Catholic practice. In the last line, the intention not to ‘hang vp’ (be fit for the gallows) but ‘syt downe’ gives an ambiguous solution to the dilemma: ‘syt downe’ could be read loyally as ‘to tolerate’ something or subversively as ‘to establish oneself in some position or place’. ¹⁰⁶

Against god I dayly offend by frailte: But against my prince, or natiue countre, With as much as bodkin, when I rebell, The next daie after hang me vp faire and well. The next daie after? nay the next daie before Wishe thou thy selfe hangd, in that case euermore. ¹⁰⁷ Before, thou hangst honestly vnwoorthyly. After, thou hangst, woorthyly vnhonestly. But ho? at our fyrst dyshe in our mery feast, ¹⁰⁸ Why talke we of hangyng our myrth to molest. Be our cheese no better than our pottage is, Better fast then feast at such feastes as is this. But beyng true to god, queene, countre, and crowne, We shall at all feastes, not hang vp, but syt downe. ¹⁰⁹

Heywood’s second epigram on rebellion (Otherwyse) suggests that to be considered a true Englishman he must remain in England—whoever is on the throne—and at least outwardly conform or be hanged.

Wylt thou be taken for a true Englyshe man? ¹¹⁰ Ye: be true to god, thy queene, and countre than. Stand fast by thy countre, who euer wold wyn it, Better stand fast by it, then hang fast in it. ¹¹¹

These two epigrams give an indication of Heywood’s thought even before the Act of Uniformity was passed. If, as I suggest, Heywood wrote When all that is about two years later, it shows that conformity was no longer possible for him.

The many connections of the ballad to Heywood’s life and works already examined make it reasonable to assume his authorship. Since he probably wrote it for his family and friends while he was preparing to go into exile, his references to obeying both God and the monarch may be ironic. All of his network knew what their duties were to the monarch but did not always obey. Heywood’s remark that the duties ‘growe’ (lines 129–30) may hint at Elizabeth’s increasingly harsh legislation against Catholics. As early as 1561, Christopher Stubbes, Heywood’s son-in-law, had been arrested and imprisoned after the Catholic priest John Cox alias Devon confessed that he (Coxe) and Thomas Langston, a former monk at Westminster Abbey, had said Latin Mass in Stubbes’s house in Westminster. Stubbes had also been discovered (by Cecil) attempting to cover up the fact that he had been helping Lady Francis Waldegrave collect and distribute alms to poor Catholics; Stubbes’s wife Joan née Pynson, his sister-in-law Elizabeth Marvyn, and his sister Alice Humberstone (née Stubbes) had also been involved. ¹¹²

Lines 129–30 of the ballad, ‘You havyng knoledge more than I / howe your Dew Dewties Growe’, suggest that Heywood’s family and friends may have weighed God’s laws more heavily than he, and may be intended especially to recall Heywood’s past conflict with Henry VIII’s laws. The indictment of 1544 states that Heywood and his fellow traitors were guilty of ‘not weighing the duties of their allegiance’ to Henry; ¹¹³ and in his recantation Heywood stated that Henry was the spiritual and temporal head of the English church ‘by the lawe of God’. ¹¹⁴ In When all that is he admits that the ‘specyalties’ or details regarding the assessing of duties are far beyond his reach (lines 125–6). He wishes to make proper use, ‘Dayly’ (perhaps a pun on the last day of his three days), of what his family knows (lines 131–2).

‘When all that is’ in dialogue with Thomas More

Heywood’s choosing exile shortly after the 1563 Act of Uniformity suggests that in his old age he was no longer willing to compromise his Catholic faith. This is evident in When all that is in several allusions to More’s Dyalogue of comforte. More wrote this work in the Tower after refusing to sign the oath to Henry in 1534, and was martyred on 6 July 1535. ¹¹⁵ According to his great-grandson, More wrote this dialogue (between a sick old man, Anthony, and his nephew Vincent) to show ‘how good Catholics should prepare themselves to lose liberty, life, and lands, and whatsoever can be most dear to them, rather than to forsake their faith’. ¹¹⁶ Underlying the whole work is the assurance that if one holds to the Catholic faith one not only considers ‘tribulacion as a gracious gifte of god’ but also trusts that ‘he that so loueth hym [Christ], that he longeth to goe to hym … he shalbe welcom … Chryste sayeth, he that commeth to me I wyll not cast hym out’. ¹¹⁷ On 15 February 1544, when Heywood was condemned to death as a traitor for refusing to sign the oath of Supremacy to Henry, his fellow condemned took ‘courage’ from More’s ‘wisdom’ and were martyred for the faith on 7 March. ¹¹⁸ Heywood accepted a reprieve, ¹¹⁹ was imprisoned again and pardoned on 26 June. On 6 July — the anniversary of More’s martyrdom — he read out a recantation at Paul’s Cross, during which he expressed gratitude to Henry ‘not onlye for sauing my bodye after worthye condempnation to death … , but also for sauing my soule from pearishinge’. ¹²⁰ Heywood’s faith had not been strong enough for him to die a martyr, putting him in danger of dying as a reprobate. Having done this ‘deadlye synne commytted after baptysme’, he was in need of the sacrament of penance, comprising ‘confession of mouthe, contricion of hert, and satisfaccion by good dedes’. ¹²¹

One of the most obvious allusions in the ballad to A dyalogue is Heywood’s use (especially in stanzas 20–23) of the parable of the man coming into the vineyard to work at the eleventh hour (Matthew 20:1–9). ¹²² In A dyalogue the parable is used to discuss penance, arguing against the reformed rejection of doing good works. Anthony not only illustrates the long tradition of apostles and martyrs doing penance, he refers to repentance as being part of our duty to God, and warns Vincent that one should ‘remember that in to Goddes Vyneyarde there goeth no manne but he that is called thither’. ¹²³ He concludes the chapter:

lette no manne sinne in hope of grace, for grace commeth but at Goddes wyll & that minde [way of thinking, i.e., presumption] maie bee the lette [hindrance] that grace of fruitful repentinge shall neuer after bee offered hym, but that he shall eyther gracelesse goe lynger on carelesse, or with a care fruitelesse, fall into despayre. ¹²⁴

Heywood’s ballad follows this argument closely by interpreting the parable as an act of penance, linking it to a warning not to presume on God’s mercy or to delay turning to God. In stanza 22 Heywood puts himself in the place of the workman coming late into the vineyard, and prays ‘the master of the worke’ (line 89) to forgive his loitering. Heywood had pointed out (stanza 13) that those ‘Presumynge’ that they could still repent in old age run the risk of being rejected as ‘Reprobates’ (line 51), a word that suggests Heywood’s own apostasy. Since he is ‘yn one of my dyinge Dayes’ (line 109), he intendes during his ‘Last wroughte Owre’ (line 93) ‘toward the worlde Amendes to meve / As wordes maye make dedes Evyn’ (lines 97–8). The ballad implies that he had not yet fulfilled the third part of the sacrament of penance, making ‘satisfaction by good deeds’, such as ‘much fasting, praying, and other afflictions corporal’. ¹²⁵

Lines 41–2 ‘Where the Tree Fallyth there shall hyt lye / Here Scripture tellyth us playne’ (Ecclesiastes 11:3) paraphrases an earlier work of More’s that argues against Tyndale’s view of God’s ‘elect’. For More, the elect are those who die in a state of grace, and those who have fallen must ‘be borne of God againe, by grace through penaunce’:

And in which soeuer of these two states a man finally dieth in, in that he perpetually dwelleth, and is thereby for euer eyther the childe of god in hys chyrch of the finall electes in heauen, or elles the child of the deuil in the churche of the final reprobates in hel: according to the word of holy writ, if a tree fal south or north, in what place so euer it fall, there shal it remayne. ¹²⁶

More’s treatment of grace in both quotes cited above can be detected in the ballad. The first may have influenced Heywood’s reasoning in stanzas 14–15: one should avoid presumption, because without grace, ‘Depe is the dreadde that wee then maye / Lack Grace to call for Grace’. It also influences stanza 20, which states that even if we have lost our first two days ‘dispaire wee in no case /… / The thirde Repent & praye for Grace / too worke ouer best & most’. The second quote may influence stanza 7 of the ballad, which states that it is necessary that one ask for and use grace, because whether one has it or not in one’s short temporal life makes the difference between purchasing everlasting heaven or hell.

The ballad may have been influenced by More’s use of a third biblical text, Matthew 11:28–30:

Come vnto me all ye that laboure: and are laden, & I will ease you. Take my yocke vpon you, and lerne of me, for I am meke, and lowly in herte: and ye shall fynde rest vnto youre soules. For my yocke is easy, and my burden is light. ¹²⁷

More interprets the ease of the yoke as the hope of those undergoing persecution: ‘The ease of his yoke standeth not in bodily ease, nor the lightnes of his burden standeth not in the slacknes of any bodily payn … but it standeth in the swetenes of hope, wherby we fele in our pain a pleasaunt taste of heauen’. ¹²⁸ In the ballad, line 53, ‘Comme when thowe wilt welcomme to me’, is direct address, spoken not by Heywood (as it first appears to be) but by Christ. Line 54, ‘A Commefortable Text’ spoken in response, leads to the vineyard parable, though not until Heywood has given his list of reasons for avoiding delay. The first of these reasons (stanza 17) states that if one acquires grace early in life then ‘Easye is the yoke’ (line 68). Heywood’s association of the ‘easy yoke’ with virtue acquired in youth may be intended to acknowledge that in his youth he did not accept More’s interpretation of this comfortable text, that hope makes persecution bearable.

However, the ballad eventually makes it clear that the line ‘Comme when thowe wilt welcomme to me’ is spoken to a person towards the end of life, and this connects the text to a second example of belated penance in More’s Dyalogue of comforte, the thief on the cross. The line is almost identical to ‘Come when thou list, welcome to me!’ in the third (last) verse of the famous poetic meditation on the passion, ‘Woffully araide [arrayed]’, which was set à 4 by William Cornysh of the Chapel Royal:

Off sharpe thorne I have worne a crowne on my hede, So paynyd, so straynyd, so rufull, so red; Thus bobbid, thus robbid, thus for thi love ded; Onfeygnyd, not deygnyd, my blode for to shede: My fete and handis sore The sturdy nailis bore; What myght I suffir more Than I have done, O man, for the? Cum when thou lyst, welcum to me!

Woffully araid, My blode, man, For the ran, It may not be naid; My body bloo and wan, Woffully araide. ¹²⁹

Heywood’s use of this locus similis not only sums up the spiritually comfortable text—the message of the parable of the vineyard (come to me, whenever you wish)—but also calls to mind More’s discussion of God’s mercy in A dyalogue. More refers to the example of the dying thief: God ‘is readye to receiue euerye man, and did spread his armes abrode vpon the crosse, louynglye to embrace al them that wil come, and euen there accepted the thefe at his last ende’, which Vincent describes as ‘comforte very gret’. ¹³⁰ Furthermore, in the last chapter of A dyalogue, More suggests that meditation on Christ’s passion is the main source of comfort for those condemned to death for their faith. His description of the passion comprises similar imagery to that of ‘Woffully araide’, especially emphasizing the blood of Christ: ‘the scornful croune of sharp thornes, beaten down vpon hys holy head so strayte & so diepe, that on euerye part his blessed bloude issued out & stremed down: his louely limmes drawen & stretched out vpon þe cross’. ¹³¹ Heywood uses alliteration (lines 149–51) to emphasize redemption by the blood of Christ and (concluding the topos of doing good works) finding rest for one’s soul: ‘All thy [God’s] faithfull Generally / by thy most blest bled Blood / May Rest in Rest aye Restyngly’.

In stanza 9, there are two further references to A dyalogue that may reflect Heywood’s denial of his faith under persecution: the word ‘middaye’ (line 34) describing the second day (of one’s three) and the warning, ‘Yf man in myd Age do nat Convert / The Devyll wilbe more Bolde’ (lines 35–6). These words evoke More’s interpretation of the main (fourth) kind of tribulation, persecution for the faith, ‘ab incursu & demonio meridiano’ [Psalm 90:6], the devil who comes in ‘the mydde daye’:

[the man] is taken and in holde [prison], and may for the foreswearynge or the denyinge of hys faythe, bee delyuered and suffred to lyue in reste, and somme in greate worldelye wealthe also … And therefore … of all the Deuylles temptacions, is this temptacion, this persecucion for the faythe, the moste perilous. ¹³²

Heywood describes the influence of the midday devil as giving rein to Vice, whose ‘Rage’ drives out virtue (lines 36–7), a line of thought implicit in More’s description of the midday devil who ‘runneth on roaryng with assaulte lyke a rampyng Lyon’ (cf. 1 Peter 5:8). ¹³³ More’s idea that this kind of tribulation is the ‘moste perilous’ is conveyed by Heywood’s words ‘A Daunger Depely Sturde’ (line 52) and ‘Depe is the dreadde’ of being unable to call for grace (lines 59–60).

Stanza 34 perhaps alludes to the midday devil’s temptation of worldly weath (‘Vanytee’) combined with the figure polyptoton on the word ‘past’: ‘In all tymez past All pastymes past / That haue passyd Froo me / You Seyng me passe hence at Last / Remembr Vanytee’. This reflects More’s discussion of the second of the four kinds of temptation, the arrow of pride: ‘a sagitta volante in die’ (‘of the arrow flying in the day’, Psalm 90:6), which refers to vanity via puns on the word ‘passed’: ‘Of this arowe speaketh the wise man in the .V. Chapter of Sapience, where he saith in the persone of them that in pryde & vanitie passed the tyme of thys presente life, & after þat so spente, passed hence into hel’. ¹³⁴ Similarly, there seems to be an allusion in stanza 5 of the ballad to More’s comments that ‘this worldlye prosperitie (wherin a man so reioyceth, and wherof the deuill maketh him so proud) is but euen a very short winter day’, and that unless the arrow of pride ‘be stopped by some grace of god in the waye, the soule that flyeth vp therwith, can neuer fayle to fall’. ¹³⁵ Heywood compares the length of ‘Somers Days’ to ‘wynters [days]’ (lines 19–20), the brevity of life in the world compared with eternal life or death, which depends on ‘Grace had Or Lack of Grace’ (line 26).

The advice in stanza 20 not to despair, but to repent and pray for grace to work, evokes a passage in A dyalogue regarding someone who, through pride, had once fallen to the midday devil:

God for fauoure that he beareth him hath suffered him to fall diepe into the deuilles daunger, to make him thereby knowe what he was, whyle he tooke himself for so sure. And therfore as he suffred hym then to fall for a remedye against ouer bolde pryde, so wil god now (if the man meke himself, not with frutles despayre, but with fruitefull penance) … set him vp again vpon hys fete ¹³⁶

Heywood’s ballad thus combines elements of the vineyard parable with elements that reflect More’s discussion of accepting tribulation (for which one of More’s examples was the penitent thief) into a prayer for ‘Grace kyndlynge in me somme Spark / To worke nowe while I lyve’ (lines 91–2). Heywood emphasises how long he has delayed: in ‘this Last day this Last wroughte Owre’ (line 93), i.e., the eleventh hour (in the parable), he has to work to redeem lost years. However, by being willing to go into exile Heywood has accepted tribulation, and as More explains:

the [first kind of] tribulacion … [is] suche affliccion of the flesh or expence of his goodes as a man taketh hymselfe, or willinglye bestoweth in punishemente of his own sinne, and for deuocion to god. Nowe in this tribulacion nedeth he no manne to coumforte him … The courage that for goddes sake & his soule health kyndleth his hert and enflameth it thereto shall by the same grace, that putte it in his mynde, geue him … coumforte and ioye therein. ¹³⁷

The ballad’s allusions to More’s Dyalogue of comforte suggest that Heywood is acknowledging (perhaps even confessing) to his family and friends that in 1544, when he was middle-aged, he renounced his faith through over-bold pride, and, as promised by the midday devil, not only saved his body from a painful death but was also allowed ‘to lyue in reste, and … in greate worldelye wealthe’, his lands and annuities restored to him by Henry. Having pledged his allegiance to Henry and to ‘his highnesse heires and successors kinges of thys realme so shall be’, ¹³⁸ Heywood remained in England throughout Edward VI’s reign and prospered at court. For example, according to George Puttenham, ‘Iohn Heywood the Epigrammatist who for the myrth and quicknesse of his conceits more then for any good learning was in him came to be well benefited by the king’; furthermore, he ‘was allowed to sit at the tables end’ and entertain John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. ¹³⁹

This way of life contrasts sharply with that of the members of his family who remained loyal Catholics. Dr John Clement and his wife, Margaret Giggs (More’s adopted daughter) and their daughter Winifred and her husband William Rastell, for example, suffered for their faith by going into exile after the enforcement in London of the Act of Uniformity (passed by Parliament on 1 January 1549), which mandated the sole use in worship of the first Book of the Common Prayer. They settled in Louvain at the house of More’s dearest friend, Anthony Bonvise, where Rastell prepared More’s English works for print. ¹⁴⁰ On his return to England after Mary had come to the throne, Rastell dedicated the volume to her. ¹⁴¹ Heywood was apparently received back into the Catholic church and his worldly prosperity increased during the reign of Philip and Mary.

At the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign, Heywood seems to have hoped that he would be able to continue his life at court: on 7 August 1559 ‘a play of the Children of Powlls and ther Master Se[bastian Westcott], Master Phelypes [Philip ap Rhys?] & Master Haywod’ was performed at Nonsuch for her. ¹⁴² However, some of his staunchly Catholic family members were not as hopeful regarding the future: in 1560 the Clements went into exile again. ¹⁴³ Their daughter Helen also went into exile, where she married Thomas Prideaux, a lawyer associated with Heywood and with several other people connected with St Paul’s Cathedral. ¹⁴⁴ On 3 January 1562/3 Rastell also went back into exile: on 17 January, Bishop Alvarez de Quadra, the Spanish Ambassador, reported to Philip of Spain that ‘Dr. Rastell, one of the judges at Westminster, has secretly gone to Flanders, which has caused great sensation here’. ¹⁴⁵

Heywood’s growing concern regarding religious matters (discussed above), combined with the attrition of his English network, was brought to a crisis in spring 1563. On 20 March 1562/3, the full text of his recantation was made available for the first time in Foxe’s Actes and Monuments of these latter and perillous dayes, touching matters of the Church printed by John Day. ¹⁴⁶ Foxe, after returning to England in October 1559, had been given access to archival material with which to augment the Latin martyrology he had printed in exile in 1554 and 1559: ¹⁴⁷ he found Heywood’s recantation in Bishop Edmund Bonner’s register. An indication that the printing of it affected Heywood is that on 26 March 1562/3 Heywood transferred the leases of his property in Romney Marsh (Kent), North Mimms (Hertfordshire), and presumably also Bulmer (Yorkshire), and elsewhere, to his son-in-law John Donne, in preparation for going into exile: Donne apparently agreed to send the rents to him. ¹⁴⁸ On 1 April, the Act of Supremacy came into effect. Heywood, as a teacher, could expect at some point to be called upon to sign the oath to Elizabeth. Faced with the same test of faith as in 1544, with his fall from grace now made notorious by Foxe, he had the opportunity to make proper satisfaction. As shown in More’s Dyalogue of comforte, going into exile was not only a tribulation in and of itself, and a gracious gift of God, but it also enabled him to spend the remainder of his life in earnest prayer, preparing to die as one of God’s elect, in the Catholic faith.

As he prepared to leave England, the elderly Heywood had many reasons to consider his past life, as well as the hardships of the present time for Catholics and his own approaching death. When all that is corresponds with the characterisation of autobiographical works of the early modern period as being ‘more often the product of suffering and humiliation than of pride and success’, and often driven by ‘the need for self-defence’. ¹⁴⁹ Heywood may well have wanted to leave the members of his family and his friends in England a poetic memento, since he was used to edifying others through the medium of moralistic ballads. When all that is, his swan-song, would have provided them with a graceful farewell.

‘When all that is’ as Heywood’s ‘rythme on his life and nature’

On 20 July 1564 Heywood and his son Ellis fled overseas without a licence. ¹⁵⁰ He chose to settle in Mechlin, which was then the centre of the Catholic religion in the Netherlands. Heywood’s decision to settle there seems consistent with the pentitent intentions he expressed in When all that is. In contrast, Heywood’s family and friends chose to settle in the University towns of Louvain or Antwerp where they actively supported English Catholicism. For example, at Louvain, Dr Clement was involved with distributing money to Catholic bishops imprisoned in England. ¹⁵¹

Conditions for English exiles worsened in late 1569 and 1570 after the failed attempt to restore the Catholic religion in England by rescuing Mary Queen of Scots (the Northern Rebellion). ¹⁵² The rebels escaped to the Netherlands and France, causing Elizabeth and the Privy Council to pay close attention not only to them but also to those who had gone into exile earlier. ¹⁵³ This is demonstrated in A Recantation of famous Pasquin of Rome (printed by John Day in 1570), a posthumous attack on Bonner, regarding his persecutions during Mary’s reign. Included among Bonner’s ‘frendes’ are ‘Elis Haywood’, ‘Geasper Haywood’, ‘Iohn Haywood’, ‘Pridiockes’ [Prideaux], and ‘Story’ (discussed below). Following the list of names is the comment:

And these [men] be those which thinke Pope no ill. Yet they are true subiectes as they say, But I maruell why they ran away. ¹⁵⁴

Following Pope Pius V’s excommunication of Elizabeth in 1570, Elizabeth’s third parliament (2 April–29 May 1571) passed legislation (similar to the unsuccessful Marian exiles bill) intended to pressure all exiles to return to England: ‘An Acte agaynste Fugytyves over the Sea’ (13 Eliz. c. 3) threatened to confiscate the property of those who did not return within six months. ¹⁵⁵ In preparation for this, the Exchequer began sending out commissions to enquire into what they held. As Bald explains, there were at least seven inquisitions into Heywood’s property. ¹⁵⁶ At the ‘Inquisition as to the possessions [in Kent] of John Heywood gentleman fugitive’ in 1572, the commission found that Heywood’s conveyance of the leases to Donne was invalid, and the property was immediately confiscated. ¹⁵⁷ In 1574, the Hertfordshire commission reported that ‘John Heywood and his son … in spite of a proclamation calling upon them to return … had refused to do so’. ¹⁵⁸

Because the majority of the exiles refused to return, the government tried another approach: in November 1574 Thomas Wilson was sent to the Spanish Netherlands to persuade the Governor, Don Luis Requesens, to expell the English rebels living there. Wilson also visited several exiles, offering the restoration of their property if they returned to England and conformed for a year.

He visited Heywood between 13 and 17 December 1574:

I did talke with olde heywode at Maclyne, and declared the Queenes goodnes towardes hym, and your Lordship’s [Burghley’s] disposicyon to do hym good. the olde man was greatelie comeforted with the message, but he answered, that he cowlde not retourne before the Sprynge becawse of his sickelie and aged bodie, at what tyme he would resolue, what to doo. his soonne Elise heywode nowe a Iesuite and sometymes my good companyon in padurye [Padua], came and offerd hymselfe to preache before me… He promysed to preache Christ symplie without any inuectiue against the policie of Englande, or the religion thereof… [After 18 Dec.] Olde heywode hathe deliuerde a letter vnto me for Mr Lee, with a Schedule of his lyuinge, which he had in England. And for that [i.e. because] I toulde hym at maclyne that the Queenes majestie was neuer so precise, but that her highnes cowld and woulde beare with mens weakenes for their conscience in religion, and onelie mysselyked overte actes, and rebelliouse practises agaynst her crowne and persone, of suche especiallie, as woulde sette vp and plucke down kynges and queenes at theyre pleasures, he hath made a rythme, declaringe his own life and nature, which yor Lordship maye see in the Schedule. And thus most humblie I do take my leaue this 20 of december 1574 Frome Anwarpe ¹⁵⁹

Heywood’s reference to ‘Mr Lee’ was a pointed way of letting Burghley know that he did not intend to return to England. John Lee had been instrumental in the abduction and forced repatriation in August 1570 of Heywood’s friend John Story, who was executed for treason on 1 June 1571. ¹⁶⁰ Printed reports on Story’s fate circulated in the Netherlands shortly afterwards. ¹⁶¹ Heywood also had several reasons to feel a special bond with Story. Story had signed the oath to Henry and later bitterly regretted having done so. ¹⁶² He was villified in the first edition of Foxe’s Actes and Monuments. ¹⁶³ On 24 April 1563 he was summoned to take the Elizabethan oath, which he refused, and on 30 April he ‘determined to try to save himself by flight rather than have to choose between taking the oath or being hanged’. ¹⁶⁴ With the help of de Quadra, Story escaped and fled with his family to the Netherlands. According to Nicholas Sander, he led ‘the life rather of a monk than of a man of the world[;] he frequented the Charterhouse [in Louvain] more than his own house’, ¹⁶⁵ the religious order to which More had been much attached. ¹⁶⁶

Although Lee was in Burghley’s service for several years, sending reports on who received pensions from Spain and trying (unsuccessfully) to assist a few exiles who wished to negotiate their return to England, ¹⁶⁷ he was thought by the exiles to be in Antwerp on account of his religion, working as a double agent on their side. However, in October 1572, Lee was imprisoned by the Duke of Alva under suspicion of being involved in Story’s abduction. The Catholic exile Lady Anne Hungerford arranged for Prideaux (Heywood’s friend) to petition Alva on Lee’s behalf, but there was mutual distrust between them. According to Lee, the exiles had discovered that Burghley supported Lee’s case; ¹⁶⁸ Prideaux apparently told a friend of his that Lee should not have petitioned people in England. ¹⁶⁹ Lee was released in June 1573 through Burghley’s and Elizabeth’s intervention. In mid 1574, Lee was likely being discussed among the exiles because he had been granted an annunity by Elizabeth, confiscated from the property of the exile Richard Hopkins. ¹⁷⁰ This may explain why Wilson thought Heywood’s reference to ‘Mr Lee’ in December was worth reporting to Burghley.

Wilson’s report that Heywood ‘hath made a rythme’ need not imply that it was written between c.13–17 December 1574. When all that is could not have been composed then, since it assumes his three brothers are alive; two of them had died by 1571. However, the subject of the ‘rythme’, Heywood’s ‘life and nature’, whether this was his own or Wilson’s description, closely matches the ballad’s content. ¹⁷¹

Heywood knew that Wilson considered himself expert in reading poems with hidden meanings, since Wilson’s Arte of Rhetorique (1553) refers to Heywood’s works:

An Allegorie is none other thyng, but a Metaphore vsed throughout a whole sentence, or Oration. As in speakyng against a wicked offendour, I might say thus. Oh Lorde, his nature was so euill, and his witte so wickedly bente, that he ment to bouge the shippe, where he hymselfe sailed, meanyng that he purposed the destruction of his owne countrie. It is euill puttyng strong wine into weake uesselles, that is to say it is euill trustyng some women with weightie matters. The English Prouerbes gatherde by Ihon Heywood helpe wel in this behaulf, the whiche commenly are nothyng elles but Allegories, and darcke deuised sentences. ¹⁷²

Wilson’s first example of allegory could imply that he considered Heywood to be a dangerous Catholic, even during Edward’s reign, someone who would no doubt prefer Mary (perhaps one of the weak vessels in Wilson’s second example) to be the ruler.

Since Wilson, Burghley and Elizabeth knew Heywood, they probably recognized the ballad as a farewell to his family written around the time of his exile, c.1564. If my conjecture is correct that the last line of the ballad originally read ‘Amen Quoth Thomas Good’, drawing attention to the content taken from More, Heywood’s emending it with his own name (his signature) in its place, may have been intended to ratify it as his personal testament, evidence of his true reasons for leaving without license.

There is nothing concrete in the ballad to suggest he harboured negative feelings against Elizabeth. Indeed, it states that he has put aside ‘Revengyng Rankor’ and forgiven ‘my Fooes yf any bee / Evyn From the Bottom of my hart’ (stanza 26); and also craved mercy from ‘God and the Worlde in all Respectes / Where I Offendyd haue’ (stanza 27). As discussed above, its literal reading expresses the wish that his family and friends remaining in England obey both temporal and divine law (stanzas 30–31).

Although Heywood had told Wilson that he would decide whether he would return in the spring, he no doubt knew that most of his property had already been given away to Elizabeth’s supporters, and that there had been recent inquisitions into his other property. ¹⁷³ At this point in his life, Heywood was presumably able to live comfortably enough and hoped only to be left in peace. Wilson forwarded Heywood’s letter, schedule and ‘rythme’ to Burghley where it was likely filed away in the Exchequer.

However, in the spring, Heywood was apparently robbed by soldiers and left in desperate poverty. On 18 April 1575, he wrote a begging letter to Burghley (after having petitioned Burghley’s wife, Mildred (née Cooke), who was an old friend of Heywood’s from Edward’s court). ¹⁷⁴ Heywood requested that he be given licence to remain in the Netherlands, since he was 78 years old and not expecting to live long. He also asked to be allowed to receive money Donne owed him, as well as anything remaining of his living, which his daughter Elizabeth Marvyn would collect. ¹⁷⁵ The letter includes some echoes of When all that is, which—assuming this is the ‘rythme’ sent to Burghley—could have been intended to remind Burghley of his earlier communication via Wilson: ‘[I] will spend my tyme, that I have to lyve, in prayer, and in loking to my last ende’. ¹⁷⁶

Over four months later, on 4 September 1575, Heywood was able to write to Burghley to thank him for his help, since Donne had sent Heywood a portion of the rental arrears. He reminded Burghley of his earlier requests to be allowed ‘the remnant of my fond Lyving that is not geven awaye’ and license to remain. ¹⁷⁷ Burghley then received a petition from Elizabeth Marvyn, together with a letter of support from Sir Edward Saunders, Chief Baron of the Exchequer (a Catholic who had been Mary’s Chief Justice). These letters prompted Burghley to instruct Thomas Fanshawe, the Remembrancer at the Exchequer, to have another search made for records concerning what remained of Heywood’s property:

After my harty commendacons I do sende yow here enclosed a supplicacon exhibited vnto me by one Elizabeth Mervin dawghter to Mr Jhon Heywood, for the stay of so mvch of her sayd fathers landes as are not allreddy paste away to others; yow shall allso receave a letter from my Lord cheefe Barron written vnto me in her behalfe, wherby yow may perceave how desirous his lordship is that the poore woman might be pleasured accordinge to her sayd request. As I allso wolde very well like of; yf I knewe, in what sorte and by what meanes the same may be donne, since the office is allreddy found ¹⁷⁸ And I thinke the most parte of his sayd livinge allreddy paste awaye. These are therfor to require yow that yow will consider of this her petition and cavse searche to be made bothe in your owne office and else where; ¹⁷⁹ what it is that is found for the Queenes majestie how mvche therof is paste awaye, what ther is remayninge vngravnted And how her majestie is avnswered for the same; And herof to advertise me. So fare yow hartely well. from the Courte at Windesor the xixth of October 1575 / Your lovinge Freind, W Burghley. ¹⁸⁰

The outcome of the search is unknown, and there is no evidence that Heywood received licence to remain in the Netherlands. The ‘rythme’ that he had sent to Wilson in December 1574 was apparently mislaid or ignored. By late 1576 Heywood was living with his son Ellis at the Jesuit college, Antwerp, but in 1578 the Jesuits were expelled. They escaped to Louvain, where Ellis died, followed apparently by his father. ¹⁸¹

Sometime between July 1561 and his death in 1585 Francis Samwell copied Heywood’s ballad into his draft ledger for Dr Bill’s estate. ¹⁸² His interest in it may simply have been its subject matter: ars moriendi. His own will dated 24 November 1585 reveals that he was a religious man who had Catholic sympathies. For example, he expressed the wish to be ‘buried in the southe ylle or chappell of the glorious and blessed virgine sainte Marye within the churche of all saintes in the aforesaide towne of Northampton … nighe vnto my Late mother’. ¹⁸³ She was Amy/Anne, who belonged to the Gifford family, many of whom were Catholic, and Samwell’s own daughter Amy married the Catholic Roger Gifford of St James, Northamptonshire.

Samwell made most of his ledger entries (fols 1–36v) between July 1561 and December 1564, but the last few (fol. 37r-v) date from 1565 to January 1574/5. ¹⁸⁴ The rest of the book is blank (fols 38r–92v, 94r-v), except for When all that is (fol. 93r-v), the only item unrelated to Dr Bill’s will. Given Samwell’s position as auditor of the Exchequer, where Heywood’s ‘rythme’ was sent in December 1574, I conjecture that this copy was the source of When all that is. Samwell may have come across the ‘rythme’ in January 1574/5 at the same time he was entering the last items of business regarding Dr Bill’s will or in September/October 1575 during Fanshawe’s search for documentation concerning Heywood’s property. Samwell may have considered the ledger a convenient place for preserving a copy of the ballad because it was soon going to be put away (perhaps bound) for safe-keeping.

Figure 1 Stanzas 1–26 of When all that is, Durham Cathedral Add. MS 243, fol. 93r. Reproduced by kind permission of the Chapter of Durham Cathedral.

Figure 2 Stanzas 27–38 of When all that is, Durham Cathedral Add. MS 243, fol. 93v. Reproduced by kind permission of the Chapter of Durham Cathedral.