Heywood, John c.1497-c.1580
English epigrammatist, playwright and musician

He was born probably in London and studied at Oxford. Introduced at court by Sir Thomas More (a distant cousin by marriage), he made himself, by his wit and his skill in singing and playing on the virginals, a favourite with Henry VIII and with Queen Mary I, to whom he had been music teacher in her youth. He was a devout Catholic, and after the accession of Elizabeth I went to Belgium. He wrote several short plays or interludes, whose individual characters, such as 'the Pedlar', and 'the Pardoner', represent classes, and which thus form a link between the old moralities and the modern drama. He is remembered above all, however, for his collections of proverbs and epigrams. His wearisome allegorical poem, The Spider and the Flie (1556), contrasts Catholicism and Protestantism. He was the grandfather of John Donne.

Bibliography: R C Johnson, John Heywood (1970)