Nicholas Grimald
Nicholas Grimald was an English poet and scholar born around 1519 in Brownshold, Huntingdonshire. He was the only son in a yeoman family with seven sisters and received his education at Christ's College, Cambridge, followed by Merton College, Oxford. Grimald initially gained recognition for his moral writings against the Roman Catholic clergy during the Protestant Reformation, earning a preaching license from Bishop Richard Sampson. His career took a difficult turn when he became chaplain to Bishop Nicholas Ridley, a prominent Protestant who was later executed during Queen Mary's reign. Grimald himself was imprisoned for a time but ultimately recanted his Protestant faith to save his life, leading to suspicion and scorn from his peers. His literary contributions included two Latin tragedies and numerous poems in Richard Tottel's influential anthology, "Tottel's Miscellany," which featured early examples of blank verse. Despite his earlier prominence, Grimald faced isolation after the accession of Queen Elizabeth I and faded from public view, with his death suggested to have occurred around 1562.
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Nicholas Grimald
Poet
- Born: c. 1519
- Birthplace: Brownshold (now Leighton Bromswold), Huntingdonshire, England
- Died: c. 1561
Biography
Nicholas Grimald was born around 1519, in the village of Brownshold (now Leighton Bromswold) in Huntingdonshire. He was once thought to have been the son of Giovanni Baptista Grimaldi, a Genoese immigrant, but he was actually the only son of a yeoman family; he had seven sisters. He was probably schooled by the local prebendary, Gilbert Smith, who facilitated his subsequent studies at Cambridge University’s Christ’s College, where he matriculated in 1536 and was awarded a B.A. in 1540. He went to Oxford University in 1541 as probationer fellow at Merton, where he obtained his M.A. in 1544. By 1547 he was in Cambridge again, lecturing on rhetoric at Christ Church.
Grimald began composing moralizing condemnations of the Romanist clergy in 1549, which enabled him to obtain him a licence to preach in Eccles, near Manchester, from the reformist bishop of Lichfield, Richard Sampson, in 1552. His career took an unfortunate turn, however, when he was appointed chaplain to Nicholas Ridley, the bishop of Rochester, who subsequently became bishop of London. Ridley, one of the most-prominent Protestants in England, was party to the coronation of Lady Jane Grey and was rapidly imprisoned by Queen Mary. He was later executed with Hugh Latimer as one of the Oxford martyrs. Grimald was similarly imprisoned in the Bocardo jail in Oxford but was then transferred to the Marshalsea in London, where he recanted his faith and saved his life, earning himself the opprobrium of the Protestant community and engendering the suspicion that he had informed against his former friends.
Grimald’s early writings include two Latin tragedies, Christus redivivus (1541) and Archipropheta sive Johannes Baptista (1548), both printed in Cologne; the latter features a version of the story of Salome. He published some volumes of translation from classical Latin sources, some of which were commissioned by Ridley, including a volume of Cicero. His most widely read works, however, were the forty poems he contributed to Richard Tottel’s anthology of Songes and Sonettes (better known as Tottel’s Miscellany). These included “A Funeral Song upon the Decease of Annes, His Mother,” “The Death of Zoroas,” “Marcus Tullius Ciceroe’s Death,” and two early poems in blank verse that may show the influence of another of the anthology’s contributors, Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, who is usually considered the English pioneer of blank verse. The conventionally rhymed “A True Love” was reprinted in Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch’s Oxford Book of English Verse.
There is no evidence that Grimald was ever married, although there are references in his poetry to his love for “Carie Day” and “Mistress Damascene Awdley.” As a suspected informer of common stock he stood no chance of preferment when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558, and he seems to have remained friendless thereafter. He dropped out of sight until an epitaph by Barnabe Googe was published in May of 1562; it implied that he had died earlier that year.