George Whetstone
George Whetstone was an English poet and writer, born in London in 1550, who is notable for his contributions to literature in the late 16th century. He was the third son of a merchant father, Robert Whetstone, who faced legal and political challenges, including imprisonment for his role in a treason case. After a prolonged inheritance dispute, Whetstone studied law and became involved in literary circles, influenced by contemporary figures like George Gascoigne. His works include the romantic comedy "The Right Excellent and Famous Historye, of Promos and Cassandra," which is recognized for its connection to Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure." Whetstone also authored moralistic texts advocating social reform, such as "A Mirour for Magestrates of Cyties," which provided insights into London's societal issues. His writings reflected a mix of poetic innovation and political commentary, culminating in his work "The Censure of a Loyall Subject," which criticized the consequences of the Babington Plot. Tragically, Whetstone's life was cut short in 1587 when he was killed in a duel shortly after being appointed to a military position in the Netherlands. His legacy continues to influence the understanding of Elizabethan literature and social issues.
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George Whetstone
Poet
- Born: July 27, 1550 (baptized)
- Birthplace: London, England
- Died: 1587
Biography
George Whetstone was baptized at St Lawrence, Old Jewry, London, on July 27, 1550, the third son of Robert Whetstone, merchant and haberdasher, and his wife Margaret, née Barnard. Robert Whetstone was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1554 after serving as the foreman of a jury that refused to find Sir Nicholas Throckmorton guilty of treason for his involvement in Thomas Wyatt’s rebellion against Mary, Queen of Scots; he was released after seven months but died in 1557. George Whetstone inherited a good deal of property but did not come into his inheritance until 1573, following legal battles resulting from his mother’s marriages to Robert Browne and Francis Ashby. Whetstone then went to study law at Furnivall’s Inn.
Many biographies of Whetstone drive information from quasi- autobiographical sections of his poem, The Rocke of Regard (1576), which contains data that is highly dubious, although Whetstone repeated some of the claims in A Mirour for Magestrates of Cyties 1 (1584). It is unlikely that he was a soldier in the Netherlands in the 1570’s or that he sailed with Humphrey Gilbert’s expedition to Newfoundland, and he certainly did not fight with Sir Philip Sidney at the battle of Zutphen in 1586, although he did visit the Netherlands in 1585 with his brother Barnard. He was, however, a friend of George Gascoigne, a great innovator within the tradition of English literature. Whetstone tried to follow several of Gascoigne’s precedents in The Rocke of Regard and other works of the late 1570’s, including an early example of romantic comedy mixing verse and prose, The Right Excellent and Famous Historye, of Promos and Cassandra (1578), adapted from a story in Giraldo Cinthio’s Hecatommithi (1565), which provided the plot of William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure (1604).
Following an Italian tour, Whetstone published a collection of romances modeled on Italian originals, An Heptameron of Civil Discourses (1582), subsequently reprinted as Aurelia: The Paragon of Pleasure and Princely Delights, but he changed direction thereafter. His moralistic collections of the mid- 1580’s, A Mirour for Magestrates of Cyties and A Touchstone for the Time (published together in 1584), and The English Myrror (1586), embodied calls for social reform. The second includes a detailed account of London’s underworld that was a useful resource for later writers. In the midst of this series he issued a conduct book for soldiers, The Honourable Reputation of a Soldier (1586). His work became more dangerously political in The Censure of a Loyall Subject (1587), which questioned the hanging of those involved in the Babington Plot, involvement that eventually caused Mary, Queen of Scots, to be executed, hastening The Censure of a Loyall Subject’s reprinting.
Whether it was The Censure of a Loyall Subject or Whetstone’s conduct book that got him a sudden appointment to assist Thomas Digges, the muster-master with the army in the Netherlands, is unclear. However, what is certain is that not long after Whetstone arrived in the Netherlands in September, 1587, he was challenged to a duel by Thomas Udall, who killed him. Udall was then acquitted of his murder on the grounds that his honor had been besmirched by an accusation of corruption. Digges commented, somewhat elliptically, that Whetstone had died for being intolerant of corruption. Whetstone’s will referred to a wife named Anne, but there is no other record of her.