William Davenant

Sir William Davenant (baptised 3 March 1606 – 7 April 1668), also spelled D'Avenant, was an English poet and playwright. Along with Thomas Killigrew, Davenant was one of the rare figures in English Renaissance theatre whose career spanned both the Caroline and Restoration eras and who was active both before and after the English Civil War and during the Interregnum.

Davenant was reportedly a godson of fellow playwright William Shakespeare, and he wrote a memorial ode for his godfather when he was only 12-years-old. Later in life, he was rumored to be Shakespeare's illegitimate son. In 1638, Davenant replaced Ben Jonson as the new Poet Laureate. Davenant was a Royalist in the English Civil War and was sentenced to death by the Parliamentarians in 1650. His life was reportedly spared by the intervention of a fellow writer, John Milton.

Davenant is believed to have been born in late February, 1606 in Oxford, the son of Jane Shepherd Davenant and John Davenant, proprietor of the Crown Tavern (or Crown Inn) and Mayor of Oxford. He was baptised on 3 March, his godfather sometimes being said to have been William Shakespeare, who, according to John Aubrey, had stayed frequently at the Crown during his travels between London and Stratford-upon-Avon. It was even rumoured that he was the Bard's biological son as well. This story was recorded by Aubrey from a comment attributed to Davenant by Samuel Butler:

Mr. William Shakespeare was wont to go into Warwickshire once a year, and did commonly in his journey lie at this house [the Crown] in Oxon, where he was exceedingly respected... Now Sir William [Davenant] would sometimes, when he was pleasant over a glass of wine with his most intimate friends--e.g. Sam Butler, author of Hudibras, etc., say, that it seemed to him that he writ with the very spirit that did Shakespeare, and seemed contented enough to be thought his Son. He would tell them the story as above, in which way his mother had a very light report, whereby she was called a Whore.

It has been suggested that Davenant simply meant that he saw himself as a literary son of Shakespeare, in the same way that followers of Ben Jonson called themselves the "Sons of Ben". However, according to Samuel Schoenbaum, since Aubrey's comment was unpublished, the existence of some other sources saying the same thing suggests that the story that "Sir William was more than Shakespeare's mere poetical offspring was common in Davenant's lifetime." In 1618, after Shakespeare's death, the 12-year-old Davenant wrote an ode "In Remembrance of Master Shakespeare".

He attended Lincoln College, Oxford, for a while in about 1620, but left before gaining any degree, becoming a page to the Duchess of Richmond. In London in 1630, he contracted a venereal disease, and was given a syphilis treatment by Thomas Cademan. As a convalescent, he left for the country in 1632 for a time. The syphilis severely disfigured his nose, resulting in damage that is discreetly depicted in John Greenhill's portrait. His ruined nose was the subject of much ribald comment by his enemies.

Following the death of Ben Jonson in 1637, Davenant was named Poet Laureate in 1638. He was a supporter of King Charles I in the English Civil War. In 1641, before the war began, he was declared guilty of high treason by parliament along with John Suckling, after he participated in the First Army Plot, a Royalist plan to use the army to occupy London. He fled to France. Returning to join the king's army when the war started, he was knighted two years later by king Charles following the siege of Gloucester.

In 1645, after the Royalist defeat at the Battle of Naseby, he retired to Paris, where he became a Roman Catholic and worked on his epic poem Gondibert. That same year he was appointed Emissary to France, and in 1649 was given the symbolic post of treasurer of the colony of Virginia by the exiled Charles II. The following year, he was made lieutenant governor of Maryland, but was captured at sea, imprisoned, and sentenced to death. In July, 1650, he was put on trial for his life, along with others in front of the newly established High Court of Justice. He is said to have been saved by the intervention of John Milton. He spent all of 1651 in the Tower of London, where he continued writing Gondibert.