Mathew Roydon († 1622) may have graduated from Oxford in 1580. Although he was highly praised by many writers of his time – he was one of London’s leading poets, according to Thomas Nashe – very little is known about him and by him today. Apart from a few poems, only Elegie, or Friends passion for his Astrophill, which he wrote on the occasion of the death of Philip Sidney, survives. George Chapman dedicated The Shadow of Night to him. For 1618 and 1622 his name appears in the alms list of Edward Alleyn.
According to Thomas Kyd, Marlowe planned to visit a Roydon in Scotland. It is thought that this refers to Mathew Roydon, although he was almost certainly in London and not in England’s neighbouring country1 and we do not know why this seemed so particularly worthy of mention.
- Nicholl (2002)↩︎
