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Richard Stanyhurst (1547–1618) was an
Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establish ...
alchemist, translator, poet and historian, who was born in Dublin.


Life

His father,
James Stanyhurst James Stanihurst (died 1573), also spelt James Stanyhurst) was for three terms Speaker of the Irish House of Commons. He was also the first judge to hold the position of Recorder of Dublin. Life He was the son of Nicholas Stanihurst, Lord Mayor ...
, was
Recorder of Dublin Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...
, and Speaker of the
Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until 1800. The upper house was the Irish House of Lords, House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, but on a h ...
in 1557, 1560 and 1568. His grandfather was Nicholas Stanihurst,
Mayor of Dublin The Lord Mayor of Dublin ( ga, Ardmhéara Bhaile Átha Cliath) is the honorary title of the chairperson ( ga, Cathaoirleach, links=no ) of Dublin City Council which is the local government body for the city of Dublin, the capital of Ireland. The ...
in 1543. His mother was Anne Fitzsimon, daughter of Thomas Fitzsimon,
Recorder of Dublin Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...
. Richard was sent to Peter White's
Kilkenny College Kilkenny College is an independent Church of Ireland co-educational day and boarding secondary school located in Kilkenny, in the South-East of Ireland. It is the largest co-educational boarding school in Ireland. The school's students are mainl ...
after which, in 1563, he continued to
University College, Oxford University College (in full The College of the Great Hall of the University of Oxford, colloquially referred to as "Univ") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It has a claim to being the oldest college of the unive ...
, where he took his degree five years later. At Oxford, he became intimate with
Edmund Campion Edmund Campion, SJ (25 January 15401 December 1581) was an English Jesuit priest and martyr. While conducting an underground ministry in officially Anglican England, Campion was arrested by priest hunters. Convicted of high treason, he was ha ...
. After leaving the university he studied law at Furnival's Inn and Lincoln's Inn. He contributed in 1587 to '' Holinshed's Chronicles'' "a playne and perfecte description" of Ireland, and a ''History of Ireland during the reign of Henry VIII'', which were severely criticized in
Barnabe Rich Barnabe Rich (also Barnaby Riche) (c. 1540 – 10 November 1617) was an English author and soldier, and a distant relative of Lord Chancellor Rich. Life He fought in the Low Countries, rising to the rank of captain, and afterwards served in ...
's ''New Description of Ireland'' (1610) as a misrepresentation of Irish affairs written from the English standpoint. They also caused offence to Catholics for their anti-Catholic perspective. After the death of his wife, Janet Barnewall, daughter of Sir
Christopher Barnewall Sir Christopher Barnewall (1522–1575) was a leading Anglo-Irish statesman of the Pale in the 1560s and 1570s. He was the effective Leader of the Opposition in the Irish House of Commons in the Parliament of 1568–71. He is remembered for build ...
(whom he praised warmly in his contribution to Holinshed), in 1579, Stanyhurst went to the Netherlands. After his second marriage, which took place before 1585, to Helen Copley, he became active in the
Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
cause. He lived in the
bishopric of Liège In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associate ...
, where he got in touch with the Paracelsan movement gathered around
Ernest of Bavaria Ernest of Bavaria (german: Ernst von Bayern) (17 December 1554 – 17 February 1612) was Prince-elector-archbishop of the Archbishopric of Cologne from 1583 to 1612 as successor of the expelled Gebhard Truchsess von Waldburg. He was also bisho ...
(1554–1612). From then, Stanihurst analysed the relationships between medicine and chemistry. In the early 1590s, he was invited to Spain by King Philip II, who became seriously ill. Stanihurst worked at the great alchemical laboratory in El Escorial. At the same time, he informed the state of Catholics' interest in England. After his wife's death in 1602 he took holy orders, and became chaplain to the Archduke Albert of Austria in the Netherlands. He had two sons, Peter and
William Stanyhurst William Stanyhurst (1601 – 1663) was a Belgian Jesuit of Irish parentage. He was a prolific author of Latin religious works, one of which, ''Dei immortalis in corpore mortali patientis historia'', was widely popular, and was translated into m ...
, both of whom became Jesuits. He never returned to England, and died at
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
, according to
Anthony à Wood Anthony Wood (17 December 1632 – 28 November 1695), who styled himself Anthony à Wood in his later writings, was an English antiquary. He was responsible for a celebrated ''Hist. and Antiq. of the Universitie of Oxon''. Early life Anthony W ...
.


Works

Stanihurst translated into English ''The First Foure Bookes of Virgil his Aeneis'' (Leiden, 1582), to give practical proof of the feasibility of
Gabriel Harvey Gabriel Harvey (c. 1552/3 – 1631) was an English writer. Harvey was a notable scholar, whose reputation suffered from his quarrel with Thomas Nashe. Henry Morley, writing in the ''Fortnightly Review'' (March 1869), has argued that Harvey's L ...
's theory that classical rules of prosody could be successfully applied to English poetry. The translation is an unconscious
burlesque A burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects.
of the original in a jargon arranged in what the writer called hexameters. Thomas Nashe in his preface to
Greene Greene may refer to: Places United States * Greene, Indiana, an unincorporated community * Greene, Iowa, a city * Greene, Maine, a town ** Greene (CDP), Maine, in the town of Greene * Greene (town), New York **Greene (village), New York, in the t ...
's ''Menaphon'' ridiculed this performance as his
"heroicall poetrie, infired ... with an hexameter furie a patterne whereof I will propounde to your judgements. Then did he make heaven's vault to rebounde, with rounce robble hobble Of ruffe raffe roaring, with thwick thwack thurlery bouncing."
This is a parody, but not a very extravagant one, of Stanyhurst's vocabulary and metrical methods. Only two copies of the original Leiden edition of Stanyhurst's translation of Virgil are known to be in existence. In this edition, his orthographical cranks are preserved. A reprint in 1583 by Henry Bynneman forms the basis of
James Maidment James Maidment (1793 in London – 1879 in Edinburgh) was a British antiquary and collector. He passed through Edinburgh University to the Scottish bar, and was chief authority on genealogical cases. Maidment's hobby was the collection of li ...
's edition (Edinburgh, 1836), and of
Edward Arber Edward Arber (4 December 183623 November 1912) was an English scholar, writer, and editor. Background and professional work Arber was born in London. From 1854 he 1878 he worked as a clerk in the Admiralty, and began evening classes at Kin ...
's reprint (1880), which contains an excellent introduction. Stanyhurst's Latin works include ''De rebus in Hibernia gestis'' (Antwerp, 1584) and a life of
St Patrick Saint Patrick ( la, Patricius; ga, Pádraig ; cy, Padrig) was a fifth-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland. Known as the "Apostle of Ireland", he is the primary patron saint of Ireland, the other patron saints be ...
(1587). A new edition of Stanihurst's controversial Latin history of Ireland was created in 2013 by Hiram Morgan and John Barry for Cork University Press under the title, ''Great Deeds in Ireland: Richard Stanihurst's De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis''. This work is a product of the Centre for Neo-Latin Studies at University College Cork.


References


Further reading

*Colm Lennon, ''Richard Stanihurst the Dubliner, 1547-1618: A Biography, with a Stanihurst Text, on Ireland's Past'', Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 1981. *Colm Lennon, "Richard Stanihurst," ''The Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 281: British Rhetoricians and Logicians, 1500–1660, Second Series'', Detroit: Gale, 2003, pp. 296–303. *Colm Lennon, "Richard Stanihurst and Old English Identity," ''Irish Historical Studies'', vol. 21, 1978, pp. 121–143. *Colm Lennon, "Richard Stanihurst's 'Spanish Catholicism': Ideology and Diplomacy in Brussels and Madrid," ''Irland y la monarcquía Hispánica: Kinsale 1601-2001'', Madrid, 2002, pp. 75–88. *John Barry & Hiram Morgan, ''Great Deeds in Ireland: Richard Stanihurst's De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis'', Cork, Cork University Press, 2013.


External links


The Alchemical Works of Richard Stanyhurst
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stanyhurst, Richard 1547 births 1618 deaths Irish poets Irish alchemists Irish non-fiction writers Irish male non-fiction writers Alumni of University College, Oxford People educated at Kilkenny College People from County Dublin People of Elizabethan Ireland 16th-century Irish poets 17th-century Irish poets 16th-century Irish writers 17th-century Irish writers 16th-century alchemists 17th-century alchemists 17th-century Irish historians Translators of Virgil Holinshed's Chronicles