Richard Stanyhurst (or Stanihurst) (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 State rel ...

alchemist, translator, poet and historian, who was born in

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

Life

His father, James Stanyhurst, was Recorder of Dublin, 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 the end of 1800. The upper house was the Irish House of Lords, House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, ...

in 1557, 1560 and 1568. His grandfather was Nicholas Stanihurst, Mayor of Dublin in 1543. His mother was Anne Fitzsimon, daughter of Thomas Fitzsimon, Recorder of Dublin. Richard was sent to Peter White's Kilkenny College after which, in 1563, he continued to

University College, Oxford University College, formally The Master and Fellows of the College of the Great Hall of the University commonly called University College in the University of Oxford and colloquially referred to as "Univ", is a Colleges of the University of Oxf ...

, where he took his degree five years later. At Oxford, he became intimate with Edmund Campion. After leaving the university he studied law at Furnival's Inn and

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, commonly known as Lincoln's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for Barrister, barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister ...

. He contributed in 1587 to ''

Holinshed's Chronicles ''Holinshed's Chronicles'', also known as ''Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland'', is a collaborative work published in several volumes and two editions, the first edition in 1577, and the second in 1587. It was a large, co ...

'' "a playne and perfecte description" of

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

, and a ''History of Ireland during the reign of Henry VIII'', which were severely criticized in Barnabe Rich'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 (whom he praised warmly in his contribution to Holinshed), in 1579, Stanyhurst went to the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

. 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 List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

cause. He lived in the bishopric of Liège, where he got in touch with the Paracelsan movement gathered around Ernest of Bavaria (1554–1612). From then, Stanyhurst analysed the relationships between medicine and chemistry. In the early 1590s, he was invited to

Spain Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...

by King Philip II, who became seriously ill. Stanyhurst worked at the great alchemical laboratory in

El Escorial El Escorial, or the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial (), or (), is a historical residence of the king of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, up the valley ( road distance) from the town of El Escorial, Madrid, El ...

. At the same time, he informed the state of Catholics' interest in England. After his wife's death in 1602 he took

holy orders In certain Christian denominations, holy orders are the ordination, ordained ministries of bishop, priest (presbyter), and deacon, and the sacrament or rite by which candidates are ordained to those orders. Churches recognizing these orders inclu ...

, and became chaplain to the Archduke Albert of Austria in the

. He had two sons, Peter and William Stanyhurst, both of whom became

Jesuits The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

. He never returned to England, and died at

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, according to Anthony à Wood.

Works

Stanyhurst translated into English ''The First Foure Bookes of Virgil his Aeneis'' (Leiden, 1582), to give practical proof of the feasibility of Gabriel Harvey's theory that classical rules of prosody could be successfully applied to English poetry. The translation is considered by the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica 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 Thomas Nashe (also Nash; baptised 30 November 1567 – c. 1601) was an English Elizabethan playwright, poet, satirist and a significant pamphleteer. He is known for his novel '' The Unfortunate Traveller'', his pamphlets including '' Pierce P ...

in his preface to Greene's ''Menaphon'' ridiculed this performance as his 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's edition (Edinburgh, 1836), and of Edward Arber'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 (1587). A new edition of Stanyhurst'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 Stanyhurst's De Rebus in Hibernia Gestis''. This work is a product of the Centre for Neo-Latin Studies at University College Cork.

References

External links

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

Life

Works

References

Further reading

External links