Robert Daborne (c. 1580 – 23 March 1628) was an
English dramatist
A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between characters and is intended for theatrical performance rather than just
reading. Ben Jonson coined the term "playwri ...
of the
Jacobean era.
His father was also Robert Daborne, heir to family property in
Guildford
Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The nam ...
,
Surrey
Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...
and other places, including London, and a wealthy haberdasher by trade. He is now thought to have been a "sizar"—an undergraduate exempt from fees—at
King's College, Cambridge
King's College, formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, is a List of colleges of the University of Cambridge, constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college lies beside the River Cam and faces ...
in 1598. His marriage record suggests that he was a gentleman and member of the
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as the Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court and is a professional association for barristers and judges. To be called to the Bar and practice as a barrister in England and Wa ...
. Daborne was married to Anne Younger in 1602 at St Mary's Church in
South Walsham by the local cleric, who was nephew to Anne's father, Robert Younger, the owner of Old Hall in
South Burlingham; they had at least one child, a daughter, but his wife Anne died in childbirth. He was living with his father-in-law in
Shoreditch
Shoreditch is an area in London, England and is located in the London Borough of Hackney alongside neighbouring parts of Tower Hamlets, which are also perceived as part of the area due to historic ecclesiastical links. Shoreditch lies just north ...
by 1609, but his father-in-law died and there was a bitter dispute among the family members subsequently regarding the inheritance. A 1608 document show that Daborne owed £50 to Robert Keysar, one of the managers of the
Children of the Queen's Revels. In January 1610 Daborne is listed as one of the patentees (partners or backers) of the Queen's Revels Children when
Philip Rosseter re-organized that troupe of
boy actors. It is generally assumed that Daborne wrote for that company as a dramatist, and when the troupe linked with the
Lady Elizabeth's Men
The Lady Elizabeth's Men, or Princess Elizabeth's Men, was a company of actors in Jacobean London, formed under the patronage of King James I's daughter Princess Elizabeth. From 1618 on, the company was called The Queen of Bohemia's Men, aft ...
for a time around 1613, Daborne came into the circle of playwrights who worked for impresario
Philip Henslowe
Philip Henslowe ( – 6 January 1616) was an Elizabethan theatrical entrepreneur and impresario. Henslowe's modern reputation rests on the survival of his diary, a primary source for information about the theatrical world of Renaissance London. ...
.
Henslowe's records in the collection of
Dulwich College
Dulwich College is a 2-18 private, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...
contain more than thirty references to Daborne in letters, receipts, and other documents in the 1613-15 period. Constantly impecunious, like so many of his writing contemporaries, Daborne relied on the self-interested generosity of Henslowe, to whom he was indebted for a series of small loans. He worked on at least five plays for Henslowe in this era, either alone or with collaborators who included
Cyril Tourneur
Cyril Tourneur (; died 28 February 1626) was an English soldier, diplomat and dramatist who wrote '' The Atheist's Tragedy'' (published 1611); another (and better-known) play, '' The Revenger's Tragedy'' (1607), formerly ascribed to him, is now mo ...
,
John Fletcher,
Nathan Field
Nathan Field (also spelled Feild occasionally; 17 October 1587 – 1620) was an English dramatist and actor.
Life
His father was the Puritan preacher John Field, and his brother Theophilus Field became the Bishop of Llandaff. One of his bro ...
, and
Philip Massinger
Philip Massinger (1583 – 17 March 1640) was an English dramatist. His plays, including '' A New Way to Pay Old Debts'', '' The City Madam'', and '' The Roman Actor'', are noted for their satire and realism, and their political and soci ...
. None of these plays, with titles like ''Machiavel and the Devil,'' ''The Arraignment of London,'' and ''The She Saint,'' have survived.
Daborne is credited with the authorship of only two extant plays, both of which could be described, in some measure, as
swashbucklers:
* ''
A Christian Turn'd Turk'' (1612) is the tragic story of a pirate who converts to
Islam
Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...
after falling in love with a Muslim girl.
* ''
The Poor Man's Comfort'' (first published in 1655) is an extraordinary
tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is a literary genre that blends aspects of both tragedy, tragic and comedy, comic forms. Most often seen in drama, dramatic literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to lighten the ov ...
prefiguring aspects of slick urban
Restoration comedy, thrusting its protagonist Gisbert into bizarre and violent confrontations.
In the past, academics have argued for Daborne contributions to other plays, such as ''
The Faithful Friends,'' ''
Rollo Duke of Normandy'', ''
Cupid's Revenge'', ''
Thierry and Theodoret
''Thierry and Theodoret'' is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragedy in the canon of John Fletcher and his collaborators that was first published in 1621. It is one of the problematic plays of Fletcher's oeuvre; as with '' Love's Cure,'' there ar ...
'', and ''
The Honest Man's Fortune
''The Honest Man's Fortune'' is a Jacobean era stage play, a tragicomedy written by Nathan Field, John Fletcher, and Philip Massinger. It was apparently the earliest of the works produced by this trio of writers, the others being '' The Quee ...
''; but these attributions are no longer considered likely. (
Cyrus Hoy
Cyrus Henry Hoy (February 26, 1926 – April 27, 2010) was an American literary scholar of the English Renaissance stage who taught at the University of Virginia and Vanderbilt University, and was the John B. Trevor Professor of English (emerit ...
, in his sweeping study of the canon of Fletcher and his collaborators, ruled Daborne out of any participation in the authorship of those works.) Little extra-dramatic literary output by Daborne has survived; he did contribute verse to ''The Nipping or Snipping of Abuses,'' a 1614 collection by
John Taylor, the Water Poet.
The extant records twice refer to Daborne as a "Master of Arts." He most likely took holy orders by 1618, when he published a sermon. Daborne became chancellor of
Waterford
Waterford ( ) is a City status in Ireland, city in County Waterford in the South-East Region, Ireland, south-east of Ireland. It is located within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster. The city is situated at the head of Waterford H ...
in Ireland in 1619, and was made
prebendary
A prebendary is a member of the Catholic Church, Catholic or Anglicanism , Anglican clergy, a form of canon (priest) , canon with a role in the administration of a cathedral or collegiate church. When attending services, prebendaries sit in part ...
of
Lismore in 1620 and dean of Lismore in 1621. He may have enjoyed the patronage of Lord Willoughby in his clerical career. All of the available evidence suggests that Daborne abandoned drama when he entered the Church.
[Chambers, Vol. 3, p. 270.]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Daborne, Robert
1580s births
1628 deaths
English Renaissance dramatists
Alumni of King's College, Cambridge
People from Shoreditch
17th-century English male writers
17th-century English writers
17th-century English dramatists and playwrights
Writers from Guildford
English male dramatists and playwrights