# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wilmot, Robert (fl.1568-1608)

​WILMOT, ROBERT (fl. 1568–1608), dramatist, was presented by Gabriel Poyntz on 28 Nov. 1582 to the rectory of North Okendon, now Ockendon, about six miles from Romford in Essex, and by the dean and chapter of St. Paul's Cathedral, on 2 Dec. 1585, to the vicarage of Horndon-on-the-Hill, a few miles away from Ockendon. He is described in 1585 as M.A. (Newcourt, Repertorium, ii. 447, 343). It does not appear when the vicarage at Horndon was vacated, but in 1608 the crown, by lapse of the patron's right, appointed to Ockendon another Robert Wilmot, whose death took place in 1619.
Wilmot published, in 1591, ‘The Tragedie of Tancred and Gismund, compiled by the Gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and by them presented before her Majestie. Newly revived and polished according to the decorum of these daies. By R. W. London,’ 1591 (1592 in some copies), 4to. The play is dedicated by ‘Robert Wilmot’ to ‘Lady Marie Peter and the Lady Annie Graie;’ the latter was the wife of Henry Grey, esq., of Pirgo. After the dedication comes a letter to the author from Guil. Webbe [see Webbe, William], dated ‘from Pyrgo in Essex, August the Eight, 1591.’ Webbe claims from Wilmot the performance of an ‘old intention’ of publishing this play. He refers to the gentlemen of the Inner Temple, and says that the play was ‘by them most pithily framed and no less curiously acted in view of her Majestie, by whom it was then as princely accepted as of the whole honorable audience notably applauded.’ After this letter follows an address by Wilmot to the ‘Gentlement students of the Inner Temple and Gentlemen of the Middle Temple,’ in which he mentions his doubt ‘whether it were convenient for the commonwealth, with the indecorum of my calling (as some thinke it), that the memorie of Tancred's Tragedie should be againe by my meanes revived.’ This seems a reference to his clerical profession. He speaks of his acquaintance with the Temple as having lasted twenty-four years. Before the play there are complimentary sonnets to ‘the Queenes Maidens of Honor.’ The play was acted before Queen Elizabeth in 1568. In Wilmot's version the initials of five composers are given at the end of the five acts as follows: Rod. Staf.; Hen. No (Henry Noel?); G. Al.; Ch. Hat. (Christopher Hatton); R. W. (Robert Wilmot). The play is taken from Boccaccio. It ‘may still claim to be designated the oldest known English play of which the plot is certainly taken from an Italian novel.’ The story is told in Painter's ‘Palace of ​Pleasure,’ tale 39. The original version is extant in several manuscripts, of which Lansdowne MS. 786 is the best. From this it appears that originally the play was in decasyllabic rhyming quatrains. Wilmot in 1591 made it into blank verse, by that time fashionable; but the play must be classed along with early plays like ‘Gorboduc’ and other imitations of Seneca. It has dumb shows to commence and choruses to terminate the acts. It ‘possesses no mean literary merit’ (Ward). The 1591 edition was reprinted in Dodsley's ‘Collection,’ vol. ii., in 1780 (4th edit. by Hazlitt, 1874, vol. vii.). Hunter mentions a second work by Wilmot, ‘Syrophenisia, or the Canaanitish Woman; conflicts at Horndon-on-the-Hill in the County of Essex,’ 1598.
[Ward's English Dramatic Literature, 1898, i. 214; Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry, ii. 399; Arber's Introduction to reprint of Webbe's Discourse of English Poetrie; Hallam's Lit. of Europe, ii. 167; Inderwick's Cal. Inner Temple Records, 1896, vol. i. pp. lxxi–lxxii; Hunter's manuscript Chorus Vatum; Warton's English Poetry, iv. 269, 339; Fleay's History of the Stage, p. 17, and English Drama, ii. 277.]
R. B.