# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hayward, John

​HAYWARD, Sir JOHN (1564?–1627), historian, was born about 1564 at or near Felixstowe, Suffolk, where he was educated. A portrait engraved by W. Hole, and published with Hayward's ‘Sanctuarie’ in 1616, bears above it the figures ‘52,’ apparently a reference to his age. He graduated B.A. 1580–1 and M.A. 1584 from Pembroke College, Cambridge, and afterwards proceeded LL.D. Early in 1599 he published an elaborate account of the first year of Henry IV's reign, including a description of the deposition of Richard II. It is entered on the ‘Stationers' Registers’ (ed. Arber, iii. 134), 9 Jan. 1598–9, and was dedicated (in Latin), in terms of extravagant laudation, to Essex, just before his appointment as lord deputy of Ireland. It was afterwards said that the manuscript had been in Essex's hand a fortnight before publication. The story of Richard II's deposition long exercised a mysterious fascination over Essex, and Essex's enemies at court easily excited the suspicion in the queen's mind that Hayward, under the guise of an historical treatise, was criticising her own policy and hinting at what might possibly befall her in the future. The suspicion was hardly justified. Hayward does not vindicate Henry IV, but fairly lays before his readers the arguments for and against his accession; and when dedicating to James I at a later date a treatise on the royal succession, he asserted that in his earlier work he had argued against the right of the people to depose their sovereign. It is certainly difficult now to detect any veiled reference to Elizabethan politics in the volume. Chamberlain, writing of its publication (1 March 1598–9), describes it as ‘reasonably well-written,’ and the author as ‘a young man of Cambridge toward the civil law;’ but he adds: ‘Here [i.e. in London] hath been much descanting about it, why such a story should come at this time, and many exceptions taken, especially to the Epistle [to Essex].’ Finally, Chamberlain says, directions were given for the removal of the dedication, in which he admits he failed to find anything objectionable (Chamberlain, Letters, Camd. Soc., pp. 47–8). Bacon declared that Essex wrote a formal letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, desiring him to call in the book after it had been published a week. The queen, however, was not easily satisfied, and suggested to Bacon that there might be ‘places in it that might be drawn within case of treason.’ Bacon answered that Hayward had borrowed so many passages from Tacitus that there might be ground for prosecuting him for felony, but he could find no treasonable language (Bacon, Apophthegms, 58). Nevertheless Hayward was brought before the Star-chamber and imprisoned. The queen, obstinately adhering to her first impression, even argued that Hayward was pretending to be the author in order to shield ‘some more mischievous’ person, and that he should be racked so that he might disclose the truth. Bacon deprecated this procedure, but he appeared as counsel for the crown against Essex at York House (5 June 1600), and, to curry favour with the queen, urged that the earl had aggravated his offences by accepting Hayward's dedication. Reference was made to Essex's connection with the volume in the official ‘directions’ expounding Essex's crimes issued by the government to preachers during his imprisonment.
​Hayward does not seem to have been released from prison till after Essex's execution (25 Feb. 1600–1). On James I's accession he sought royal favour by publishing treatises justifying James's succession and the divine right of kings, and arguing for the union of England and Scotland. Prince Henry patronised him, and he completed, at the prince's suggestion, a work on the lives of William I, William II, and Henry I. Meanwhile he secured a large practice in the court of arches, and in 1610, when James I founded Chelsea College, Hayward was appointed one of the two historiographers, Camden being the other. On 5 Aug. 1616 he was admitted a member of the College of Advocates, and on 9 Nov. 1619 was knighted. In 1617 he had applied unsuccessfully to be incorporated LL.D. at Oxford, and in the same year was suggested as a member of the projected academy of literature. He published many pious manuals, but his leisure was chiefly spent in historical work. He died at his house in Great St. Bartholomew's, near Smithfield, London, on 27 June 1627, and was buried in the church of Great St. Bartholomew's on 28 June. He married Jane, daughter of Andrew Pascall of Springfield, Essex, by whom he had an only child, Mary. She married Sir Nicholas Rowe of Highgate, and died in her father's lifetime. In his will (dated 30 March 1626) he leaves to his wife, who lived till 1642, besides three beds, an interest in his lands at Felixstowe and Tottenham, which (he adds) ‘in regard to the small portion she brought me, and regard of her unquiet life and small respect towards me, [is] a great deal too much.’ The bulk of his property is left to his granddaughter, Mary Rowe, and it includes houses and lands in Kentish Town, which he had obtained from the printer, John Bill. He specially warns his executor, Edward Hanchet, against allowing his body to be ‘mangled after death for experience to others.’
Hayward wrote: 1. ‘The First Part of the Life and Raigne of Henrie the IIII, extending to the end of the first yeare of his raigne. Written by I. H.,’ London [by Iohn Wolfe], 4to. The dedication to Essex is followed by an address of ‘A. P. to the Reader.’ A large-paper copy, believed to be unique, is in the Grenville Library at the British Museum. Reprinted with Sir Robert Cotton's ‘Short View of the Reigne of Henry III’ in 1642, 8vo. 2. ‘An Answer to the First Part of a Certaine Conference concerning Succession, published not long since under the name of R. Dolman,’ London (for Simon Waterson and Cuthbert Burbie), 1603, 4to; dedicated to James I. This is a reply to Parsons's ‘Conference about the Next Succession to the Crowne of Ingland,’ London, 1594, 8vo, and argues in favour of the divine right of kings. As ‘The Right of Succession asserted’ it was reprinted ‘for the satisfaction of the zealous promoters of the Bill of Exclusion’ in 1683 by the friends of the Duke of York. 3. ‘A Treatise of Vnion of the two Realmes of England and Scotland. By I. H.,’ London (by F. K. for C[uthbert] B[urbie]), 1604, 4to. 4. ‘The Lives of the III Normans, Kings of England. William the first, William the second, Henrie the first. Written by I. H.,’ London (by R. B.), 1613, 4to. Dedicated to Charles, prince of Wales; a readable compilation, but without any references to authorities; reprinted in ‘Harleian Miscellany.’ 5. ‘The Sanctuarie of a Troubled Soule,’ London (by George Purslow), 1616, 12mo: a collection of prayers and pious meditations. The title-page, by W. Hole, is finely engraved. It is dedicated to Archbishop Abbot, and a second part contains a new title-page. Other editions are dated 1618, 1620, 1623, 1631, 1632, 1649, and 1650. In a preface to the 1620 edition Hayward writes that after twenty years' growth the book has reached its full stature. It would therefore have been begun in 1600, but no copy of the first part is known earlier than 1616. There is, however, in the British Museum ‘The Second Part of the Sanctuary of a Troubled Soul. Newly enlarged, by Io. Hayward,’ London (by I. W. for Cuthbert Burbie), 1607, 12mo (cf. Notes and Queries, 6th ser. vii. 266, 432). 6. ‘David's Teares,’ London (by John Bill), 1621, 1622, 1623: a long commentary on Psalms vi. xxxii. and cxxx., with engraved title-page. 7. ‘Christ's Prayer upon the Crosse for his Enemies,’ London (by John Bill), 1623, 8vo; ‘Newly reviewed and enlarged,’ 1624. Dedicated to Anne, wife of Sir Julius Cæsar. 8. ‘Of Supremacie in affaires of Religion,’ London (by John Bill), 1624 and 1625, 4to: an argument in favour of the royal supremacy, suggested by a conversation in which Hayward took part in 1605 at a dinner at the house of Tobias Matthew, then bishop of Durham. An edition of 1606, with the title ‘Report of a Discourse concerning Supreme Power in Affaires of Religion,’ is in the chapter library at Peterborough. 9. (Posthumously published) ‘The Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixt.’ London (for John Partridge), 1630, 4to, with title-page engraved by Robert Vaughan. Manuscripts of Hayward's biography of Edward VI are in Harl. MS. 6021, art. i., and among Gale's MSS. in Trinity College, Cambridge, and it is reprinted in Kennett's ‘Complete History.’ A 12mo edition appeared in 1636, with an appendix, some​times met with as a separate volume, entitled (10) ‘The Beginning of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth.’ This is a fragment of a larger work found in Harl. MS. 6021, art. iii., which gives annals of Elizabeth's reign as far as the close of 1562. The whole was printed for the first time by the Camden Society in 1840, and was edited by John Bruce. Hayward also edited with a preface Sir Roger Williams's ‘Actions of the Lowe Countries,’ London, 1618, 4to.
Portraits of Hayward, engraved by W. Hole, Payne, and T. Cecill, appear respectively in the 1616, 1623, and 1632 editions of his ‘Sanctuarie.’ An engraving by William Pass is on the back of the last page of the preface of ‘Edward VI.’
[Bruce's Introduction (where Hayward's will is printed) to his edition of Hayward's Annals of Queen Elizabeth (Camd. Soc.), 1840; Camden's Annals, sub ann. 1601; Bacon's Life and Works, ed. Spedding, vii. 133; Edwards's Life and Letters of Ralegh, i. 294, ii. 164 sq.; Wood's Fasti Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 363; Hayward's Works in British Museum.]
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