Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Sir John Hayward

HAYWARD, Sir John (c. 1560–1627), one of the earliest writers of English history as distinguished from the old chroniclers, was born about 1560 at or near Felixstow on the coast of Suffolk. According to a statement in his will he “received the means of his education” out of the parish of Felixstow. It is affirmed by the old authorities that he studied at Cambridge and took the degree of doctor in civil law, but his name does not occur in any of the registers. In 1599 he published The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie the IIII., extending to the end of the first yeare of his raigne, which, from its dedication to the earl of Essex, and a passage it contained on hereditary rights, led to the author’s imprisonment by Elizabeth. The queen also caused Francis Bacon to search the book for “places in it that might be drawn within case of treason,” who reported, “For treason surely I find none, but for felony very many,”—explaining that many of his sentences had been stolen from Cornelius Tacitus. Notwithstanding this jocular exculpation Hayward was continued in prison, in all probability until after the death of the queen. On the accession of James I. he courted that monarch’s favour by the publication of two political pamphlets—On the Right of Succession (1603), and A Treatise of Union of England and Scotland (1604); and in 1610 he was appointed historiographer along with Camden of the college which King James attempted to found at Chelsea. In 1613 he published his Lives of the Three Norman Kings of England, which he wrote at the request of Prince Henry. In 1616 he was admitted an advocate of Doctors Commons, and in 1619 he received the honour of knighthood. He died 27th June 1627. Among his manuscripts was found The Life and Raigne of K. Edward VI., first published in 1630, and Certain Yeres of Queen Elizabeth’s Raigne, the beginning of which was printed in an edition of the Reign of Edward VI., published in 1636, but which was first published in a complete form in 1840, for the Camden Society, under the editorship of John Bruce, who prefixed an introduction on the life and writings of the author. Hayward was conscientious and diligent in obtaining information, and, although his reasoning on questions of morality is often childish, his descriptions are generally graphic and vigorous. Notwithstanding his imprisonment by Elizabeth, his portrait of the qualities of her mind and person is flattering rather than detractive.