(Eton Audit Book, 29-30 Hen. VIII.). In October 1538 “Nicholas Uvedale, professor of the liberal arts, informal or and schoolmaster of Eton,” was licensed to hold the vicarage of Braintree, “with other benefices,” without personal residence. The accounts of Cromwell for 1538 include “Woodall, the scholemaster of Eton, to playing before my lord, £5.” Presumably he brought a troupe of Eton boys with him. In that year he published a second edition of his Floures of Terence for the benefit of Eton boys. The often-questioned account of Thomas Tusser (Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie) is typical of Eton at the time, as Udal’s predecessor Cox is said in Ascham’s Scholemaster to have been “the best scholemaster and greatest beater of our time”:—
| “From Powles[1] I went to Aeton sent, |
| To learn straightwaies the Latin phraise; |
| Where fifty-three stripes given to me at once I had; |
| For fault but small or none at all |
| It came to pass thus beat I was; |
| See, Udall, see, the mercie of thee to mee, poor lad.” |
Udal’s rule of the rod at Eton was brought to an abrupt conclusion by his being brought up before the privy council on the 14th of March 1540/1541 for being “counsail” with two of the boys, Thomas Cheney, a relation of the lord treasurer of the household, and Thomas Hoorde, for stealing some silver images and chapel ornaments. He denied the theft, but confessed to a much more scandalous offence with Cheney, and was sent to the Marshalsea prison. He tried, but failed, to get restored to Eton. Attempts have been made to whitewash him. But his own confession, and an abject letter of repentance with promises of amendment, addressed (probably) to Wriothesley, a Hampshire man and family friend, cannot be got over. It shows that he was a bad schoolmaster as well as an immoral one, since he pleads “myn honest chaunge from vice to vertue, from prodigalitee to frugall lyving, from negligence of teachyng to assiduitee, from play to studie, from lightness to gravitee.” In 1542–1543, after the bursar of Eton had ridden up to London to the provost, Udal was paid “53s. 4d. in full satisfaction of his salary in arrears and other things due to him while he was teaching the children”; but on the other side of the account appears an item of “60s. received from Dr Coxe for Udal's debts.” So no money passed to Udal.
He seems to have maintained himself by translating into
English, in 1542, Erasmus’s Apophthegms and other works. In
1544 he published a new edition of the Floures of Terence.
He seems to have taken a schoolmastership in Northumberland
or Durham, as Leland in one of his Encomia speaks of him,
probably at this time, as translated to the Brigantes. He seems
to have been made to resign his living at Braintree, a successor
being appointed on the 14th of December 1544. He purged
himself, however, by composing the Answer to the Articles of
the Commoners of Devonshire and Cornwall (Pocock, Troubles of
the Prayer Book of 1549, Camd. Soc., new series, 37, 141, 193),
when they rose in rebellion in the summer of 1549 against
the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. In 1551 he received
a patent for printing his translation of Peter Martyr’s two
works on the Eucharist and the Great Bible in English
(Pat. 4 Edw. VI. pt. 5, m. 5, Shakespeare Soc. iii. xxx).
He was rewarded by being made a canon of Windsor on
the 14th of December 1551. On the 5th of January “after
the common reckoning 1552” (i.e. 1551/2) he edited a
translation of Erasmus’s Paraphrases of the Gospels, himself
translating the first three, while that on St John was
being translated by the princess Mary, till she fell sick and
handed her work over to Dr Malet. The work was done at the
suggestion and expense of the dowager queen Katharine,
in whose charge Mary was. A translation by Udal of
Geminus’s Anatomie or Compendiosa totius anatomiae delineatio,
a huge volume with gruesome plates, was published in 1553.”
Udal’s preface is dated the 20th of July 1552 “at Windesore.”
In June and September 1553 (Trevelyan Pap. Camd. Soc.
84, ii. 31, 33) “Mr Nicholas Uvedale” was paid at the rate
of £13, 6s. 8d. a year as “scholemaster to Mr Edward Courtney,
beinge within the Tower of London, by virtue of the King's
Majesty’s Warrant”—the young earl of Devon, who had
been in prison ever since he was twelve years old.
Queen Mary on the 3rd of December 1554 issued a warrant on Udal’s behalf reciting that he had “at soundrie seasons convenient heretofore shewed and myndeth hereafter to shewe his diligence in setting forth Dialogues and Enterludes before us for our royal disporte and recreation,” and directing “the maister and yeomen of the office of the Revells” to deliver whatever Udal should think necessary for setting forth such devices, while the exchequer was ordered to provide the money to buy them (Loseley MSS. Kempe 63, and Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. vii. 612). One of these interludes was probably Roister Doister; for it was in January 1553, i.e. 1554, that Thomas Wilson, master of St Katharine’s Hospital by the Tower, produced the third edition of The Rule of Reason, the first text-book on logic written in English, which contains, while the two earlier editions, published in 1551 and 1552 respectively, do not contain, a long quotation from Roister Doister. It gives under the heading of “ambiguities,” as “an example of such doubtful writing whiche, by reason of pointing, maie have double sense and contrarie meaning . . . taken out of an intrelude made by Nicholas Udal,” the letter which Ralph Roister procured a scrivener to compose for him, asking Christian Constance, the heroine, to marry him. Roister’s emissary read it—
| “Sweete mistress, where as I love you nothing at all, |
| Regarding your substance and richness chiefe of all,” |
and so on; whereas it was meant to read—
| “Sweete mistress, whereas I love you (nothing at all |
| Regarding your substance and richness) chiefe of all, |
| For your personage, beautie, demeanour and wit.” |
The play was entered at Stationers' Hall, when printed in 1566. Only one copy is known, which was given to Eton by an old Etonian, the Rev. Th. Briggs, in 1818, who privately printed thirty copies of it. As the title-page is gone the only evidence of its authorship is Wilson’s quotation. Wilson being an Etonian, it has been argued that his quotation was a reminiscence of his Eton days, and that the play was written for and first performed by Eton boys. But the occurrence of the quotation first in the edition of 1554, and its absence in the previous editions of 1551 and 1552, coupled with the absence of anything in the play to suggest any connexion with a school, while the scene is laid in London and among London citizens and is essentially a London play, furnish a strong argument that Roister Doister first appeared in 1553, and therefore could not have been written at Eton or for Eton boys.
Nor could it have been written at Westminster School or for Westminster boys, as argued by Professor Hales in Eng. Studien (1893) xviii. 408. For though Udal did become head master of Westminster, he only became so nearly two years after Wilson’s quotation from Roister Doister appeared. He was at Winchester in the interval, for Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester and chancellor, by will of the 8th of November 1555 (P.C.C. 3 Noodes), gave 40 marks (£26, 13s. 4d.) to “Nicholas Udale, my scholemaister.” In what sense he was Gardiner’s schoolmaster it is, hard to guess. He was not head master or usher of Winchester College; but he may have been master of the old City Grammar or High School, to which the bishop appointed (A. F. Leach, Hist. Winch. Coll. 32, 48). The schoolhouse had been leased out for 41 years in 1544 but it is possible Gardiner had revived the school or kept a school at his palace of Wolvesey. At Westminster “Mr Udale was admitted to be scholemaster 16 Dec. anno 1555” (Chapter Act-Book).
The last act of the secular canons, substituted by Henry VIII. for the monks, was the grant of a lease on the 24th of September 1556. When the monks re-entered, on Mary’s restoration of the abbey (Nov. 21, 1556), the school did not, as commonly alleged, cease, nor had Udal ceased to be master (Shakespeare Soc. iii. xxxiv.) when he died a month later. The parish register of St Margaret's, Westminster, under “Burials in December A.D. 1556” records “11 die Katerine Woddall,” “23 die Nicholas
- ↑ Tusser was a chorister of St Paul’s.
