Grimald, Nicholas

(1519-1562)

   Born in Huntingdonshire, he attended both Cambridge and Oxford universities and became a lecturer in theology at Cambridge. He was licensed as a preacher in 1551-1552 and was chaplain to Nicholas Ridley, bishop of London. Ridley was executed in 1555 under the rule of the Catholic Queen Mary. Grimald was imprisoned in the Marshalsea but released, it is assumed because he recanted, but he returned to the Protestant faith when Elizabeth came to the throne in 1558. His friend Barnabe Googe (see entry) wrote an epitaph or elegy on Grimald, which was published in Googe's Eclogs, Epytaphes, and Sonettes (1563). Grimald contributed 40 poems to Songes and Sonettes (1557), known as Tottel's Miscellany, an anthology of contemporary poetry, which he may have edited. Some of his Latin dramas: Christus Redivivus, Comedia Tragica Sacra, 1543. Archipropheta, 1548 (a tragedy about John the Baptist). M.T. Ciceroe's Three Bookes of Dueties, 1553. Some of his poems: "Cleobulus The Lydians Riddle," "Concerning Virgils Eneids," "Description of Vertue," "Marcus Catoes Comparison of Mans Life with Yron," "Marcus Tullius Ciceroes Death," "Prayse of Measure-Kepyng."

   Sources: An Anthology of Renaissance Lyrics: Biography and Songs of Nicholas Grimald (http://english.edgewood.edu/eng359/lyric_poetry2.htm). Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Elizabethan Lyrics. Norman Ault, ed. William Sloane Associates, 1949. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. The Penguin Book of Renaissance Verse 1509-1659. David Norbrook, ed. Penguin Books, 1992.