ANTHONY MUNDAY BIOGRAPHY

MUNDAY, ANTHONY (1553-1633). —Dramatist, poet, and pamphleteer, s. of a draper in London, appears to have had a somewhat chequered career. He went to Rome in 1578, and pub. The Englyshe Romayne Life , in which he gives descriptions of rites and other matters fitted to excite Protestant feeling; and he appears to have acted practically as a spy upon Roman Catholics. He had a hand in 18 plays, of which four only are extant, including two on Robert, Earl of Huntingdon ( Robin Hood ) (1598), and one on the Life of Sir John Oldcastle . He was ridiculed by Ben Jonson in The Case is Altered . He was also a ballad-writer, but nothing of his in this kind survives, unless Beauty sat bathing in a Spring be correctly attributed to him. He also wrote city pageants, and translated popular romances, including Palladino of England , and Amadis of Gaule . He was made by Stow the antiquary ( q.v. ) his literary executor, and pub. his Survey of London (1618).