English schoolmaster, translator and playwright, author of the earliest extant English comedy, Roister Doister, came of the family of Uvedale, who in the 14th century became lords of Wykeham, Hants, by marriage with the heiress of the Scures. The name was probably pronounced Oovedale, as it appears as Yevedale, Owdall, Woodall, with other variants. He Latinized it as Udallus, and thence anglicized it as Udall. He is described as Owdall of the parish of St. Cross, Southampton, twelve years old at Christmas 1516, when admitted a scholar of Winchester College in 1517 (Win. Schol. Reg.). He was therefore not fourteen (as Anthony Wood says) but sixteen and one-half years of age when admitted a scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in June 1520; he is called Wodall as a lecturer at that college in 1526 to 1528 (T. Fowler, Hist. C. C. C.).
With John Leland he produced dites (ditties) and interludes (B.M. MS. 18A lxiv.) at Anne Boleyns coronation on the 31st of May 1533. Lelands contributions are all in Latin; those of Udallus, which form the chief part, are mostly in English, the speeches being each spoken by a child, at Cornhill beside Leadenhall, at the Conducte in Cornhill and at the little Conducte in Cheepe. His Floures for Latine Spekynge, selected and gathered out of Terence and the same translated into Englysshe, published by Bartlet (in aedibus Bertheleti), were dedicated to my most sweet flock of pupils, from the monastery of the monks of the order of Augustine, on the 28th of February 15331534. There were no monks of that order, and whether Austin Friars or Augustinian canons were meant is open to doubt. The book was prefaced with laudatory Latin verses by Leland and by Edmund Jonson. The latter was a Winchester and Oxford contemporary of Udalls, in 1528 lower master (hostiarius) at Eton, a post which he left to become master of the school of St. Anthonys Hospital, then the most flourishing school in London. From the dedication we may infer that Udall was usher under Jonson and the sweet flock was at St. Anthonys school next door to Austin Friars. At Midsummer 1534 he became headmaster of Eton (informator puerorum or ludi grammaticalis; Eton Audit Book. 2526 Hen. VIII.). It has been suggested (Dictionary of National Biography) that the Floures was dedicated to Eton boys in advance; but this is unlikely, as in those days schools never got their masters till the place was vacant, or on the verge of vacancy. At Eton Udalls salary was £10 and £1 for livery, with petty receipts of 8s. 4d. for obits, 2s. 8d. for laundress, 2s. for candles for his chamber, and 23s. 4d. for ink, candles and other things given to the grammar school by Dr. Lupton, provost. One of his school books, Commentaries on the Tusculan questions of Cicero (ed. Berouldus, 1509), with the inscription sum Nicolai Udalli 1536, is in the Kings Library at the British Museum.
There was a yearly play, 3s. being paid for the repair of the dresses of the players at Christmas, and 1s. 4d. to a servant of the dean of Windsor for bringing his masters clothes for the players. A payment for repair of the players dresses recurs every year. Udall has been credited (E. K. Chambers, Mediaeval Stage, ii. 144, 192) with producing a play at Braintree while vicar there, recorded in the churchwardens accounts for 1534 as Placidas alias Sir Eustace. The play is actually called in the accounts (only extant in 17th-century extracts) Placy Dacy alias St. Ewastacy, and is the old play of Placidas, mentioned in the 9th century. Udall did not become vicar of Braintree till the 27th of September 1537 (Newcourts Repert. ii. 89). At Michaelmas he resigned the mastership of Eton to reside at Braintree, being called late schole-master wose roome nowe enjoyeth and occupieth Mr. Tindall in a letter from the provost to Thomas Cromwell, then privy seal, on the 7th October 1537 (Lett. and Pa. Hen. VIII., 1537). He returned to Eton, however, or rather to Hedgeley, the school being removed there on account of the plague, at Midsummer 1537, being paid for the third and fourth terms of the school year (Eton Audit Book, 2930 Hen. VIII.). In October 1538 Nicholas Uvedale, professor of the liberal arts, informator 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 Udalls predecessor Cox is said in Aschams 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. |
He seems to have maintained himself by translating into English, in 1542, Erasmuss 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 Martyrs 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 Erasmuss 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 Udall of Geminuss Anatomie or Compendiosa totius anatomiae delineatio, a huge volume with gruesome plates, was published in 1553. Udalls 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 Kings Majestys Warrantthe 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 Udalls 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 recreacion, and directing the maister and yeomen of the office of the Revells to deliver whatever Udall 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. Katharines Hospital by the Tower, produced the third edition of The Rule of Reason, the first textbook 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 ambiguitie, as an example of such doubtful writing whiche, by reason of poincting, 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. Roisters emissary read it
Sweete mistress, where as I love you nothing at all, | |
Regarding your substance and richnesse chiefe of all, |
Sweete mistresse, whereas I love you (nothing at all | |
Regarding your substance and richnesse) chiefe of all, | |
For your personage, beautie, demeanour and wit. |
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 Udall did become headmaster of Westminster, he only became so nearly two years after Wilsons 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 Gardiners schoolmaster it is hard to guess. He was not headmaster 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 forty-one 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 Marys restoration of the abbey (Nov. 21, 1556), the school did not, as commonly alleged, cease, nor had Udall ceased to be master (Shakespeare Soc. iii. xxxiv.) when he died a month later. The parish register of St. Margarets, Westminster, under Burials in December A.D. 1556 records 11 die Katerine Woddall, 23 die Nicholas Yevedale, i.e., Udall. Katharine was perhaps a sister or other relation, as Elizabeth Udall was buried there on the 8th of July 1559. The abbey cellarers accounts ending Michaelmas 1557 contain a payment to Thomas Notte, usher of the boys, £6, 10s., and to the scholars (scolasticis vocatis le grammer childern), £63, 6s. 8d., showing that the usher carried on the school after Udalls death. Next year (15571558) the abbey receiver accounted for £20 paid to John Passey, (the new) schoolmaster, to Richard Spenser, usher, £15, and £133, 6s. 8d. for forty grammar boys. So it is clear that the school never stopped. Udall therefore was master of Westminster for just over two years. He died at the age of fifty-two.
Roister Doister well deserves its fame as the first English comedy. It is infinitely superior to any of its predecessors in form and substance. It has sometimes been described as a mere adaptation of Plautuss Miles Gloriosus. Though the central idea of the playthat of a braggart soldier (with an impecunious parasite to flatter him) who thinks every woman he sees falls in love with him and is finally shown to be an arrant cowardis undoubtedly taken from Plautus, yet the plot and incidents, and above all the dialogue, are absolutely original, and infinitely superior to those of Plautus. Even the final incident, in which the hero is routed, is made more humorous by the male slaves being represented by maid-servants with mops and pails.
The play was printed by F. Marshall in 1821; in Thomas Whites Old English Dramas (3 vols., 1830); by the Shakespeare Society, vol. iii., the introduction to which contains the fullest and most accurate account of his life; in Edward Arbers reprints in 1869; and Dodsleys Old Plays (1894), vol. iii. See also Literary Criticism.