Arthur Wilson (17th century)

Arthur Wilson (1595 – 1652) was a seventeenth-century English writer.

Life

Wilson was born in Yarmouth. In the 1620–25 period he served as secretary to Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex, and accompanied the Earl on his military campaigns on the Continent. After two years' study at Oxford University (1631–33), Wilson entered the service of Robert Rich, 2nd Earl of Warwick as his steward. Wilson returned to Essex's service for the English Civil War. Wilson had a reputation as an adventurer; his autobiography, "Observations of God's Providence, in the Tract of my Life," [Paul Delaney, "British Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century", London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969.] records some of his adventures, like his 1642 rescue of the Countess Rivers from anti-Catholic rioters. [Keith Lindley, "The English Civil War and Revolution: A Sourcebook", London, Routledge, 1998; pp. 94-5.]

Dramatist

Wilson's period of playwriting was brief but concentrated. He composed three tragicomedies in as many years:

* "The Corporal," 1630;
* "The Swisser," 1631;
* "The Inconstant Lady," 1632.

None of this plays was published in the seventeenth century, and "The Corporal" has survived only in a fragmentary manuscript that stops in Act II, scene 1. [Alfred Harbage, "Elizabethan and Seventeenth-Century Manuscripts," "Papers of the Modern Language Association" Vol. 50 No. 3 (September 1935), pp. 687-99; see pp. 695-6.] The other two dramas remained in manuscript until later publication, "The Inconstant Lady" [Linda V. Itzoe, "Arthur Wilson's The Inconstant Lady: A Critical Edition," New York, Garland, 1980.] in 1814 and "The Swisser" in 1904. "The Swisser" was performed in 1631 by the King's Men at the Blackfriars Theatre; the manuscript preserves a cast list for that original production — significant, since it is one of only seven cast lists for the company that survive from the era of the later 1620s and early 1630s. "The Inconstant Lady" was performed by the same company, at the same theatre, in 1633.

Wilson's autobiography contains observations on the private theatrical performances conducted in aristocratic households of the era.

Other work

Wilson's notable non-dramatic work is his "The History of Great Britain, being the Life and Reign of King James I," which was published in 1653, a year after Wilson death. (Indeed, none of Wilson's literary efforts was in print in his lifetime.) WIlson was not an admirer of the House of Stuart, as his history reveals; he reflects negatively on various figures of the Stuart era, including Sir Francis Bacon.

(The prefatory note in Wilson's "History" states that the author had "little skill in the Latin tongue and less in Greek," but "a good readiness in French and some smattering of Dutch.")

WIlson also wrote some verse; his "Upon Mr. J. Donne and his Poems" has been considered one of the better elegies on the poet. [Charles Eliot Norton, ed., "The Poems of John Donne", New York, Grolier Club, 1895; p. 282.]

References