- Barnabe Googe
Barnabe Googe or Gooche (1540 - 1594) (also spelled Barnaby Googe) was an English
poet and translator, one of the earliest English pastoral poets.Biography
Barnabe Googe was born on
June 11 , 1540, inLondon orKent , the son of Robert Googe, recorder of Lincoln.He studied at the strongly
Reformist Christ's College , and was long thought to have also studied atNew College, Oxford , although this appears uncertain. Afterwards, he moved toStaple's Inn , where his cousin, William Lovelace, held the position of Reader. Around this time, he started to write poetry, and found himself in an exciting creativecoterie with other young writers, such asJasper Heywood andGeorge Turberville . Earlier authorities claim that he became a gentleman pensioner to Queen Elizabeth, in effect, a member of her bodyguard, but this has been disproved. Nonetheless, Googe did have close associations with the court, since he was related to William Cecil. Googe exploited this important connection persistently in the years that followed, and Cecil extended considerable patronage towards his young protegé. It may have been due to Cecil's encouragement that Googe accompanied the Elizabethan humanist scholar SirThomas Challoner on a diplomatic embassy to Spain in 1562.Marriage
There is extant a curious correspondence on the subject of his marriage with Mary Darrell, whose father,
Thomas Darrell , refused Googe's suit on the ground that she was bound by a previous contract. More to the point, recent research has shown that Thomas Darrell was arecusant who harboured Jesuit priests in his manor house ofScotney , nearLamberhurst in Kent. The idea of his daughter marrying a young man without fortune, and one moreover intimately acquainted with leading English Protestants such as Cecil andArchbishop Parker , must have horrified him.References
*Raphael Lyne, [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/11004 ‘Googe, Barnabe (1540–1594)’] , "
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography ", Oxford University Press, 2004, accessed 8 Sept 2008
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