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J. O.

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Richard Mulcaster came of a border family that could trace its descent back to the eleventh century. On his wife’s tomb he describes himself as “by ancient parentage and lineal descent, an esquire born,” and there is evidence that some of his ancestors held positions of importance, both administrative and academic. In the fourteenth century we hear of a Richard de Molcastre, who, as the second son, inherited from his father, Sir William, the estates of Brakenhill and Solport, and the family retained its consideration up to our own time. But in the reign of Elizabeth the ancestral lands were no longer in the possession of the branch to which our author belonged. He was probably born in the border district, and the date of his birth must have been about 1532. He was sent to Eton, then under Nicholas Udall, who as a headmaster was known alike for his learning and his severity, and who as the writer of the first regular English comedy, may have given Mulcaster his taste for the drama. In 1548 he went to Cambridge as a King’s Scholar, but in 1555 we hear of his election as a Student of Christchurch, Oxford. In the following year he was “licensed to proceed in Arts.” He had a reputation for a knowledge of Hebrew as well as of Latin and Greek, and seems shortly afterwards to have chosen the profession of a schoolmaster, making his way to London about 1558 or 1559.