William Alabaster

Categories

English male poets

Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge

People educated at Westminster School, London

English dramatists and playwrights

English male dramatists and playwrights

Sonneteers

16th-century Roman Catholics

17th-century Roman Catholics

16th-century writers in Latin

Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism

English Roman Catholics

17th-century English Anglican priests

17th-century writers in Latin

16th-century English male writers

16th-century English poets

1567 births

17th-century English writers

17th-century English male writers

17th-century English poets

English religious writers

1640 deaths

Neo-Latin poets

Escapees from England and Wales detention

Winthrop family

People from Hadleigh, Suffolk

People from Little Shelford

frame|right|William Alabaster from a contemporary etching.

William Alabaster (also Alablaster, Arblastier) (27 February 1567buried 28 April 1640) was an English Neo-Latin poet, playwright, and religious writer.

Alabaster became a Roman Catholic convert in Spain when on a diplomatic mission as chaplain. His religious beliefs led him to be imprisoned several times; eventually he gave up Catholicism, and was favoured by James I. He received a prebend in St Paul's Cathedral, London, and the living of Therfield, Hertfordshire. He died at Little Shelford, Cambridgeshire.

Biography

thumb|200px|right|Title page of Alabaster's Roxana,

Alabaster was born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, the son of Roger Alabaster of the Puritan cloth merchant family long settled there, and Bridget Winthrop of Groton, Suffolk.