William Forrest (poet)
William Forrest was an English Catholic priest who stood close enough to the demolition of St Frideswide's Priory to watch Cardinal Wolsey's new college rise on its ruins. That moment of witness captures something essential about this quiet Tudor poet: he was always nearby when history was made, pen in hand, yet almost entirely unknown today. He attended the Oxford discussions of 1530, when Henry VIII pressed the university to endorse his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. He stood in Peterborough in 1536 for Catherine's funeral. He saw three monarchs come to power and bent his verse toward each of them. Who was this man, how did he survive the violent swings of Tudor religious politics, and what does a portrait of a young priest with long, untonsured hair tell us about the man behind the manuscripts?
Anthony Wood, the Oxford antiquary, recorded that Forrest was a relative of John Forest, the Franciscan friar. That connection placed him inside a Catholic intellectual world that would become increasingly dangerous across his lifetime. His education at Christ Church, Oxford, gave him the learning to move among scholars and courtiers alike. When Henry VIII sent agents to Oxford in 1530 demanding a university opinion on his divorce, Forrest was present in the hall where those debates took place. Six years later, in 1536, he made the journey to Peterborough to witness the burial of Queen Catherine of Aragon, the very woman whose cause the king had forced those Oxford scholars to abandon. His loyalty to Catherine would eventually find its way into print.
In 1548, Forrest dedicated his version of the treatise known as De regimine Principum to the Duke of Somerset, the Lord Protector governing England during the minority of the young Edward VI. Somerset received a second dedication from Forrest in 1551, this time a metrical paraphrase of some of the Psalms. These were careful gestures of patronage-seeking in a Protestant administration, and they reveal a poet who understood that survival required flexibility. When Queen Mary came to the throne in 1553, Forrest moved quickly. He published a ballad celebrating her accession, printed in Aldersgate Street by Richard Lant, and was soon nominated one of her chaplains. Mary's court was where his Catholic convictions could at last speak openly, and he used his position there to present her, in 1558, with his most ambitious narrative poem.
The work Forrest finished on the 25th of June 1558 carried a title running to more than thirty words, but later readers knew it simply as The Second Gresyld. It retells, in verse, the story of Catherine of Aragon's divorce from Henry VIII, casting Catherine as the patient, wronged wife of the medieval Griselda tale. The manuscripts eventually came into the hands of the antiquary Anthony Wood, who received them from Ralph Sheldon of Weston Park in Warwickshire. Wood drew on the poem for his English Annals of the University of Oxford, and John Gutch reprinted those passages in his 1796 edition. Philip Bliss contributed the ninth chapter to Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges's British Bibliographer in 1814. The complete poem waited until 1875, when the Roxburghe Club published it in London under the title The History of Grisild the Second, edited by William Dunn Macray.
When Mary died in 1558, England turned Protestant again, and the record of Forrest's movements goes quiet. Nothing certain is known about his career in the years that followed. He probably found shelter under the protection of Thomas Howard, the 2nd Duke of Norfolk, to whom he dedicated his History of Joseph. The dedication was made not long before Howard's execution in 1572. That poem, Forrest noted, had originally been written twenty-four years earlier, making its composition roughly contemporaneous with his work for the Duke of Somerset in the late 1540s. The first part, copied onto vellum, ended up in the library of University College, Oxford; the second part went into the Royal manuscripts at the British Library. A combined copy running to 286 pages on paper was later assembled by Sir Thomas Phillipps.
Two dates in British Library Harley MS 1703 anchor the final span of Forrest's known life: the inscription "27 Oct. 1572, per me Guil. Forrestum," and the single year 1581. The volume contains a devotional poem on the life of the Virgin Mary and the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, and its tone confirms that Forrest never abandoned his Catholic faith, even after decades of Protestant rule. He was careful to note, in another poem, that he was not papalist: he believed each national branch of the church had the right to govern itself. Away from theology, he was deeply engaged with music. He owned a collection of contemporary compositions, and those manuscripts eventually passed to William Heather, the man who founded the music praxis and professorship at Oxford, where they are still preserved. Forrest was also on terms of friendship with Alexander Barclay, the Scottish poet and humanist. A portrait in British Library Royal MS.17 D.iii shows him as a young man, dressed in a priest's gown, with long hair that was never tonsured.
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Common questions
Who was William Forrest the Tudor poet?
William Forrest was an English Catholic priest and poet active in the Tudor period, noted as flourishing in 1581. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, served as a chaplain to Queen Mary, and produced verse dedicated to figures including the Duke of Somerset and Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk.
What is William Forrest's poem The Second Gresyld about?
The Second Gresyld, finished on the 25th of June 1558, is a narrative poem in verse retelling the divorce of Queen Catherine of Aragon from Henry VIII, casting Catherine in the role of the patient, wronged Griselda of medieval legend. Forrest presented it to Queen Mary. The complete poem was published in 1875 by the Roxburghe Club, edited by William Dunn Macray.
Where are William Forrest's manuscripts held today?
Forrest's manuscripts are held across several institutions. The first part of his History of Joseph is at University College, Oxford; the second part is in the Royal manuscripts at the British Library. A devotional poem on the Virgin Mary appears in British Library Harley MS 1703, and his musical manuscripts are preserved in the archives at Oxford, having passed through the hands of William Heather.
Was William Forrest a Catholic or a Protestant?
Forrest remained a Catholic throughout his life, even during the Protestant reigns that followed the death of Queen Mary in 1558. He was not, however, papalist; in one of his poems he argued that each national branch of the church had the right to self-government.
What is the History of Joseph by William Forrest?
The History of Joseph the Chaiste is a poem written in ballade royall, largely derived from the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Forrest dated its completion to the 11th of April 1569, but stated it had originally been written twenty-four years earlier. He dedicated it to Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk, not long before Howard's execution in 1572.
What connection did William Forrest have to Henry VIII's divorce proceedings?
Forrest was present at the discussions held at Oxford in 1530, when Henry VIII sought the university's opinion on his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. He also attended Catherine's funeral at Peterborough in 1536, and later devoted his major poem The Second Gresyld to retelling her story in verse.