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==Thomas Woodward and his brother Rowland, friends of the poet Donne== That Thomas Woodward did not go to the 'Inns of Court' alone, however: with him there was also a brother named “Rowland Woodward”, as may be seen from the following reference, mentioning the two Woodward brothers in passing (for quite different reasons): <blockquote>Donne may have traced his lineage back to an ancient Welsh line, the Dwyns of Kidwelly, yet his father was an ironmonger and citizen of London; his friends at Lincoln’s Inn, Rowland and Thomas Woodward, were the sons of a London vintner of the parish of St. Mary le Bow. Students of the Inns of Court without armour were entitled to style themselves gentlemen by virtue of the institution. (29)</blockquote> This reference would seem to imply, however, that this Rowland and Thomas Woodward might have been considerably older than our Thomas Woodward, the immigrant, since the poet John Donne is known to have been born in 1572, and to have entered Lincoln’s Inn in 1592 (30). This turns out, in fact, to have been the case, as the following reference makes clear: <blockquote>A Note on Rowland Woodward, The Friend of Donne</blockquote> <blockquote>The late Sir Edmund Gosse concludes the first volume of his ''Life and Letters of John Donne'' (1899, i, 318) by saying, "There is none of Donne's friends of whom we would gladly know more than of Rowland Woodward." He states that nothing is known of him but his name, the epistles that Donne wrote to him, and the gift to him by Donne of a copy of the ''Pseudo-Martyr''; he concludes that the important Westmoreland MS. also was given to him by Donne.</blockquote> <blockquote>Professor Grierson (''The Poems of John Donne'', 1912, ii, lxxxi) disputes this conjecture about the Westmoreland MS.; and later, in the notes to the poems (ii, 146-47), adds some information about Woodward's life, taken from Mr. Pearsall Smith's ''Life and Letters of Sir Henry Wotton''.</blockquote> <blockquote>Mr. Pearsall Smith there establishes that Woodward was at Venice with Wotton in 1605; during his residence there he was imprisoned by the Inquisition. In 1607, while bringing home dispatches, he was attacked by robbers in France and left for dead. On February 2, 1608, £60 was paid to his brother Thomas for Rowland's "surgeons and diets." In 1608 he entered the service of the Bishop of London. In 1625 he petitioned for a pension. In 1630 he became Deputy Master of Ceremonies, and died in 1636-1637.</blockquote> <blockquote>There is more, however, to be found out about him than that.</blockquote> <blockquote>The registers of St.Mary le Bowe [sic] (Index Library) contain a long list of christenings in what is clearly Woodward's family:</blockquote> <blockquote><blockquote>Aug. 23 1573. Rowland Woodward s.of John.</blockquote></blockquote> <blockquote><blockquote>Ap. 24 1575. Judith d.</blockquote></blockquote> <blockquote><blockquote>July 16 1576. Thomas s.</blockquote></blockquote> <blockquote><blockquote>June 21 1577. John s.</blockquote></blockquote> <blockquote><blockquote>Mar. 29 1579. Baldwyne s.</blockquote></blockquote> <blockquote><blockquote>May 22 1580. Rachel d.</blockquote></blockquote> <blockquote><blockquote>Aug. 6 1581. Margett d.</blockquote></blockquote> <blockquote><blockquote>Feb. 27 1582. Mary d.</blockquote></blockquote> <blockquote>Rowland, therefore, was the eldest of a family of eight, and was born in the same year as his friend Donne.</blockquote> <blockquote>In the Index of Hustings in the Guildhall Records Office there is the will of a John Woodward, vintner, who left assets of £400 and debts of only £30; his wife Helen is the sole executrix ... (31)</blockquote> This Rowland Woodward (the friend of Donne), then, turns out to have been a son of John, not a son of Christopher (whose 1627 will, in any case, did not name a son "Rowland"), and that John Woodward--not Christopher--turns out to have been the "London vintner" of the earlier reference. That John Woodward, of course, could have been a brother or even cousin of the Christopher Woodward who died in 1627: after all, they did both apparently reside in the same district of London, St.Mary-le-Bow. This raises the intriguing possibility (if we assume several things) that our Thomas Woodward the immigrant to Virginia (if he was a son of that Christopher of "Lambeth Marsh, gent." and St.Mary-le-Bow, London) could have been a ''cousin'' to the brothers Rowland and Thomas Woodward who were the friends and intimates of the poet Donne. Of course, this is (again) only speculation, and due to the paucity of evidence, we will very likely never know the full truth, but these are interesting, compelling speculations all the same.
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