William Camden

'William Camden: A Life In Context' provides the first major analytical biography of Camden his life his career as educator herald antiquarian and author since Thomas Smith's Latin biography in 1691. Camden's place in early-modern British intellectual history is legend. He authored two monuments to Elizabethan and British cultural identity was the schoolmate of Philip Sidney praised by Edmund Spenser mentor and teacher of Ben Jonson and Robert Cotton and friend of British and international scholars such as John Selden and Jacques De Thou. He was a major presence in the intellectual community of British and Continental scholars and a poet and historian among poets and historians. 'William Camden: A Life In Context' attempts to understand the nature of his extraordinary impact on his own and subsequent generations of writers in different fields. Recognized as it is Camden's place within the larger intellectual and cultural history of the English Renaissance has not been examined. 'The Britannia the Annals of Elizabeth' and his antiquarian activities have attracted the attention of historians and some literary scholars but his lesser work has been neglected as has his shaping influence on the institutions where he worked. As Headmaster at Westminster he was an influential educator and member of the Westminster Chapter under the auspices of William Cecil; as Clarenceux King of Arms he was a major presence in Tudor and Stuart court culture. Although history has cast him as politically disengaged Camden lived worked and wrote in a politically charged world. 'William Camden: A Life In Context' attempts to locate Camden within this transformational period and to understand what influences shaped his mind and work.WYMAN H. HERENDEEN is Professor and Department Chair in the Department of English at the University of Houston Texas.