After having been an apprentice bricklayer, Jonson went to the Netherlands and volunteered to soldier with the English regiments of Sir Francis Vere (1560–1609) in Flanders. According to the churchman and historian Thomas Fuller (1608–61), Jonson at this time built a garden wall in Lincoln's Inn. On leaving Westminster School in 1589, Jonson was to have attended the University of Cambridge, to continue his book learning but did not, because of his unwilled apprenticeship to his bricklayer stepfather. In the event, the pupil and the master became friends, and the intellectual influence of Camden's broad-ranging scholarship upon Jonson's art and literary style remained notable, until Camden's death in 1623. Later, a family friend paid for his studies at Westminster School, where the antiquarian, historian, topographer and officer of arms, William Camden (1551–1623) was one of his masters. Jonson attended school in St Martin's Lane. His widow married a master bricklayer two years later. Becoming a clergyman upon his release, he died a month before his son's birth. Jonson's father lost his property, was imprisoned, and, as a Protestant, suffered forfeiture under Queen Mary. In midlife, Jonson claimed that his paternal grandfather, who "served King Henry 8 and was a gentleman", was a member of the extended Johnston family of Annandale in the Dumfries and Galloway, a genealogy that is attested by the three spindles ( rhombi) in the Jonson family coat of arms: one spindle is a diamond-shaped heraldic device used by the Johnston family. The Scottish poet William Drummond of Hawthornden was friend and confidant to Jonson. While the spelling had eventually changed to the more common "Johnson", the playwright's own particular preference became "Jonson". His ancestors spelled the family name with a letter "t" (Johnstone or Johnstoun). Jonson was a classically educated, well-read and cultured man of the English Renaissance with an appetite for controversy (personal and political, artistic and intellectual) whose cultural influence was of unparalleled breadth upon the playwrights and the poets of the Jacobean era (1603–1625) and of the Caroline era (1625–1642). "He is generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William Shakespeare, during the reign of James I." 1606), The Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fair (1614) and for his lyric and epigrammatic poetry. He popularised the comedy of humours he is best known for the satirical plays Every Man in His Humour (1598), Volpone, or The Fox (c. Jonson's artistry exerted a lasting influence upon English poetry and stage comedy. 16 August 1637) was an English playwright and poet. 1617), by Abraham Blyenberch oil on canvas painting at the National Portrait Gallery, Londonīenjamin "Ben" Jonson (c.
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