Nicholas Grimald
born 1519/20, Huntingdonshire, Eng.
died c. 1559
English scholar and poet, best known as a
contributor to Songes and Sonettes (1557), known
as Tottel’s Miscellany, an anthology of
contemporary poetry he may have edited.
Grimald was educated at Cambridge and Oxford
universities. He graduated with an M.A. from
Oxford (1543) and was appointed to a lectureship
in theology at Christ Church College, Oxford, in
1547. He was licensed as a preacher in 1551–52
and named chaplain to Nicholas Ridley, bishop of
London. After the accession of the Catholic
queen Mary I in 1553, Ridley was imprisoned,
removed from his bishopric, and in 1554
executed. In 1555 Grimald was also imprisoned
but was released, presumably because he
recanted. In 1558 he is said to have returned to
the Protestant belief.
The first edition of Tottel’s Miscellany,
published in June 1557, contained 40 poems by
Grimald, including two early examples of English
blank verse. Only 10 of his poems appeared in
the second edition (published two months later)
and in later editions, perhaps because of his
religious inconstancy. Grimald also wrote two
plays in Latin: a tragicomedy, Christus
Redivivus (1543), produced at Oxford, and a
tragedy about John the Baptist, Archipropheta
(1548), produced at Cambridge. His plays and his
surviving poems, edited by L.R. Merrill, were
published in 1925.
