Editing Ben Jonson (section)

==Early life==
{{Moresources|section|date=October 2022}}
[[File:William Camden by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger.jpg|thumb|right|[[Westminster School]] master [[William Camden]] cultivated the artistic genius of Ben Jonson.]]
[[File:Attributed to Abraham van Blijenberch - William Drummond of Hawthornden, 1585 - 1649. Poet - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|right|The Scottish poet [[William Drummond of Hawthornden]] was friend and confidant to Jonson.]]

Jonson was born in June 1572{{Sfn|Bland|2004|p=385}}—possibly on the 11th<ref name=":2" />—in or near London. In midlife, Jonson said his paternal grandfather, who "served King Henry {{As written|8}} and was a gentleman",<ref name="ID2008"/> was a member of the extended Johnston family of [[Annandale, Dumfries and Galloway|Annandale]] in [[Dumfries and Galloway]], a genealogy that is attested by the three spindles ([[rhombus|rhombi]]) in the Jonson family [[coat of arms]]: one spindle is a diamond-shaped [[Heraldry|heraldic]] device used by the Johnston family. His ancestors spelt the family name with a letter "t" (Johnstone or Johnstoun). While the spelling had eventually changed to the more common "Johnson", the playwright's own particular preference became "Jonson".<ref>[https://universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/benjonson/k/essays/jonsons_life_essay/] Donaldson, Ian. "Life of Ben Jonson". ''The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Ben Jonson Online''. Cambridge University Press. Accessed 11 June 2021.</ref>

Jonson's father lost his property, was imprisoned, and, as a Protestant, suffered [[forfeiture (law)|forfeiture]] under [[Mary I of England|Queen Mary]]. Becoming a clergyman upon his release, he died a month before his son's birth.<ref name="ID2008"/> His widow married a master [[bricklayer]] two years later.<ref name="Robert Chambers, Book of Days">Robert Chambers, Book of Days</ref><ref>"Ben Jonson", ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 15th edition, p. 611.</ref> Jonson attended school in [[St Martin's Lane]] in London.{{sfn|Ward|1911}} Later, a family friend paid for his studies at [[Westminster School]], where the [[antiquarian]], historian, [[topographer]] and [[officer of arms]] [[William Camden]] was one of his masters. The pupil and master became friends, and the intellectual influence of Camden's broad-ranging scholarship upon Jonson's art and [[style (fiction)|literary style]] remained notable, until Camden's death in 1623. At Westminster School he met the Welsh poet [[Hugh Holland]], with whom he established an "enduring relationship".<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sutton |first=Dana F. |date=October 10, 2019 |title=Introduction |url=https://philological.cal.bham.ac.uk/holland/intro.html |website=Hugh Holland, Complete Poetry. A Hypertext Edition}}</ref> Both of them would write preliminary poems for [[William Shakespeare]]'s [[First Folio]] (1623).

On leaving Westminster School in 1589, Jonson attended [[St John's College, Cambridge]], to continue his book learning. However, because of his unwilled apprenticeship to his bricklayer stepfather, he returned after a month.<ref name="autogenerated388"/><ref name="Robert Chambers, Book of Days"/> According to the churchman and historian [[Thomas Fuller]], Jonson at this time built a garden wall in [[Lincoln's Inn]]. After having been an apprentice bricklayer, Jonson went to the [[Netherlands]] and volunteered to soldier with the English regiments of Sir [[Francis Vere]] in [[Flanders]]. England was allied with the Dutch in their [[Eighty Years' War|fight for independence]] as well as the [[Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)|ongoing war with Spain]].

The ''Hawthornden Manuscripts'' (1619), of the conversations between Ben Jonson and the poet [[William Drummond of Hawthornden]],{{sfn|Ward|1911}} report that, when in Flanders, Jonson engaged, fought and killed an enemy soldier in [[single combat]], and took for trophies the weapons of the vanquished soldier.<ref name=Hawthornden>{{Cite book |last=Drummond |first=William |year=1619 |title=Heads of a Conversation betwixt the Famous Poet Ben Johnson and William Drummond of Hawthornden, January 1619 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ubHPBcMk2OMC&q=%22William+Drummond%22+jonson}}</ref> 

Jonson is reputed to have visited the antiquary [[Sir Robert Cotton, 1st Baronet, of Connington|Sir Robert Cotton]] at a residence of his in [[Chester]] early in the 17th century.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Quincey |first=Thomas De |url= |title=Confessions of an English Opium Eater: And Other Writings |date=2003-03-27 |publisher=Penguin Classics |isbn=978-0-14-043901-4 |editor-last=Milligan |editor-first=Barry |edition=Revised |language=English}}</ref>

After his military activity on the Continent, Jonson returned to England and worked as an actor and as a playwright. As an actor, he was the protagonist "Hieronimo" (Geronimo) in the play ''[[The Spanish Tragedy]]'' ({{circa|1586}}), by [[Thomas Kyd]], the first [[revenge tragedy]] in English literature. By 1597, he was a working playwright employed by [[Philip Henslowe]], the leading producer for the English public theatre; by the next year, the production of ''[[Every Man in His Humour]]'' (1598) had established Jonson's reputation as a dramatist.<ref>"Ben Jonson", ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 15th edition, p. 611.</ref><ref>"Thomas Kyd", ''Grolier Encyclopedia of Knowledge'', volume 11, p. 122.</ref>

Jonson described his wife to William Drummond as "a shrew, yet honest". The identity of Jonson's wife is obscure, though she sometimes is identified as "Ann Lewis", the woman who married a Benjamin Jonson in 1594, at the church of [[St Magnus-the-Martyr]], near [[London Bridge]].<ref name="autogenerated612">"Ben Jonson", ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 15th edition, p. 612.</ref>

The registers of [[St Martin-in-the-Fields]] record that Mary Jonson, their eldest daughter, died in November 1593, at six months of age. A decade later, in 1603, Benjamin Jonson, their eldest son, died of [[bubonic plague]] when he was seven years old, upon which Jonson wrote the elegiac "[[On My First Sonne]]" (1603). A second son, also named Benjamin Jonson, died in 1635.<ref>Mason, Thomas. [https://archive.org/details/registerofbaptis00stma/page/40/mode/2up ''A register of baptisms, marriages, and burials in the parish of St. Martin in the Fields'' (London, 1898), p. 40.]</ref>

During that period{{clarify|date=October 2022}}, Jonson and his wife lived separate lives for five years; Jonson enjoying the residential hospitality of his patrons, [[Esme Stuart, 3rd Duke of Lennox|Esme Stuart, 3rd Duke of Lennox and 7th Seigneur d'Aubigny]] and Sir Robert Townshend.<ref name="autogenerated612"/>