His son, JASPER HEYWOOD (1535-1598), who translated into English three
plays of Seneca, the _Troas_ (1559), the _Thyestes_ (1560) and _Hercules
Furens_ (1561), was a fellow of Merton College, Oxford, but was
compelled to resign from that society in 1558. In the same year he was
elected a fellow of All Souls College, but, refusing to conform to the
changes in religion at the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, he gave
up his fellowship and went to Rome, where he was received into the
Society of Jesus. For seventeen years he was professor of moral theology
and controversy in the Jesuit College at Dillingen, Bavaria. In 1581 he
was sent to England as superior of the Jesuit mission, but his leniency
in that position led to his recall. He was on his way back to the
Continent when a violent storm drove him back to the English coast. He
was arrested on the charge of being a priest, but, although
extraordinary efforts were made to induce him to abjure his opinions, he
remained firm. He was condemned to perpetual exile on pain of death, and
died at Naples on the 9th of January 1598. His translations of Seneca
were supplemented by other plays contributed by Alexander Neville,
Thomas Nuce, John Studley and Thomas Newton. Newton collected these
translations in one volume, _Seneca, his tenne tragedies translated into
Englysh_ (1581). The importance of this work in the development of
English drama can hardly be over-estimated.
See Dr J. W. Cunliffe, _On the Influence of Seneca upon Elizabethan
Tragedy_ (1893).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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