Robert Aylett

Robert Aylett (Aylet) (1583? – 1655) was an English lawyer and religious poet.

Robert Aylett, engraving of 1800 after Thomas Cross.

Life

He was a son of Leonard Aylett and Ann Pater of Rivenhall, Essex [1] born in 1582 or 3 [2] and was educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1605, M.A. in 1608, and LL.D in 1614.[3] He married three times but had no children: his first wife is not named but according to his 1653 poem A Wife not readymade but bespoke, by Dicus the Batchelor, and made up for him by his fellow shepheard Tityrus; in four pastoral eclogues died soon after the marrriage; his second wife was Judith Gael, of Hadleigh in Sussex, and his third, a widow, Penelope Stevens, originally Penelope Wiseman.[2]

Living at Feering, he acted for the archdeacon of Colchester and as justice of the peace.[4] He also acted in Essex as commissary for the Bishop of London, and judge of the Commissary Court; he played a large part in enforcing the Laudian reforms in the county.[5] He became Master of the Faculties in 1642.[6][7] He acted first for the House of Commons and then for the House of Lords until his death in 1655.[8]

Works

As a poet his work is related to George Herbert's, but he borrowed quite heavily from Edmund Spenser.[9] Susanna, or the Arraignment of the Two Unjust Elders' was published in 1622. Joseph, or Pharaoh's Favorite, Peace with her Four Gardens (1622) and Thrift's Equipage (1622) are other earlier works.[7]

Divine and Moral Speculations (1654)[10] was dedicated to Henry Pierrepont, 1st Marquess of Dorchester and his wife. A Wife not readymade but bespoke, by Dicus the Batchelor, and made up for him by his fellow shepheard Tityrus; in four pastoral eclogues (1653) is a secular piece.

He died on March 15, 1655 and is buried inside the parish church of Great Braxted with an elaborate monument constructed by his younger nephew, John Aylett [2]

Notes

1. Visitation of Essex 1634, Owen and Lilly
2. Padelford, F.M., 1936. Robert Aylett. The Huntington Library Bulletin, (10), pp.1-48.
3. "Aylett, Robert (ALT605R)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
4. J. S. Cockburn, Crime in England 1550-1800 (1977), p. 94.
5. J. Horace Round, William Page, William Price (editor), Family Origins and Other Studies (1971), p. 108.
6. s:Aylett, Robert (DNB00)
7. Author Record
8. Green, M. M. A. E. W. (Ed.). (1875). Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series,[during the Commonwealth]...: 1649-1650 (Vol. 1). Longman & Company.
9. R. M. Cummings, Edmund Spenser: the critical heritage (1995), p. 140.
10. Divine and Moral Speculations in Metrical Numbers upon Various Subjects. By Doctor R. Aylet, one of the Masters of the High Court of Chancery. London . . . 1654.

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Aylett, Robert". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.

Further reading

• John Horace Round, Robert Aylett and Richard Argall. English Historical Review, 38 (1923), 423-4.