Constable Henry

Constable, Henry, born of a Roman Catholic family in Yorkshire about 1556, was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where, in 1579, he is thought to have produced the romance in verse and prose entitled The Forest of Fancy, and bearing the initials H. C. In 1592 appeared a volume of sonnets called Diana, displaying great power and skill, and three years later he wrote four splendid sonnets as an introduction to Sidney's Apology for Poetry. Suspected of treasonous correspondence with Mary Queen of Scots, he fled abroad, and roamed for several years in France, Italy, the Low Countries, and Scotland. In 1601 he returned to England, and was forthwith consigned to the Tower, but obtained his release in 1604. He died some time before 1616. "Diaphenia like the Daffadowndilly" with "Venus and Adonis" and two other of his poems wrere printed in England's Helicon (1600). His Spiritual Sonnets saw the light quite recently, and there are unpublished poems of his still in existence.