Robert Daborne

Life
?1570-1628; b. playwright and Dean of Lismore, 1621; collaborated with Massinger and Field; the only extant examples of his own playwrighting are A Christian turn’d Turke (1612) and The Poor-man’s Comfort [n.d.]; he is mentioned in The Time of Poets [‘Dawborne I had forgot, and let it be / He died amphibious by the ministry’]; d. 23 March. ODNB DIW

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Works
Plays
  • A Christian turn’d Turke, or the Tragicall Liues and Deaths of the two famous Pyrates, Ward and Danseker (1612), 4o [founded on Andrew Barker’s prose narrative].
  • The Poor Man’s Comfort, a tragi-comedy [...] divers times acted at the Cock-Pit in Drury Lane with great applause. Written by Robert Dauborne [sic], MA (1655 [sic]), with MS copy Egerton MS 1994.
  • Commendatory verses prefixed to Christopher Brook’s Ghost of King Richard the Third (1615).

Note: The above list of works is copied from that given in the Dictionary of National Biography [ODNB] - as infra.

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References

Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB; UK): Daborne states in the preface to A Christian Turn’d Turke (1612) that his descent was ‘not obscure but generous’; prob. b. Guildford, Suffolk; warrant granted in name of ‘Daborne and others the queen’s servants 4 Jan. Jacobi, to bring up and practise children in plays by the name of Children of the Queen’s Revels (Collier, New Facts); letters from Daborne to Henslowe preserved in Dulwich MSS, chiefly for 1613; wrote in 1613 four unpublished plays, Machievell and the Devil; The Arraignment of London, one act of which was by Cyril Tourner; The Bellman of London; The Owl; engaged on The She Saint, in spring 1614; collab. with Field and Massinger; a letter shows the three begging £5 for bail from Henslowe; signed bond to repay; took orders, date unknown; A Sermon on Zach, ii. 7 (1618), 8o; preached in Waterford; patronage of Lord Willoughby; preferred to prependary of Lismore Cathedral, 1619, Dean, 1621; d. 23 March. [Bibliographical details under Works - supra. Bibl. sources incl. Cotton’s Fasti Eccles. Hiberniae (inter. al.)

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