14 Facts About Henry Constable

Henry Constable was an English poet, known particularly for Diana, one of the first English sonnet sequences.

Henry Constable returned to England at the accession of King James, but was a prisoner in the Tower and in the Fleet.

Henry Constable served under Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, in the campaign after the Northern Rebellion of 1569, and was knighted by Sussex at Berwick.

Henry Constable was sent to Edinburgh in 1589 on the occasion of King James VI's marriage, and by this time was a member of the circle of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.

In 1591 Henry Constable went to Normandy with the English forces under Essex who laid siege to Rouen.

Henry Constable continued to claim loyalty to Queen Elizabeth, and supported King James' claim to the English throne in preference to the claim of the Spanish Infanta, daughter of Philip II of Spain.

The Venetian ambassador Nicolo Molin heard that Henry Constable had written letters to the Papal nuncio or envoy in Paris, which were intercepted, leading to his arrest.

Henry Constable was placed under house arrest, and deprived of his inheritance.

In 1592 Diana, a sequence of twenty-three sonnets by Henry Constable, was published in London by Richard Smith, one of the first sonnets sequences in English.

Four poems by Henry Constable were included in England's Helicon in 1600, among them Damelus Song to his Diaphenia and Venus and Adonis.

Henry Constable's verse is characterised by fervour and richness of colour.

Sweete Henry Constable doth take the wondring eare And layes it up in willing prisonment.

Henry Constable is known to have written two theological tracts in 1596 and 1597 which are no longer extant.

Henry Constable responded to A Conference about the Next Succession, generally attributed to Robert Persons.