The son of Andrew Benlowes of Brent Hall, Essex, he matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge, on 8 April 1620.

[2] On the death of his father he became possessed of the estate of Brent Hall, but being a man of a very liberal disposition he contrived "to squander it mostly away on poets, flatterers (which he loved), in buying of curiosities (which some called baubles), on musicians, buffoons, &c." (Wood).

He often gave his bond for the payment of debts contracted by his friends, and on one occasion, being unable to meet the obligation he had incurred, was committed to prison at Oxford.

It deals with mystical religion, telling how the soul, represented by Theophila, ascends by humility, zeal and contemplation, and triumphs over the sins of the senses.

Later writers, including Samuel Butler, Alexander Pope and William Warburton,[2] were exceedingly severe on Benlowes's poetry.