James Shirley

Oxford biographer Anthony Wood reports that, after earning his MA, Shirley became "a minister of God's word in or near St Albans".

He then left this post, apparently due to a conversion to the Roman Catholic faith, and was master of St Albans School from 1623 to 1625.

Three or four of his plays were produced by his friend John Ogilby in Dublin's Werburgh Street Theatre, the first ever built in Ireland and at the time of Shirley's visit only one year old.

[1] During his Dublin stay, Shirley wrote The Doubtful Heir, The Royal Master, The Constant Maid, and St. Patrick for Ireland.

[5] In 1640 he returned to London, and found that in his absence Queen Henrietta's Men had sold off a dozen of his plays to the stationers, who published them in the late 1630s.

As a result, he would no longer work for Queen Henrietta's company, and the final plays of his London career were acted by the King's Men.

[1] On the outbreak of the English Civil War, Shirley seems to have served with the Earl of Newcastle, but when the King's fortunes began to decline he returned to London.

[1] Wood says that Shirley, aged 70, and his second wife died of fright and exposure after the Great Fire of London, and were buried at St Giles in the Fields on 29 October 1666.

His scenes are ingeniously conceived, his characters boldly and clearly drawn; and he never falls beneath a high level of stage effect.

In 1633, Shirley revised a play by John Fletcher, possibly called The Little Thief, into The Night Walker, which was acted in 1634 and printed in 1640.

Eight of Shirley's plays were reprinted in a single quarto volume in 1640; these were The Young Admiral, The Duke's Mistress, Hyde Park, Love's Cruelty, The Wedding, The Constant Maid, The Opportunity, and The Grateful Servant.