[4] He was baptized at Wootton Glanville and grew up in Sherborne, England where he spent 18 years of his life.

[6] Clavell's father was plagued by a life of financial trouble; he borrowed money from his son-in-law Robert Freake, but never paid off the loan.

He was said to have attended "Spiritual Court" for "moral behaviour"; allegedly he engaged in an affair while married to Frances.

It is theorized that his uncle Sir William played a major role in his receiving the pardon, and that the theft is the reason Clavell left Brasenose without a degree.

[9] After he left university in 1621, Clavell spent the next five years in London, where he lived a life of crime, poverty and ill health.

It is believed that she was of low standing and little inheritance; in the second edition of "A Recantation of an Ill Led Life" Clavell appealed to his mother and sister to accept Joyce as a good woman.

On 14 April 1635, Clavell married a Dublin heiress, who was noted to be younger than ten years old.

[11] A Recantation of an Ill Led Life is a metrical autobiography and a poem in which Clavell apologizes about all his misdealings.

[15] The second edition was also published in 1628, but is slightly different because of the aforementioned address to his mother and sister, asking them to accept his first wife, Joyce.

At one point he specifies the disguises they employed: The Soddered Citizen is a comedic play which is thought to have been written between 1629 and 1634.

A surviving manuscript was then discovered in 1932, edited by W. W. Greg and J. H. P. Pafford, and published by the Malone Society in 1936.