According to Anthony Wood, he was educated at Cambridge and subsequently at Oxford,[1] but did not take a degree and his name is not in university records.
His first work was a broadside of 1581, and London literati came to see him as one of a group of ballad writers including also William Elderton and Thomas Deloney.
It consisted of a virulent attack on the manners, customs, amusements and fashions of the period including the theatre, sexual reproduction, gambling, alcohol and fashion.
It is still read for its full information on the cultural attitudes of the time.
In 1591 Stubbs published A Christal Glass for Christian Women, for his wife who had died at age 19, of which at least seven editions were called for; it is an example of the ars moriendi in the Protestant tradition.