[1] Shadwell was born at either Bromehill Farm, Weeting-with-Broomhill or Santon House, Lynford, Norfolk,[2] and educated at Bury St Edmunds School, and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, which he entered in 1656.

His best plays are Epsom Wells (1672), for which Sir Charles Sedley wrote a prologue, and The Squire of Alsatia (1688).

Alsatia was the cant name for the Whitefriars area of London, then a kind of sanctuary for persons liable to arrest, and the play represents, in dialogue full of the local argot, the adventures of a young heir who falls into the hands of the sharpers there.

"[10]Dryden had furnished Shadwell with a prologue to his True Widow (1679) and, in spite of momentary differences, the two had been on friendly terms.

Dryden immediately retorted in Mac Flecknoe, or a Satire on the True Blue Protestant Poet, T.S.

[9] However, Dryden's portrait of Shadwell as Og in the second part of Absalom and Achitophel cut far deeper and has withstood the test of time: "A monstrous mass of foul corrupted matter, As all the devils had spew'd to make the batter.

[11]Nonetheless, due to the political triumph of the Whig party in 1688, Shadwell superseded his enemy as Poet Laureate and historiographer royal.

In ye groves let's sport and play, For this is Flora's holiday, Sacred to ease and happy love, To dancing, to music and to poetry; Your flocks may now securely rove Whilst you express your jollity.