Spies, Sonnets & a Sword

The Short, Daring Life of Thomas Watson

On this day in Tudor history, 26 September 1592, poet and translator Thomas Watson was buried at St Bartholomew-the-Less.
You may not know his name, but in Elizabethan circles he was the rule-bender who wrote 18-line “sonnets”, carried letters for Sir Francis Walsingham, supplied lyrics for William Byrd, and once landed in prison after stepping between Christopher Marlowe and a blade.

I’m Claire Ridgway, historian and author. In this episode you’ll discover:

• Hekatompathia (1582): the 100-poem love sequence with 18-line “sonnets”
• Watson the Latinist: Petrarch, Sophocles’ Antigone, Amyntas & Amintae gaudia
• Music & verse: his words for Byrd and Englishings of Italian madrigals
• The 1589 brawl with Marlowe & William Bradley: wound, death, and a self-defence pardon
• Final years, plague-time death, and The Tears of Fancie (1593)

Where to start reading: dip into Hekatompathia for the form-breaking love poems, then try The Tears of Fancie to hear his later English voice.

Question for you: Had you heard of Watson before? Which Elizabethan poet deserves more attention?

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