Thomas Nabbes

Thomas Nabbes (1605 – 6 April 1641) was an English dramatist.

He was born in humble circumstances in Worcestershire, and educated at Exeter College, Oxford in 1621. He left the university without taking a degree, and in about 1630 began a career in London as a dramatist. He was employed at some point in the household of a nobleman near Worcester, and seems to have been of a convivial disposition. He had at least two children, Bridget and William, both of whom died within two years of his death, and were buried with him at St Giles in the Fields.

For centuries there was uncertainty about Nabbes' fate and burial. In a 1628 poem he expressed hope that one day he would be worthy of entombment at Worcester Cathedral in his native Worcestershire, while an 18th Century theatre historian insisted he was interred at London's Temple Church. There were no records for him in either place. In the mid-1900s it was finally discovered that Nabbes was buried on 6 April 1641, in his parish churchyard of St. Giles in the Fields. His two young children, Bridget and William, joined him there over the next two years.

About 1630 Nabbes seems to have settled in London, resolved to try his fortunes as a dramatist. He was always a stranger to the best literary society, but found congenial companions in Chamberlain, Jordan, Marmion, and Tatham, and was known to many ‘gentlemen of the Inns of Court’ (cf. Bride, Ded.) About January 1632–3 his first comedy, ‘Covent Garden,’ was acted by the queen's servants, and was published in 1638 with a modest dedication addressed to Sir John Suckling. In the prologue he defends himself from stealing the title of the piece—in allusion doubtless to Richard Brome's ‘Covent Garden Weeded,’ acted in 1632—and describes his ‘muse’ as ‘solitary.’ His second comedy, ‘Totenham Court,’ was acted at the private house in Salisbury Court in 1633, and was also printed in 1638, with a dedication to William Mills. A third piece, ‘Hannibal and Scipio, an hystorical Tragedy,’ in five acts of blank verse, was produced in 1635 by the queen's servants at their private house in Drury Lane. Nabbes obviously modelled his play upon Marston's ‘Sophonisba.’ It was published in 1637, with a list of the actors' names. A third comedy, ‘The Bride,’ acted at the private house in Drury Lane, again by the queen's servants, in 1638, was published two years later, with a prefatory epistle addressed ‘to the generalty of his noble friends, gentlemen of the severall honorable houses of the Inns of Court.’ One of the characters, Mrs. Ferret, the imperious wife, has been compared to Ben Jonson's Mistress Otter.

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