William Sampson (playwright)

William Sampson (1590?–1636?) was an English dramatist.

Sampson is thought to have been born about 1590 at South Leverton, a village near Retford, Nottinghamshire, into a yeoman family. From early life he was in service in local households of the neighbourhood. He found a permanent position as a retainer by 1628 in the family of Sir Henry Willoughby, 1st Baronet, of Risley, Derbyshire, where Phineas Fletcher resided between 1616 and 1621.

Sampson died soon after the publication of his Virtus post Funera in 1636.

Sampson made the acquaintance of Gervase Markham, another Nottinghamshire author, and joined him in writing, probably about 1612, a tragedy on the story of Herod and Antipater drawn from the Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus (based on books xiv. and xv.). It was successfully produced in London, was licensed for publication on 22 February 1622, and appeared as The True Tragedy of Herod and Antipater. Markham mentioned a related play by 1612, and Sampson apparently revised it shortly before its publication. The influence of the Latin work of Josephus was mediated by a 1558 English translation by Peter Morwyng. The play itself was populist, with onstage violence and depictions of low life, and echoed some Shakespearian effects. It was acted at the Red Bull Theatre, where the audience appreciated spectacle.

Sampson followed with a play on his own, on a topic of local interest—the seduction by one Bateman of Mistress German, a young married woman of Clifton. The lovers committed suicide. The episode was the subject of a chapbook Bateman's Tragedy; or the perjured Bride justly rewarded, and there was a popular ballad on the theme (later reprinted by Joseph Ritson). Sampson's piece was written partly in blank verse and partly in prose, and was published as The Vow Breaker. A second plot involved Gervase Clifton, a local worthy, Member of Parliament and soldier serving against the Scots in 1560, following Holinshed's Chronicles. In the last act the mayor of Nottingham has an interview with Queen Elizabeth about the navigation of the River Trent.

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