Cardinal Wolsey's fool Patch. Fletcher and Shakespeare possibly owed something to Rowley's effort when preparing their own play of ‘Henry VIII.’ Rowley's title doubtless suggested that of Thomas Heywood's ‘If you know not me, you know nobody’ (1605–6). Rowley's play was republished at Dessau in 1874, with an introduction and notes by Karl Elze.
Of a second extant play commonly attributed to Rowley the authorship is less certain. The piece is called ‘The Noble Sovldier, or a Contract broken justly reveng'd, a tragedy written by S. R.,’ 4to, London, 1634. The play, which met with success in representation, seems to have been first licensed for publication in May 1631, to John Jackman, under the name of ‘The Noble Spanish Soldier,’ which is the running title of the published book. The entry in the ‘Stationers' Register’ describes it as the work of Thomas Dekker. Again, in December 1633 Nicholas Vavasour, the publisher of the only edition known, re-entered it in the ‘Stationers' Register’ as by Thomas Dekker. It was doubtless either Dekker's work edited by Rowley, or Rowley's work revised and completed by Dekker. According to the anonymous editor's preface, the author was dead at the time of its publication. Dekker does not appear to have died much before 1641, and, on that assumption, the second hypothesis, which assigns to Dekker the main responsibility for the piece, seems the more acceptable. Two scenes of ‘The Noble Sovldier’ are wholly taken from John Day's ‘Parliament of Bees’ (characters 4 and 5), which is supposed to have been written about 1607 (Day, Works, ed. A. H. Bullen, i. 26–7).
[Henslowe's Diary (Shakespeare Soc.), passim; Fleay's Biogr. Chronicle of the Stage; Fleay's Hist. of the Stage; Elze's introduction to Rowley's ‘When you see me,’ 1874; Collier's Bibl. Cat.]
ROWLEY, THOMAS, pseudonym. [See Chatterton, Thomas, 1752-1770).]
ROWLEY, WILLIAM (1585?–1642?), dramatist, was born about 1585. Meres, in ‘Palladis Tamia’ (1598), credited ‘Master Rowley, once a rare scholar of learned Pembroke Hall in Cambridge’, with excellence in comedy. But the dates render impossible the identification of Meres's ‘Master Rowley’ with the dramatist which Wood adopted. Meres doubtless referred to Ralph Rowley (d. 1604?), afterwards rector of Chelmsford, who was the only student at Pembroke Hall of the name of Rowley during the second half of the sixteenth century (see Cooper, Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 388). The dramatist has also been confused with another Ralph Rowley who, like himself, was an actor in the Duke of York's company in 1610, and with Samuel Rowley [q. v.], who was possibly his brother. Previously to 1610 William Rowley seems to have acted in Queen Anne's company. In 1613 his company became known as the Prince of Wales's, and he is described as its leading comedian (note by Oldys in Langbaine, Dramatick Poets). In the same year he contributed verses to William Drummond's ‘Mausoleum’ in memory of Prince Henry. Poems by him appear in John Taylor the water poet's ‘Great Britaine all in Black,’ 1613, and the same writer's ‘Nipping and Snipping of Abuses,’ 1614. In 1614, too, he contributed to an edition of Jo. Cooke's ‘Greenes Tu Quoque, or the City Gallant,’ an epitaph on the actor Thomas Greene; the work had a preface by Thomas Heywood. But Rowley thenceforth confined his literary labours mainly to the drama. In April 1614 the temporary amalgamation of the Lady Elizabeth's company with that of Prince Charles brought him into contact with Thomas Middleton, in collaboration with whom his best remembered work was done. Their first joint play was ‘A Fair Quarrel’ (not printed until 1617). The united companies played for two years under Henslowe's management at the ‘Hope,’ on the site of Paris Garden. In 1616 the theatre was closed and bear-baiting resumed. After Henslowe's death the two companies separated, and Rowley for a time followed the Prince's to the ‘Curtain,’ but in 1621 he threw in his lot with the Lady Elizabeth's men at the ‘Cockpit,’ and in 1623 he joined the king's. In the following year he played in Beaumont and Fletcher's ‘Maid of the Mill.’ Soon after Middleton's death in July 1627, he seems to have retired from the boards as an actor. Between 1632 and 1638 he wrote four plays, which were issued as the unaided efforts of his pen. In 1637 his marriage is recorded at Cripplegate to Isabel Tooley (cf. Collier, Memoirs of Actors, p. 235). He is believed to have died before the outbreak of the civil war.
A tradition handed down by Langbaine records that Rowley was beloved by those great men, Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Jonson; while his partnership in so many plays by a variety of writers has been regarded as proof of the amiability of his character. As a useful and safe collaborator he seems to have been only less in demand than Dekker. His hand is often difficult to identify, though his verse may generally be detected by its metrical harshness and irregularity. His style is disfigured by a monotonously extra-
