slain by a Piece of Ordnance; ' (3) 'Story of William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, being punished for abusing his King and causing the Destruction of good Duke Humphrey;' (4) 'The Story of Jack Cade naming himself Mortimer, and his Rebelling against the King.' In the preface, Baldwin speaks of having been 'called to other trades of lyfe.' He is probably referring to the fact that he had become a minister and a schoolmaster. Wood states that he took to clerical work immediately after leaving the university; but this must be a mistake. In 1560 he published a poetical tract (of the greatest rarity) in twelve leaves, 'The Funeralles of King Edward the Sixt; wherein are declared the Causers and Causes of his Death.' On the title-page is a woodcut portrait of Edward. The elegy is followed by 'An Exhortation to the Repentaunce of Sinnes and Amendment of Life,' consisting of twelve eight-line stanzas; and the tract concludes with an 'Epitaph: The Death Playnt or Life Prayse of the most Noble and Vertuous Prince, King Edward the Sixt.' One of the rarest and most curious of early ludicrous and satirical pieces, 'Beware the Cat ' (1561), has been shown by Collier to be the work of Baldwin. The dedication is signed 'G. B.,' the initials of Gulielmus Baldwin; and Mr. Collier quotes from an early broadside (in the library of the Society of Antiquaries) the following passage:
Where as there is a book called Beware the Cat:
The veri truth is so that Streamer made not that;
Nor no such false fabells fell ever from his pen,
Nor from his hart or mouth, as knoe mani honest men.
But wil ye gladli knoe who made that boke in dede?
One Wylliam Baldewine. God graunt him well to speede.
But the authorship is placed beyond all possible doubt by an entry in the Stationers' Registers, 1568-9, when a second edition was in preparation:— 'Rd. of Mr. Irelonde for his lycense for pryntinge of a boke intituled Beware the Catt, by Wyllm Baldwin, iiijd.' The scene is laid in the office of John Day, the printer, at Aldersgate, where Baldwin, Ferrers, and others had met to spend Christmas. Personal allusions abound, and there are many attacks on Roman Catholics. The purpose is to show that cats are gifted with speech and reason; and in the course of the narrative, which consists of prose and verse, a number of merry tales are introduced. Of Baldwin's closing years we have no record; he is supposed to have died early in the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
Baldwin prefixed a copy of verses to Langton's 'Treatise ordrely declaring the Principall Partes of Physick' (1547). He is probably the author of 'A new Booke called The Shippe of Safegards, wrytten by G. B.' (1569), and a sheet of eleven eight-line stanzas:—
To warn the papistes to beware of three trees.
God save our Queene Elizabeth.
Finis qd. G. B.,
printed on 12 Dec. 1571, by John Awdelay. Wood ascribes to him 'The Use of Adagies; Similies and Proverbs; Comedies,' of which nothing is known.
[Wood's Athenae Oxon. ed. Bliss, i. 341-3; Ritson's Bibliogr. Poet. p. 121; Dibdin's Typogr. Antiq. iii. 503, iv. 498; Collier's Hist. of Engl. Dram. Lit. i. 149, 154, new ed.; Bibliogr. Account, i. 43-7; Corser's Collectanea, i. 108-16, 123-9.]
BALDWIN or BAWDEN, WILLIAM (1563–1632), Jesuit, was a native of Cornwall. He entered Exeter College, Oxford, on 20 Dec. 1577, studied in that university for five years, and passed over to the English College of Douay, then temporarily removed to Rheims, where he arrived on 31 Dec. 1582. The following year he proceeded to Rome, and entered the English College there. He was ordained priest in 1588, and served as English penitentiary at St. Peter's for a year. His health failing in Rome, he was sent to Belgium, where he entered the Society of Jesus in 1590, and was advanced to the dignity of a professed father in February 1602. He was professor of moral theology at Louvain for some time. Having been summoned to Spain at the close of the year 1594 or early in 1595, he was captured by the English fleet, then besieging Dunkirk, and sent as a prisoner to England; but the privy council, being unable to discover anything against him, set him at liberty. He remained for six months in England, living with Mr. Richard Cotton at Warblington, Hampshire, where he rendered great assistance to the catholic cause. Called thence to Rome, he was for some time minister at the English college, under Father Vitelleschi, the rector. He next went to Brussels (about 1599 or 1600), where he succeeded Father Holt as vice-prefect of the English mission. This important post he held for ten years. His zeal gave such offence to the privy council, that, although he had never left Belgium, they proclaimed him a traitor, and an accessory in the Gunpowder plot with Fathers Garnett and John Gerard, and further accused him of having formerly
