frigates conceived the English too strong for them to attack with advantage. They accordingly retired to Port Louis, thus permitting the Boadicea to put to sea on the morning of the 18th, and capture the French frigate Venus, which with her prize, the Ceylon (now recaptured), appeared off the port. Rowley's force was shortly afterwards strengthened by the arrival of several frigates, and from the middle of October he was able to institute a close blockade of Port Louis, which was continued till the arrival of the expedition under Vice-admiral Albemarle Bertie [q. v.] on 29 Nov., and the surrender of the island on 3 Dec. Rowley was then sent home with the despatches, and on his arrival in England was appointed to the America, which he commanded in the Mediterranean till October 1814. He had meanwhile been created a baronet on 2 Nov. 1813, and promoted to be rear-admiral on 4 June 1814, though he did not receive the grade till his return to England in October. On 2 Jan. 1815 he was nominated a K.C.B. During the summer of 1815 he was again in the Mediterranean with his flag in the Impregnable, under the command of Lord Exmouth, but returned at the end of the war, after the surrender of Napoleon. From 1818 to 1821 he was commander-in-chief on the coast of Ireland; on 27 May 1825 he was made a vice-admiral; was commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean from December 1833 to February 1837, a command which then carried with it the G.C.M.G., which he received on 22 Feb. 1834; was made a G.C.B. on 4 July 1840, and died unmarried at Mount Campbell on 10 Jan. 1842, when the title became extinct.
[Marshall's Roy. Nav. Biogr. ii. (vol. i. pt. ii.) 622; Gent. Mag. 1842, i. 325; James's Naval Hist.; Troude's Batailles navales de la France, iv. 83, 89, 105.]
ROWLEY, SAMUEL (d. 1633?), dramatist, is described by John Payne Collier as a brother of William Rowley [q. v.] Before 1598 he seems to have been attached to the service of Philip Henslowe, the theatrical manager. In March 1598 he borrowed money of Henslowe, and on 16 Nov. 1599 became by indentures Henslowe's ‘covenanted servant’ (Henslowe, Diary, p. 200). He was apparently employed at first as a reader and reviser of the manuscript plays submitted to Henslowe. According to Collier's ‘Alleyn Papers,’ he reported, at Henslowe's request, in April 1601 on the merits of the ‘Conquest of the West Indies’ by William Haughton [q. v.] and others, and on ‘Six Yeomen of the West’ by Haughton and Day. At the same time he interceded with Henslowe for some payment to Richard Hathway [q.v.} on account of the ‘Conquest of Spain by John of Gaunt.’ On 29 Nov. Henslowe made a payment to Haughton through him (ib. p. 204).
Rowley never seems to have attempted acting, but he soon made experiments as a playwright. In that capacity he was associated with the company of actors known successively as the Admiral's, Prince Henry's, and the Palsgrave's men. His earliest effort belonged to 1601. On 24 Dec. of that year he and William Borne or Bird were paid 5l. by Henslowe on account of a play called ‘Judas,’ on which Rowley was still engaged next month in collaboration with William Haughton as well as Borne. For a play called ‘Samson,’ by Rowley and Edward Juby, Henslowe paid them 6l. on 29 July 1602 (ib. p. 224). For ‘Joshua,’ acted by the Lord Admiral's servants on 27 Sept. 1602, Rowley was paid 7l. on the same day (ib. p. 226). Rowley's ‘Hymen's Holiday, or Cupid's Vagaries,’ was acted at court in 1612, and, with some alterations, before the king and queen at Whitehall in 1633. Sir Henry Herbert licensed on 27 July 1623 to be acted by the Palsgrave's players at the Fortune Theatre ‘A French Tragedy of Richard III, or the English Profit with the Reformation,’ by Rowley; this may possibly be a revised version of ‘Richard Crookback,’ a lost piece by Ben Jonson (cf. ib. 24 June 1602, p. 223). Rowley's ‘Hard Shift for Husbands, or Bilboes the Best Blade,’ was also licensed by Sir Henry Herbert on 29 Oct. 1623 to be acted at the Fortune Theatre by the Palsgrave's players. None of these pieces are now extant. In 1602 Rowley and William Bird were paid by Henslowe 4l. for making additions to ‘Faustus.’ Possibly some of the feeble comic scenes in the extant edition of Marlowe's tragedy, which was first published in 1604, are from Rowley's pen [see Marlowe, Christopher]
The only extant play that can be with certainty assigned to Rowley is entitled ‘When you see me you know me, or the famous Chronicle Historie of King Henrie VIII, with the Birth and Virtuous Life of Edward, Prince of Wales, as it was played by the High and Mightie Prince of Wales his Servants; by Samvell Rovvley, servant to the Prince,’ i.e. a member of Prince Henry's company of actors (London, printed by Nathaniel Butter, 1605, 4to). It was reprinted in 1613, 1621, and 1632. Copies of all these editions are in the Bodleian Library; copies of the second and fourth quartos only are in the British Museum. The piece deals with incidents in the reign of Henry VIII, apparently between 1537 and 1540, but there is no strict adherence to historical fact. The play is chiefly remarkable for the buffoonery in which the disguised king and his companion, ‘Black Will,’ indulge when seeking nocturnal adventures in the city of London, and for the rough jesting of two fools, William Summers and
