Habington, WILLIAM

Habington, WILLIAM, poet, was born at Hendlip in Worcestershire, November 4, 1605. His family was Catholic; his uncle was executed, and his father lay six years in the Tower, for complicity in Babington's plot. He was educated at St Omer, but declined to become a Jesuit, and was next sent to Paris. He married Lucy Herbert, daughter of the first Lord Powis, and has immortalised her in his Castara, a collection of lyrical poems, some of rare beauty and sweetness, and stamped throughout with a purity then unusual. It was first published in quarto in 1634. His father died in 1647, and he himself, says Wood, 'who did then run with the times and was not unknown to Oliver the usurper, died on the 30th of November 1654.' Other works of Habington were The Historie of Edward the Fourth (1640); The Queene of Aragon, a Tragi-comedie (1640); and Observations upon Historie (1641).