May, THOMAS

May, THOMAS, dramatist and historiographer, was the son of Sir Thomas May of Mayfield in Sussex, and was born in 1594. Educated at Cambridge, he became a member of Gray's Inn and a courtier. He produced several dramas (Antigone, Cleopatra, Agrippina, &c.) and comedies, poems, and translations of the Georgics and Lucan's Pharsalia. During the Civil War he was made secretary and historiographer to the Parliament, and in that capacity produced a History of the Parliament of England, 1640–1643 (1650; several times republished), and a Breviary of the same history (1650). He died 13th November 1650.