Richard Barnfield facts for kids

Richard Barnfield (baptized 29 June 1574 – 1620) was an English poet. His obscure though close relationship with William Shakespeare has long made him interesting to scholars. It has been suggested that he was the "rival poet" mentioned in Shakespeare's sonnets.

Early life

Barnfield was born at the home of his maternal grandparents in Norbury, Staffordshire, where he was baptized on 29 June 1574. He was the son of Richard Barnfield, gentleman, and Mary Skrymsher (1552–1581).

He was brought up in Shropshire at The Manor House in Edgmond, his upbringing supervised by his aunt Elizabeth Skrymsher after his mother died when Barnfield was six years old.

In November 1589 Barnfield matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and took his degree in February 1592. He performed the exercise for his masters gown, but seems to have left the university abruptly, without proceeding to the M.A. It is conjectured that he came up to London in 1593, and became acquainted with Watson, Drayton, and perhaps with Edmund Spenser. The death of Sir Philip Sidney had occurred while Barnfield was still a school-boy, but it seems to have strongly affected his imagination and to have inspired some of his earliest verses.

Later life

In 1605, his Lady Pecunia was reprinted, and this was his last appearance as a man of letters. Some sources have claimed that Barnfield married and withdrew to his estate of Dorlestone (a locality in Staffordshire now known as Darlaston), where he thenceforth resided as a country gentleman. This is supported by records of a will for a Richard Barnfield, resident at Darlaston, and his burial in the parish church of St Michaels, Stone, on 6 March 1627. However, it now appears that the Barnfield in question was in fact the poet's father, the poet having died in 1620 in Shropshire.