Ben Jonson

Benjamin Jonson, invariably known as Ben, was educated at Westminster School. A big man, he became an apprentice bricklayer, then a soldier who served in Flanders, where he played the hero in single combat. Jonson then took to the stage as an actor. After killing a fellow-actor in a duel he avoided execution by pleading benefit of clergy and went on to write tragedies, most of which do not survive, satirical comedies, masques for the court of James VI and I, and lyrics, elegies and other poems. A friend of William Shakespeare, for whom he wrote memorial verses, he gathered around him a group of other poets, frequenters of the Mermaid Tavern, who became known as the "tribe of Ben". These included Robert Herrick and Sir John Suckling. He was buried in Westminster Abbey under a tombstone inscribed "O rare Ben Jonson". His poems continue to be anthologised and his plays produced, sometimes in adaptation.