George Peele

George Peele (baptised 25 July 1556 – buried 9 November 1596) was an English translator, poet, and dramatist, who is most noted for his supposed, but not universally accepted, collaboration with William Shakespeare on the play Titus Andronicus. Many anonymous Elizabethan plays have been attributed to him, but his reputation rests mainly on Edward I, The Old Wives' Tale, The Battle of Alcazar, The Arraignment of Paris, and David and Bethsabe. The Troublesome Reign of John, King of England, the immediate source for Shakespeare's King John, has been published under his name.

Peele was christened on 25 July 1556 at St James Garlickhythe in the City of London. His father, James Peele (died 30 December 1585), who appears to have belonged to a Devonshire family, was clerk of Christ's Hospital, a school which was then situated in central London. He wrote two treatises on bookkeeping, The Maner and Fourme How to Kepe a Perfecte Reconyng (1553) and The Pathe Waye to Perfectnes (1569). The latter depicts James Peele in a woodcut on the title page. No contemporary likeness of George is known, although he was said to be short-legged, dark complected, red haired, and squinting, although not necessarily from reliable sources. George's mother, Anne, died on 1 July 1580, and his father married Christian Widers (d. 1597 in St Christopher le Stocks, a church since demolished) on 3 November 1580. She became a nurse on the Hospital payroll, where she remained five years after James Peele's death, when she married Ralph Boswell. His siblings included Anne (died 10 January 1568/9), Isabel, Judith (died 16 April 1582) and James (born 3 January 1563/4). Anne married John Alford on 14 May 1565 and had one son, Robert (9 October 1567 – c. 12 March 1654/5). Judith married John Jackman on 19 June 1575 and had three children, Susan (born 3 June 1576), William (30 April 1577 – 1 July 1577) and Sarah (died 25 May 1578). On 5 February 1568/9 Isabel married Mathew Shakespeare, with whom she had eight children. Duncan Salkeld, a university lecturer at University of Chichester, has suggested that while Matthew Shakespeare "may have been unrelated" to William Shakespeare, the listing of Matthew's marriage to Isabel Peele suggests a possible link, because Isabels' playwriting brother is thought by some to have collaborated on Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus. James Peele also wrote the Ironmongers' Pageants of 1566 and 1569, which may have led to George's writing of two Lord Mayor's pageants.

George Peele was educated at Christ's Hospital, and entered Broadgates Hall, Oxford, in 1571. In 1574 he removed to Christ Church, taking his B.A. degree in 1577, and proceeding M.A. in 1579. In that year, the governors of Christ's Hospital requested their clerk to "discharge his house of his son, George Peele." He went up to London about 1580, the year he married his first wife, 16-year-old heiress Ann Cooke, the only child of Hugh Christian, who was also known by the surnames Cooke, Alettor, Elector, and Nelettor (his brother, Daniel, used Alettor). Christian had died a few months before the marriage, and lawsuits over his estate were not settled for years, draining the inheritance.