Robert Hayman - Early Life and Education

Early Life and Education

Hayman was born in Wolborough near Newton Abbot, Devon, the eldest of nine children. His mother was Alice Gaverocke and his father, Nicholas Hayman, a prosperous citizen and later mayor and M.P. of both Totnes and Dartmouth. By 1579 the family was living in Totnes, where in the high street Hayman as a small boy met Sir Francis Drake, who presented him with an orange (Hayman records the incident in one of his poems).

According to the 17th century historian Anthony Wood Hayman was educated at Exeter College and the college register shows him matriculating on 15 October 1590 (the register wrongly shows his age as eleven whereas in fact he was fifteen). He then, according to Wood, "retired to Lincolns-inn, without the honour of a degree": but here Wood is incorrect, as Hayman commenced B.A. on 8 July 1596. He was admitted as a law student to Lincoln's Inn on 16 October 1596, where, again according to Wood,he "studied for a time the municipal law", though modern researches find no evidence of this or of any intention to qualify as a lawyer. In his supplication for B.A. Hayman had mentioned a plan to travel and study in Europe, and this apparently happened, as in a letter his father wrote to Robert Cecil in 1600 he states that he hoped for a career for his son in some government office, and that towards this end he had educated him at both Oxford University and at Poitiers. Wood explains that "his geny being well known to be poetical, (he) fell into acquaintance with" a literary circle which included Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, John Donne, George Wither, John Owen and others. These encouraged his literary efforts with the result, according to Wood, that Hayman had "the general vogue of a poet". Perhaps because of these distractions Hayman seems not to have achieved any significant public office in England. Although Edward Sharpham dedicated a play to him in 1607 there is nothing further known about his activities for twenty years until he emerges as a venturer and colonist to the new world.