Verstegan was born in
East London, the son of a
cooper. His grandfather, Theodore Roland Verstegen, was a refugee from
Guelders in the
Spanish Netherlands who arrived in England around the year 1500. A convert to the
Catholic Church, Rowlands produced an English translation of the
Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the translation and
primer prayer book that contained it remained among the most popular English Catholic devotionals for two centuries. Under the
patronym Rowlaunde, Richard came up to
Christ Church, Oxford, In exile, he resumed his ancestral Dutch surname of Verstegen (Anglicized Verstegan) and, in 1585 or 1586, he moved to the
Spanish Netherlands. With covert financial support from the Spanish Crown, Verstegan set up a residence, "in
Antwerp near the bridge of the tapestry makers", as a publisher,
engraver, but, as the recent Latin-
Middle French translation of
Theatrum crudelitatum Hæreticorum nostri temporis had already heavily contributed to the ideology of the
Catholic League during the
French Wars of Religion, Verstegan had many influential sympathisers and protectors. At the insistence of both the Catholic League and the
Papal Nuncio, the French King refused Sir
Francis Walsingham's demands for Verstegan's
extradition to England to stand trial for
high treason and the exiled Englishman was quietly released. After his release, Verstegan lived briefly in
Rome, where he was the recipient of a temporary pension from
Pope Sixtus V.
Other works In 1595, Verstegan published in Antwerp the Latin-
Elizabethan English translation of
An Epistle in the Person of Jesus Christ to the Faithful Soule by
John Justus of Landsberg, which St.
Philip Howard had made while imprisoned for
Recusancy in the
Tower of London. St. Philip Howard's
literary translation of
Marko Marulić's
Renaissance Latin religious poem
Carmen de doctrina Domini nostri Iesu Christi pendentis in cruce ("A Dialogue Betwixt a Christian and Christ Hanging on the Crosse"), was also published in lieu of an introduction in the Antwerp edition. From 1617 to about 1630 Verstegan was a prolific writer in Dutch, producing epigrams, characters, jestbooks, polemics. He also penned journalistic commentaries, satires and editorials for the
Nieuwe Tijdinghen (New Tidings) printed in Antwerp by
Abraham Verhoeven from 1620 to 1629. This makes him one of the earliest identifiable
newspaper journalists in Europe.
Latter days According to
Louise Imogen Guiney, "The poet passed his remaining days in Antwerp, beloved by the best names of his time, English or foreign; his closest friends were such men, among Protestants, as
Ortelius or
Bochins, Sir
Thomas Gresham and Sir
Robert Cotton, the index of whose manuscript collection in the
British Museum names Verstegan more than once. He was also a friend and great correspondent of Father
Robert Persons,
S.J.: many of Verstegan's letters to the latter figure in the
Westminster Cathedral Archives." Although the exact date of Verstegan's death remains unknown, his will survives in Antwerp and bears the date of 26 February 1640. ==Legacy==