ABSTRACT
John Donne was born in 1572, the son of John Donne, a prosperous London ironmonger, who died when the future poet was only three or four years old, and of Elizabeth, daughter of John Heywood, the epigrammatist. In 1596 Donne sailed with the Cadiz expedition under Essex, and then with the less fortunate Islands Expedition in 1597. Among his companions on both the voyages was young Thomas Egerton, son of Sir Thomas Egerton, later Lord Ellesmere, Keeper of the Great Seal and Lord High Chancellor. The scruples may well have been genuine, but, at the same time, they may well have been convenient, for it is almost impossible not to suppose that Donne was still hoping for secular preferment. It is also possible—or rather, perhaps, it is probable—that the reason why this secular preferment never came was that Morton had already convinced the King that Donne was needed by the Church.
