16th-century English writers

William Webbe (fl. 1568–1591) was an English critic and translator.

Richard Carew (17 July 1555, East Antony, Cornwall, England – 6 November 1620) was a Cornish translator and antiquary.

Richard Carpenter (1575–1627) was an English clergyman and theological writer.

Richard Lichfield (died 1630) was a barber surgeon in Cambridge, England, during the late 16th and early 17th century.

Richard Madox (11 November 1546 – 27 February 1583) was an English explorer, who served as a chaplain aboard Edward Fenton's voyage headed for the Moluccas and China in 1582.

Richard Parkes (born 1559) was an English clergyman, known as a controversialist.

Samuel Purchas (1577? – 1626), an English cleric, published several volumes of reports by travellers to foreign countries.

Robert Norman was a 16th-century-English mariner, compass builder, and hydrographer who discovered magnetic inclination, the deviation of the Earth's magnetic field from the vertical.

William Strachey (4 April 1572 – 21 June 1621 (buried)) was an English writer whose works are among the primary sources for the early history of the English colonisation of North America.

William Fulke (/fʊlk/; 1538–1589) was an English Puritan divine.

Sir Anthony Fitzherbert (1470 – 27 May 1538) was an English judge, scholar and legal author, particularly known for his treatise on English law, New Natura Brevium (1534).

George Cavendish (1497 – c. 1562) was an English writer, best known as the biographer of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey.

John Bale (21 November 1495 – November 1563) was an English churchman, historian and controversialist, and Bishop of Ossory.

John Fisher (c. 19 October 1469 – 22 June 1535), venerated by Roman Catholics as Saint John Fisher, was an English Catholic bishop and theologian.

Augustine Vincent (c. 1584–1626) was an English herald and antiquary.

John Bekinsau (1496?–1559) was an English classical scholar and theologian.

Sir John Brograve (1538–1613) was an English lawyer and politician.

John Case (or Johannes Casus) (died 1600) was an English writer on Aristotle.

John Fisher was Town Clerk and bailiff of Warwick and a writer.

John Fowler (b. Bristol, England, 1537; d. Namur, present-day Belgium, 13 Feb., 1578-9) was a Catholic scholar and printer.

John Hales (c.1516 – 26 or 28 December 1572) was a writer, administrator and politician during the Tudor period.

John Martiall (Marshall) (born in Worcestershire, 1534, died at Lille, 3 April 1597) was an English Roman Catholic priest.

John Stanbridge (1463–1510) was an English grammarian and schoolmaster.

John Still (c. 1543 – 26 February 1607/8), bishop of Bath and Wells, enjoyed considerable fame as a preacher and disputant.

Richard Cocks (1566–1624) was the head of the British East India Company trading post in Hirado, Japan, between 1613 and 1623, from its creation, and lasting to its closure due to bankruptcy.

Paul Wentworth (1533–1593), a prominent English member of parliament (1559, 1563 and 1572) in the reign of Elizabeth I, was a member of the Lillingstone Lovell branch of the family.

John Greenwood (died 6 April 1593) was an English Puritan divine and separatist.

Bridget Paget née Masterson (1570–circa 1647) was an English Puritan who acted as her husband John Paget's literary executor and editor.

Robert Fabyan (died c.1512) was a London draper, Sheriff and Alderman, and author of Fabyan's Chronicle.

Joseph Hall (1 July 1574 – 8 September 1656) was an English bishop, satirist and moralist.

Elizabeth Richardson, 1st Lady Cramond (1576/77 – 1651) was an English writer and peeress.

Goddred Gylby (fl. 1561), was an English translator.

Richard Verstegan', born Richard Rowlands (c. 1550 – 1640), was an Anglo-Dutch antiquary, publisher, humorist and translator.

Sir Robert Filmer (c. 1588 – 26 May 1653) was an English political theorist who defended the divine right of kings.

William Tooker (or Tucker) (Exeter, 1557 or 1558 – Salisbury, 19 March 1621) was an English churchman and theological writer.

Timothie Bright, M.

John Palsgrave (c. 1485 – 1554) was a priest of Henry VIII of England's court.

John Willis, (ca. 1575 – 28 November 1625) was a British clergyman, stenographer and mnemonician.

William Painter (or Paynter; 1540? – February 1595, in London) was an English author and translator.

Sir Edmund Tilney or Tylney (1536–1610) was a courtier best known now as Master of the Revels to Queen Elizabeth and King James.

Richard Eden (c.1520–1576) was an alchemist and translator.

Thomas Whythorne (1528–1595) was an English composer who wrote what some consider to be the earliest known surviving autobiography in English.

Charles Butler (1560–1647), sometimes called the Father of English Beekeeping, was a logician, grammarist, author, minister (Vicar of Wootton St Lawrence, near Basingstoke, England), and an influential beekeeper.

John Leland or Leyland (13 September, c. 1503 – 18 April 1552) was an English poet and antiquary.

Nicholas Byfield (1579–1622) was an English clergyman, a leading preacher of the reign of James I.

Sir Geoffrey Fenton (c. 1539 – 19 October 1608) was an English writer, Privy Councillor, and Principal Secretary of State in Ireland.

Anthony Maxey (died 3 May 1618), was the Dean of Windsor.

George Best (died 1584) was a member of the second and third Martin Frobisher voyages in positions of importance; as Frobisher's lieutenant on the second and as captain of the Anne Francis on the third.

Sir George Buck (or Buc) (c. 1560 – October 1622) was an English antiquarian, historian, scholar and author, who served as a Member of Parliament, government envoy to Queen Elizabeth I and Master of the Revels to King James I of England.

George Silver (ca. 1550s–1620s) was a gentleman of England during the late 16th and early 17th centuries, who is known for his writings on swordplay.

Oliver Almond was a Roman Catholic priest and writer, born in the diocese of Oxford.

Thomas Starkey (c. 1495–1538) was an English political theorist and humanist.

Thomas Sternhold (1500–1549) was an English courtier and the principal author of the first English metrical version of the Psalms, originally attached to the Prayer-Book as augmented by John Hopkins.

Philip Barrow or Barrough (fl. 1590) was an English medical writer.

William Alley (also Alleyn and Alleigh; 1510 – 15 April 1570) was an Anglican prelate who was the Bishop of Exeter during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.

William Clowes the elder (c.1543 or 1544–1604) was an early English surgeon.

William Harrison (18 April 1534 – 24 April 1593) was an English clergyman, whose Description of England was produced as part of the publishing venture of a group of London stationers who produced Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles (London 1577).

William Latymer or Latimer (1499–1583) was an English evangelical clergyman, Dean of Peterborough from 1560.

William Rugg (also Rugge, Repps, Reppes; died 1550) was an English Benedictine theologian, and bishop of Norwich from 1536 to 1549.

William Roper (c. 1496 – 4 January 1578) was an English lawyer and MP.

Sir William Staunford (1509 – 28 August 1558) was an English jurist and was appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas in 1554.

William Stoughton developed the most complete and insightful version of classical republicanism that had yet appeared in England.

Nathan Field (also spelled Feild occasionally) (17 October 1587 – 1620) was an English dramatist.

Henry Chettle (c. 1564 – c. 1606) was an English dramatist and miscellaneous writer of the Elizabethan era, best known for his pamphleteering.

Samuel Harsnett (or Harsnet) (June 1561 – May 1631), born Samuel Halsnoth, was an English writer on religion and Archbishop of York from 1629.

Sir Anthony Shirley (or Sherley) (1565–1635) was an English traveller, whose imprisonment in 1603 by King James I caused the English House of Commons to assert one of its privileges—freedom of its members from arrest—in a document known as The Form of Apology and Satisfaction.

William Twisse (1578 near Newbury, England – 1646) was a prominent English clergyman and theologian.

Henry Airay (c. 1560 – 6 October 1616), was an Anglican priest, theologian, and academic.

Henry Chitting (1580 – 7 January 1638) was a long-serving officer of arms at the College of Arms in London.

Sir Nicholas Fuller (1543 – 23 February 1620) was an English barrister and Member of Parliament.

Robert Ashley (1565 – October 1641) was an English writer of the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I, and Member of Parliament for Dorchester.

Robert Bolton (1572 – 16 December 1631) was an English clergyman and academic, noted as a preacher.

Robert Cawdrey (ca. 1538 – after 1604) produced one of the first dictionaries of the English language, the Table Alphabeticall, in 1604.

Robert Crowley also Robertus Croleus, Roberto Croleo, Robart Crowleye, Robarte Crole, and Crule (c. 1517 – 18 June 1588), was a stationer, poet, polemicist and Protestant clergyman who was among the Marian exiles at Frankfurt.

Robert Glover (1544 – 10 April 1588) was an English Officer of Arms, genealogist and antiquarian in the reign of Elizabeth I.

Robert Parker (c.1564–1614) was an English Puritan clergyman and scholar.

John Bourchier, 2nd Baron Berners (1467 – 19 March 1533) was an English soldier, statesman and translator.

Roger Ascham (/ˈæskəm/; c. 1515 – 30 December 1568) was an English scholar and didactic writer, famous for his prose style, his promotion of the vernacular, and his theories of education.

Thomas Stapleton (Henfield, Sussex, July 1535 – Leuven, 12 October 1598) was an English Catholic controversialist.

Sir Richard Baker (c. 1568 – 18 February 1645) was a politician, historian and religious writer.

Simon Forman (31 December 1552 – 5 or 12 September 1611) was an Elizabethan astrologer, occultist and herbalist active in London during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I of England.

Christopher Carleill (c. 1551 – 1593) was an English military and naval commander.

Sir Christopher Heydon (14 August 1561 – 1 January 1623) was an English soldier, Member of Parliament, and writer on astrology.

Capt. Christopher Levett (1586 – 1630) was an English writer, explorer and naval captain, born at York, England.

Tristram Risdon (c. 1580 – 1640) was an English antiquarian and topographer, and the author of Survey of the County of Devon.

Edward Coffin (alias Hatton) (1570 – 17 April 1626) was an English Jesuit.

Edward Forset (or Forsett) (1553–1630) was an English official, politician and writer, known for political works and as a playwright.

Anthony Jenkinson (1529 – 1610/1611) was born at Market Harborough, Leicestershire.

James Pilkington (1520–1576), was born in Rivington, Lancashire, England.