T ourneur, C yril

Abstract

Very little is known about the life of Jacobean playwright and poet Cyril Tourneur (d.1626). The scant biographical information that exists illustrates that Tourneur was primarily a public servant and military man; it seems that he wrote literary works only when unoccupied with state or military affairs. Nothing is known about his life before 1613, when he was employed as the official courier to Brussels. A 1614 letter describes Tourneur as then employed by the Cecil family, and sometime prior to that he worked for Sir Francis Vere. Tourneur accompanied Sir Edward Cecil on the 1625 expedition to Cadiz as secretary of the Council of War and the Marshal's Court. Returning from the expedition, Cecil's ship became infested with plague. Tourneur and other sick passengers disembarked at Kinsale, Ireland, where he died on 28 February 1626.