Diana: 'But joy in this, though fate 'gainst me repine, My verse still lives to witness thee divine''

Henry Constable was born in Newark-on-Trent in 1562, the only child of Sir Robert Constable and Christiana Dabridgecourt.

Constable matriculated as a fellow commoner at St John's College, Cambridge at Easter 1578, and then collected his B.A. in January 1580. A contemporary at Cambridge was Robert Devereux, the 2nd Earl of Essex. Their lives would intertwine at several points.

Constable enrolled at Lincoln's Inn on 21st February 1583 but by September he had moved to Scotland. From there came a...