Henry Constable, born in Newark-on-Trent in 1562, was the only child of Sir Robert Constable (d. 12 November 1591) and Christiana Dabridgecourt, widow of Anthony Forster, and daughter of John Dabridgecourt of Langdon Hall, Warwickshire. His father, Sir Robert Constable, was knighted by the earl of Essex in Scotland in 1570, and was the author of a work On the Ordering of a Camp.
Henry graduated from St. John's College, Cambridge in 1579.
Henry Constable matriculated as a fellow commoner at St John's College, Cambridge at Easter 1578, and took his BA on 29 January 1580. His contemporary at Cambridge was Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. He was enrolled at Lincoln's Inn on 21 February 1583, but there is no further record of his legal studies. On 12 September of that year Constable was in Scotland. He was then posted to Paris on the recommendation of his father's friend, Sir Francis Walsingham, serving under the English ambassador there, Sir Edward Stafford, between 14 December 1583 and April 1585. In May 1585 he was at Heidelberg, and he may have travelled to Poland. During this period, according to Sullivan, Constable acted as a spokesperson for Protestant causes.
Constable was probably at the English court during 1588–9, as he is recorded as having attended the funeral of his kinsman, John Manners, 4th Earl of Rutland, in March 1588, and as having been in contact with Arabella Stuart in 1589. During this period he was reported to have been one of Queen Elizabeth's favourites. He was sent to Edinburgh in 1589 on the occasion of King James's marriage, and by this time was a member of the circle of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. His religious convictions were still to outward appearances Protestant. About this time he is credited with having written the anonymous tract Examen pacifique de la doctrine des Huguenots, published in September 1589, in which, according to Sullivan, he wrote as a Roman Catholic urging his countrymen to support Henri IV, who had just been crowned King.
In 1591 Constable went to Normandy with the English forces under Essex who laid siege to Rouen. At some time between his arrival in France and the death of his father on 12 November 1591 Constable openly embraced Roman Catholicism.[14] Henri IV granted him a small pension. For the next decade he was principally based in Paris, but travelled to Rome in 1595. During this period he was also in Antwerp and Brussels. Until 1597 he kept up his connections with the Essex circle, writing to Essex himself and to Anthony Bacon. He continued to claim loyalty to Queen Elizabeth, and supported King James' claim to the English throne in preference to the claim of the Spanish Infanta, daughter of Philip II of Spain. On 1 March 1599 Constable arrived at Leith in Scotland, and eventually obtained access to King James, remaining until September, 'hunting and conversing on poetry and divinity' with the King. In 1600 he again travelled to Rome to seek Pope Clement VIII's approval of another visit to King James
On James's accession Constable hoped to return to England, and wrote first to friends in Scotland for support, and on 11 June 1603, to his kinsman, Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland, and to Sir Robert Cecil. By December of that year he was back at court, and was granted a warrant on 8 February 1604 by which he obtained possession of his inherited lands. However his continued pursuit of plans to influence King James towards toleration of Catholics resulted in his imprisonment in the Tower, where he remained from 14 April to 9 July 1604. He was subsequently placed under house arrest, and deprived of his inheritance. He was in the Fleet prison on 11 February 1608, when John Chamberlain wrote to Sir Dudley Carleton that no sooner was Sir Tobie Matthew released, and 'no sooner gan nor his nest scant cold, when Harry Constable was committed in his roome and nestles in the same lodging'. Constable was imprisoned on at least one other occasion. On 31 July 1610 he was granted licence to leave England. He returned to Paris, and on 27 November 1611 rumours of his death were passed on by John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton: 'Sir William Bowes is lately dead, and we hear that Harry Constable hath taken the same way in Fraunce'. Little more is known of his activities apart from the record of his presence at a theological disputation on 4 September 1612. In 1613 his friend, Cardinal Perron, sent him to Liège on a mission to convert an English Protestant divine, Benjamin Carier. Constable died at Liège on 9 October 1613.
At some time prior to 1598 he endeavored to found an English Catholic college in Paris; in that year he went to Edinburgh on a commission from the pope, in an unsuccessful attempt to settle the conditions under which the Catholic powers would support King James VI of Scotland's accession to the English throne.
Henry Constable was a member of the circle of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.
Quotes from others about the person
That Shakespeare was acquainted with Constable's poetry and admired it seems to be certain, and that he borrowed from it, " gives it, " as Mr Sidney Lee has said, " its most lasting interest. "
