Edwards, Richard (c. 1522–1566)

English poet, composer, and dramatist. He was highly regarded for his comedies, madrigals, and interludes. A pupil of the musician, physician, and Greek scholar George Etheridge of Thame, he entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1540, and transferred to Christ Church on its foundation in 1546. He was appointed Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal in London in 1561, and wrote two plays for them. He was also a playwright, producing Palamon and Arcite before Queen Elizabeth in Oxford in 1566, and also writing Damon and Pithias (1564), and a poet, compiling and contributing to a book of verse The Paradise of Dainty Devices (1576).

Works music to his own Damon and Pithias; part songs In Going to My Naked Bed and O the Silly Man.