Alabaster was born at Hadleigh, Suffolk, the son of Roger Alabaster of the cloth merchant family from Hadleigh in Suffolk, and Bridget Winthrop of Groton, Suffolk. He was educated at Westminster School, and Trinity College, Cambridge from 1583. He became a fellow of Trinity, and in 1592 was incorporated of the university of Oxford. About 1592 he produced at Trinity College his Latin tragedy of Roxana. In June 1596 Alabaster sailed with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, on the expedition to Cadiz in the capacity of chaplain, and, while he was in Spain, he became a Roman Catholic. An account of his change of faith is given in an obscurely worded sonnet contained in an manuscript copy of Divine Meditations, by Mr Alabaster. He defended his conversion in a pamphlet, Seven Motives, of which no copy is extant. It appears that Alabaster was imprisoned for his change of faith in the Tower of London during 1598 and 1599. In 1607 Alabaster published at AntwerpApparatus in Revelationem Jesu Christi, in which his study of the Kabbalah gave a mystical interpretation of Scripture. The book was placed on the Index Librorum Prohibitorum at Rome early in 1610. He went to Rome and was there imprisoned by the Inquisition, but succeeded in escaping to England and again embraced the Protestant faith. After returning to England Alabaster became a doctor of divinity at Cambridge University and chaplain to King James I. After his marriage in 1618 his life now became more settled and he devoted his later years to theological studies. He died in 1640 at Little Shelford, Cambridgeshire.
Works
Roxana is modelled on the tragedies of Seneca, and is a stiff and spiritless work. Fuller and Anthony à Wood bestowed exaggerated praise on it, while Samuel Johnson regarded it as the only Latin verse worthy of notice produced in England before Milton's elegies. Roxana is founded on the La Dalida of Luigi Groto, known as Cieco di Hadria, and Hallam asserts that it is a plagiarism. A surreptitious edition in 1632 was followed by an authorized version a plagiarii unguibus vindicata, aucta et agnita abAithore, Gulielmo, Alabastro. One book of an epic poem in Latin hexameters, in honour of Queen Elizabeth, is preserved in manuscript in the library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. This poem, Elisaeis, Apotheosis poetica, Spenser highly esteemed. "Who lives that can match that heroick song?" he says in Colin Clout's come home againe, and begs "Cynthia" to withdraw the poet from his obscurity. Alabaster's later cabalistic writings are Commentarius de Bestia Apocalyptica and Spiraculum tubarum, a mystical interpretation of the Pentateuch. These theological writings won the praise of Robert Herrick, who calls him "the triumph of the day" and the "one only glory of a million". List of works:
