Gwyn was originally from Denbighshire and matriculated as a pensioner at St John's in 1584. He was BA in 1588, MA 1591, BD 1599, and DD in 1613. Having become a fellow of St John's in 1589, he was master from 16 May 1612 until his death in 1633. He was also Vice-Chancellor of the University 1615-1616, and a prebendary of Lincoln from 1622.

Probably, John, first baron Stanhope of Harrington (?1545-1621), Lord Treasurer of the Chamber (1596-1621).

Johnson was born in London , the son of John Johnson (also a musician; fl. 1579-94), and indentured to Sir George Carey, Lord Chamberlain , from 1596-1603. In 1604 he was appointed lutenist to the king (at 20d. per day, with an annual £16 2s. 8d. for livery), a post he held until his death. His father had held the same post under Elizabeth . From 1610-12 he was also one of Prince Henry 's musicians, at £40 pa, and from 1617-25 he held a similar position in the household of Prince Charles . From 1607 he was associated with the Globe and Blackfriars, and he wrote many songs for plays (including The Tempest and The Duchess of Malfi ). He worked with Jonson on the music for masques, including Oberon (1611) and Love Freed (1611), probably as an arranger rather than a composer. He also collaborated on masques with Chapman and Campion ( New Grove ).

Born in Westminster and educated at Westminster School, Neile was admitted as a scholar at St John's, Cambridge in 1580 through the patronage of Mildred, Lady Burghley. He was subsequently chaplain to both Lord Burghley and Robert Cecil, and became DD in 1600. On 5 Nov. 1605 he was installed as dean of Westminster , a post he held for five years. In 1608 he became bishop of Rochester . He was translated to Lichfield and Coventry in 1610, in 1614 to Lincoln, and in 1617 to Durham. In 1627 he became a privy councillor, and he became bishop of Winchester in December of that year. He was elected archbishop of York in 1631, and died there in 1640.

Edward Somerset succeeded his father as the fourth Earl of Worcester in 1589, was made KG in 1593, and deputy master of the horse in 1597. In June 1600 he was part of the special court who went to hear charges against Essex at York House, and on 8 Feb. 1601 he, the lord keeper, Chief Justice Popham and Sir William Knollys were held prisoner there, the event which marked the start of the short-lived rebellion. He tried Essex , was given his post of master of the horse in Apr. 1601, and became a privy councillor in June. In July 1603 he was appointed earl marshal for James 's coronation; despite being a Catholic, he examined the gunpowder plot conspirators in 1605. He became commissioner for the treasury upon Salisbury's death in 1612, and lord privy seal in 1616. In 1618 he examined Raleigh, and in 1621 he was made judge of requests. After acting as great chamberlain at Charles 's coronation, he died in Mar. 1628. The marriages of two of his seven daughters, Elizabeth and Catherine , at Essex House in Nov. 1596, were the subject of Spenser's Prothalamion .

Donne was born in Bread Street, London , the son of John, a member of the Ironmongers' Company, and Elizabeth , daughter of the Cahtolic writer John Heywood and Joan Rastell, the niece of Sir Thomas More. His father died when he was four, and his mother soon married again, her new husband being John Syminges, a prominent Catholic physician. Donne was educated at home by Catholic tutors until, at the age of eleven, he went (with his brother Henry ) to Oxford. Although he was at Oxford for three years, Donne left without taking a degree, and little is known of his life over the next few years: he may have studied further at Cambridge, and he probably travelled in Europe. It is known that in 1592 he was admitted into Lincoln's Inn, and it was at this time that he probably began to write poetry, including much of his love poetry and the Satires . He had left the Inns of Court by 1593, and at about the same time his brother Henry died, while imprisoned in Newgate for harbouring a Catholic priest. In 1596 he joined the Earl of Essex 's expedition to Cadiz, and a year later Ralegh's expedition to the Azores, recorded in several poems. By the end of 1597 he was back in London , acting as private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, the Lord Keeper. He became MP for Brackley, in Northamptonshire, in 1601, and in December of the same year secretly married Ann More, Egerton's niece and ward, who was sixteen at the time. When the marriage became public knowledge the following year, the scandal it caused led to Donne's dismissal and the end of his political career, although the marriage was declared legal in April. The couple left London , and their first child was born in 1603. Donne was travelling in France and possibly Italy in 1605; in 1606 the family (which now included three children) moved to Mitcham, near London , and Donne soon after also took lodgings in the Strand . He looked for employment at court, and at the same time wrote on a variety of topics, although chiefly religious: his Pseudo-Martyr was published in 1611 and Ignatius his conclave in 1611. In 1612 he gained an important patron in Sir Richard Drury, on whose daughter Elizabeth he wrote the Anniversaries . In 1614 he became an MP again, for Taunton. He continued to seek a place at court, but finally (and in direct response to royal pressure) he made the decision to go into the Church. He was ordained at St Paul's on 23 Jan. 1615, appointed a royal chaplain and awarded an honorary DD from Cambridge. Ann Donne died in 1617, having given birth to twelve children, of whom six survived their father; in the same year Donne preached his first sermon at Paul's Cross, and thereafter became increasingly famed as a preacher. On 22 Nov. 1621 he was created Dean of St Paul's. In 1623 he became seriously ill, and at this time wrote what was to become the Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624), as well as religious verse (including 'Hymn to God my God, in my sickness'). He became seriously ill again towards the end of 1630, and preached his last sermon in Feb. 1631. He died on 31 Mar., having posed on his deathbed for the sketch which was the basis for his monument in St Paul's.