HAYWARD, SIR JOHN (c. 156o-1627), English historian, was born at or near Felixstowe, Suffolk, where he was educated, and afterwards proceeded to Pembroke college, Cambridge. In he published The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie IV. dedicated to Robert Devereux, earl of Essex. This was reprinted in 1642. Queen Elizabeth and her advisers disliked the tone of the book and its dedication, and the queen ordered Francis Bacon to search it for "places in it that might be drawn within case of treason." Bacon reported "for treason surely I find none, but for felony very many," explaining that many of the sentences were stolen from Tacitus; but nevertheless Hayward was put in prison, where he remained until about i6or. On the accession of James I. in 1603 he courted the new king's favour by publishing two pamphlets, one of which, an argument in favour of the divine right of kings, was reprinted in 1683 as "The Right of Succession" by the friends of the duke of York during the struggle over the Exclusion Bill. He died in London on June 27, 1627. Hayward's other works are : Lives of the Three Norman Kings of England (1613) , The Life and Raigne of King Edward VI. (posthumously printed, 163o, included in Complete History of England, anon., vol. ii. 1706) and Certain Yeres of Queen Elizabeth's Raigne (ed. John Bruce, Camden Society, 184o, with a life of the author).