an English poet. The son of Andrew Benlowes of Brent Hall, Essex, he matriculated at St Johns College, Cambridge, on 8 April 1620. On leaving the university he travelled with a tutor on the continent, visiting seven courts of princes. Wood says that he returned tinged with Romanism; but according to Cole he had been bred in the Roman Catholic religion from his earliest years. On the death of his father he became possessed of the estate of Brent Hall, but being a man of a very liberal disposition he contrived 'to squander it mostly away on poets, flatterers (which he loved), in buying of curiosities (which some called baubles), on musicians, buffoons, &c.' (Wood).
