Confusingly, at almost exactly the same time, there are two William Painters, both from Kent, and both of whom wrote. The better known, who was born in around 1540 and died in 1595, has by tradition been regarded as a native of Kent. He worked from 1560 as a clerk of the Ordinance in the Tower of London (in effect, a manager of construction business there). In 1586 he was accused of fraud and embezzlement, admitting to taking up to £1000 pounds illicitly ( a colossal amount at this time). In his own lifetime this was never repaid, but was left to his successors, along with a number of other charges laid against him. He seems to have been a creative and energetic fraud, though the similar suits against his colleagues shows that in this he was by no means, at the time, on his own.
In 1858, Painter translated Nicholas à Moffan’s `Soltani Soymanni Turcorum Imperatoris horrendum facinus’, under the title Horrible and `Cruell Murder of Sultan Solyman.’ This work was later to figure as a part of `The Palace of Pleasure,’ which appeared in 1566. Dedicated to the Earl of Warwick, it included 60 tales. In 1867 a second volume with 34 new stories appeared. Almost a decade later, an expanded second edition in 1575 with further stories was issued. Painter’s sources for these were wide-ranging – Herodotus, Plutarch, Livy, and a range of other classical authors.
Painter, like William Lely (see his entry) had an influence on the later William Shakespeare, whose `Timon of Athens’, `Romeo and Juliet, and `All’s Well that Ends Well’ are partially derived from Painter’s stories. The `Palace of Pleasure’ seems to have functioned as a source book for a range of other authors at the time too, such as John Webster, and Beaumont and Fletcher.
The other William Painter, a graduate of Cambridge, was headmaster of Sevenoaks School in 1560, and vicar of nearby Grain. He translated works by William Fulke, and died around 1597.