Matthew Roydon

This name is used in modern discussion as a pseudonym or misattribution attached to an alleged Elizabethan-era poet and dramatist. It has sometimes been linked—without firm documentary support—to writers in or near Christopher Marlowe’s milieu, and it occasionally appears in alternative-authorship theories as a proposed candidate for the author of the Shakespeare canon. No securely documented historical person is established under this name, and surviving references are too uncertain to support a reliable life narrative. As a result, it functions chiefly as a label within speculative attribution debates rather than as a verifiable authorial identity grounded in contemporary records.