The son of Christopher Monday, a London draper, he was born some time in 1553-1554. He had already appeared on the stage when in 1576 he was bound apprenticed for eight years to John Allde, the stationer, an engagement from which he was speedily released. By 1578 he was in Rome. In the opening lines of his English Romayne Lyfe (1582) he states that he went abroad solely in order to see strange countries and to learn foreign languages; but he may have been a spy sent to report on the English Jesuit College in Rome, or a journalist who meant to make literary capital out of the designs of the English Catholics resident in France and Italy.
He says that he and his companion, Thomas Nowell, were robbed of all they possessed on the road from Boulogne to Amiens, where they were kindly received by an English priest, who entrusted them with letters to be delivered in Reims. These they handed over to the English ambassador in Paris, where under a false name, as the son of a well-known English Catholic, Munday gained recommendations which secured his reception at the English College in Rome. He was treated with special kindness by the rector, Dr Morris, for the sake of his supposed father. He gives a detailed account of the routine of the place, of the dispute between the English and Welsh students, of the carnival at Rome, and finally of the martyrdom of Richard Atkins.
He returned to England in 1578-1579, and became an actor again, being a member of the Earl of Oxford's company between 1579 and 1584. In a Catholic tract entitled A True Reporte of the death of M. Campion (1581), Munday is accused of having deceived his master Allde, a charge which he refuted by publishing Allde's signed declaration to the contrary, and he is also said to have been hissed off the stage. He was one of the chief witnesses against Edmund Campion and his associates, and wrote about this time five anti-popish pamphlets, among them the savage and bigoted tract entitled A Discoverie of Edmund Campion and his Confederates--whereto is added the execution of Edmund Campion, Raphe Shenvin, and Alexander Brian, the first part of which was read aloud from the scaffold at Campion's death in December 1581.
His political services against the Catholics were rewarded in 1584 by the post of messenger to her Majesty's chamber, and from this time he seems to have ceased to appear on the stage. In 1598-1599, when he travelled with the Earl of Pembroke's men in the Low Countries, it was in the capacity of playwright to rewrite old plays. He devoted 'himself to writing for the booksellers and the theatres, compiling religious works, translating Amadis de Gaule and other French romances, and putting words to popular airs. He was the chief pageant-writer for the City from 1605.
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