Definition of "contriver"

I’ll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France; full of ambition, an envious emulator of every man’s good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me his natural brother.

c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]

[…] those desctructive Machines, whereof he said, some evil Genius, Enemy to Mankind, must have been the first Contriver.

1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], (please specify |part=I to IV), page 274

A heroine returning, at the close of her career, to her native village, in all the triumph of recovered reputation, and all the dignity of a countess […] is an event on which the pen of the contriver may well delight to dwell;

1803 (date written), [Jane Austen], Northanger Abbey; published in Northanger Abbey: And Persuasion. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: John Murray, […], 20 December 1817 (indicated as 1818)

They had toured the world together with their Soirée of Illusions, combining his art as a public performer with her skill as a technician, a contriver of magical apparatus, and her artistic taste, which was far beyond his own.

1975, Robertson Davies, World of Wonders‎, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, published 2015, Part 2, Chapter 3