Ernest Ford - A Short History of English Music

The music was composed by the three most celebrated English musicians then living, William Byrd, John Bull, and Orlando Gibbons – Tallis had been dead over twenty years.

The pieces are of the most stately kind, in general, and would scarcely realise the modern conception of dance music, but they are beautiful specimens of the art of those days, and cannot but command our admiration.

Of the more lively and frivolous dances the one known as Trenchmore was the most popular.

"Be we young or old … we must dance Trenchmore over table, chairs and stools." 10 10 Burton: "Anatomy of Melancholy," 1621.

Selden, in his "Table Talk," "Then all the company dances, lord and groom, lady and kitchen maid, no distinction."

The more one comes to learn of life in the England of those days, the more one becomes convinced that, taken as a whole, life was both happy and joyous. No less an authority than Professor Thorold Rogers, after profound research into the social conditions of the Middle Ages, says they show that a state of happiness and content prevailed. 11 11 William Chappell's "Music of the Olden Time."

Dancing was advised, too, as "a goodly regimen against the fever pestilence."

The fact that there is comparatively little of old-time music extant is due to the late invention of music printing and the slow progress of musical notation. "Parthenia" was, as the title page tells, the first music for the virginals ever printed, and yet appeared as late as 1611.

From that time, naturally, records of everything written of any importance, exist.

In the reign of Queen Elizabeth the typical life of the England of old, is shown at its best, and in its most characteristic state of development.

Soon afterwards, foreign influence, aided by a foreign Court, added to the depressing element of Puritanism, was to shake to its foundations this character and to mould it into that type which for centuries it retained.

The Wars of the Roses had long been over, and economic conditions greatly modified and improved. The genius of the people seemed to burst out as if relieved from intolerable repression.

The absence of the unceasing scares and horrors of war gave them the opportunity that had so long been denied.

To think that such men as Shakespeare, Bacon, Burleigh, Drake, Raleigh, Tallis, Byrd, and Orlando Gibbons were living at the same time, and may have often passed each other in the streets of London!

There can be little doubt that the reign of Queen Elizabeth was the happiest the people had ever experienced, and it may be truly said that the Queen was the very incarnation of the spirit of the age.

Her love of pageantry and display was an unfailing source of joy to them, all the more, since they were frequently called upon to assist at many of the great functions that were organised in her honour by the great nobles. Her frequent progresses through the country were occasions, not only of gratification to herself, but excitement to them, relieving as they did the monotony of toil and the sense of isolation incidental to country communities in those days of difficult communications. The Reformation had not been sufficiently long in progress to affect the spirit of the people. It had not really reached them. If England ever deserved the appellation of "merrie," those were the days.

The sports were, if rough and coarse, joyous and frank.

To the Englishman of to-day their amusements may seem childish enough, but education was then, it must be remembered, entirely confined to the few, and the amenities of life, such as we know, were practically absent. A favourite feature was a procession of musicians and dancers dressed to represent such popular characters as Robin Hood and Friar Tuck, and bedecked with bells on elbow and knee that jingled as they danced.

The badinage that passed between the performers and onlookers was of a kind, it must be confessed, that would fall strangely on the ear at the present day, but still, there is every evidence that although the manners were rough and the language guileless of restraint, the heart of the people was sound at the core, and the deep-seated sense of religion in the Anglo-Saxon race was as present then as at any time in its history. The exuberant spirit is ever evidenced by the wealth of drinking songs. These seem to have been as much in vogue in those days as the monotonous frequency of love songs, from which we suffer, is in these.

Shakespeare makes good-humoured fun of the propensity in "Twelfth Night: or What you Will." In the famous drinking scene between Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek he satirises their foibles, it is true, but in the most delightful and even sympathetic manner, and certainly gives Sir Toby a telling rejoinder to the upbraiding of the sober-minded Malvolio, who had come with the intention of putting an end to the carousal: "Dost thou think that because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?"

Music was everywhere apparent. Wherever the monarch went, it was made a special feature at all functions. Whatever entertainments were devised by her courtiers, it ever had a principal place. Of the most gorgeous and notorious of them, the one given by the Earl of Leicester in her honour at Kenilworth Castle takes the first rank. Bishop Creighton, in his "Life of Queen Elizabeth," gives so vivid a description of it that, as one reads, the imagination seems, as it were, to become vitalised.

The Queen especially enjoyed these pageants, as they seemed to symbolise at once the greatness of her position and her personal dignity.

Those who entertained her, well knew both her haughty Tudor temper and intense femininity. To evade the one and satisfy the cravings of the other was the end ever held in view.

Hence, all kinds of contrivances were devised to glorify her person in allegory. In one, Triton is represented as rising from the water and imploring her to deliver an enchanted lady from the wiles of a cruel knight; upon which the lady straightway appears accompanied by a band of nymphs, Proteus following, riding on a dolphin. Suddenly, from the heart of the dolphin springs a choir of ocean gods, who sing the praises of the beautiful and all-powerful Queen!

Now Elizabeth was neither beautiful in person or character, but she possessed the very genius of sovereignty.

The imperious Tudor temper to which she constantly yielded, certainly detracted from her womanly qualities, but what she lacked as woman, it is only just to say, she more than made up for as Queen.

On this occasion, besides the great pageant, rustic sports of every kind, including bull baiting, were indulged in, and "a play was acted by the men of Coventry."

That she shared her people's love of dancing is again shewn by the following: "We are in frolic here at Court," writes Lord Worcester in 1602, "much dancing of country dances in the Privy Chamber before the Queen's Majesty, who is exceedingly pleased therewith."

In fact, her sympathy with the amusements of the people, and her encouragement of every healthy enjoyment, are certainly great factors in the hold her memory has retained in the minds of the English race.

There are other reasons, of course, of graver import, but they do not enter into our immediate consideration.

All the Tudor monarchs were essentially musical, as being Welsh they well might be. Henry VIII. was a composer of both sacred and secular music. I well remember that the first of an old volume of anthems in the library of Salisbury Cathedral was by no less a personage than that monarch himself. It was not, however, so far as my experience went, ever sung.

Queen Elizabeth was also an accomplished musician and an expert performer on the virginals, as the following quotation goes to prove. Its interest is peculiarly striking as it shows yet another side of the character of this many-sided, wonderful woman. It is from the memoirs of Sir James Melvil, at the time Scottish Ambassador: —