WILLIAM BYRD Life&times

c1540

LIFE: William Byrd is born in London. Little is known about his exact birth date, his family or his upbringing, though two older brothers are listed as choristers at St Paul’s Cathedral. TIMES: Henry VIII marries Anne of Cleves, his fourth wife. Within six months, the union is annulled on the grounds of non-consummation.

1563

LIFE: He is appointed as organist and master of the choristers at Lincoln Cathedral, a position that comes with a generous salary plus the longterm grant of a nearby rectory.

TIMES: During the French Wars of Religion, Francis, Duke of Guise, is assassinated by Jean de Poltrot, a Huguenot sympathiser who had pretended to defect to the duke’s side.

1585

LIFE: He mourns the death of Tallis, his great friend and mentor, by writing the five-part secular madrigal Ye Sacred Muses, which ends with the line ‘Tallis is dead, and Music dies’.

TIMES: At the request of Sir Walter Raleigh, the explorer Ralph Lane attempts to establish a colony on Roanoke Island, North Carolina. After a few months, however, he returns home.

1623

LIFE: He dies on 4 July in Stondon Massey, Essex, where he has lived for the last 30 years. His will states that he is to be buried in the local churchyard. TIMES: Seven years after Shakespeare’s death, his fellow actors John Heminges and Henry Condell publish the influential First Folio, containing 36 of the Bard’s plays based on original sources.

1575

LIFE: Along with Thomas Tallis, with whom he has been joint organinst of the Chapel Royal since 1572, he publishes the Cantiones Sacrae, a volume of Latin motets for five to eight voices.

TIMES: Plague devastates Venice, killing thousands and bringing life to a halt. To prevent its spread, the Carnevale is cancelled, shops and taverns are closed, and church services are stopped.

1605

LIFE: Now retired from public life, he publishes the first of two volumes entitled Gradualia, containing masses for each major feast of the Roman church year. TIMES: The ‘Gunpowder Plot’ to assassinate James I is foiled when Guy Fawkes is caught redhanded with matches and touchwood in the undercroft beneath the House of Lords.