Discovering William Byrd

This article was originally published in summer 2023 by the Essex Society for Archaeology and History to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd. This is an updated version.

To celebrate the quatercentenary of the death of William Byrd (c.1540-1623) Stondon Massey Church held three events culminating in the ‘William Byrd Anniversary Concert’ hosted by the Stondon Singers on the actual date of his death, 4th July. An Evensong Service was held, and a history presentation entitled ‘The Life and Times of William Byrd: A Local History’ given.

William Byrd, composer, lived in Stondon Massey in semi-retirement but steadfastly refused to attend Church because he was a Catholic.

While preparing for the talk, I used the manuscript and published work of Revd. Edward Henry Lisle Reeve (1858-1936), the Rector of Stondon Massey a century ago. Reeve was an enthusiastic Byrd fan, local historian, and skilled writer.
Today, we know much more about Byrd, but understanding his true character remains challenging. Questions persist about whether he, as a recusant Catholic, was truly loyal to his monarch and patrons.
William Byrd was then as famous as his contemporary William Shakespeare. Byrd’s work served a mostly private audience and fell into obscurity for at least three centuries because of Catholic suppression, particularly following the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

Byrd’s name appears today in many books about Elizabethan England.

Browsing in a bookshop one lunchtime I came across a book entitled ‘The Catholics’ by Roy Hattersley, the former politician turned historian, who revealed “Among the silent Catholics, who were emboldened by the execution of Edmund Campion, was the wife of William Byrd, the composer and organist in the Elizabethan Chapel Royal. She, at least according to folklore, was in the crowd that witnessed his disembowelling, and dipped her handkerchief in the martyr’s blood”.

Detective work leads from one book to another.

In the early 1580s men who had been trained abroad as Jesuit priests were entering England as missionaries. One of the most high-profile was Edmund Campion, originally ordained in the Church of England. Campion travels the country and is welcomed, in his own words, “to hear their confessions … [say] Mass, I preach; they hear with exceeding greediness and often receive the sacrament”. But this is a dangerous course of action. From 1581, celebrating mass was punishable by death.

A network of spies engaged by the authorities would secretly join invited congregations at recusant country houses. Campion made an ill-judged return visit to Lyford Grange in Berkshire two days following his first visit. It was there that George Eliot, a professional priest-hunter, heard Campion preach on the text ‘Jerusalem thou killest the prophets’. Jerusalem then, as in the later setting of William Blake’s poem, was reference to England: ‘England thou killest the prophets’ was an incendiary speech. Later that day the house was surrounded, and the following morning intruders discovered Campion hiding in the ‘priest’s hole’. He was executed on 1st December 1581.

Edmund Campion, born 25th January 1540, was the same age as Byrd and as a boy had connections with St Paul’s Cathedral where Byrd’s brothers also sang. They grew up together: “A boyhood friendship between them might explain the intensity of Byrd’s musical reaction to Campion’s martyrdom”.

Byrd’s association with Jesuit Catholics also appears in the writing of Father William Weston.

In 1585, new laws were passed making it “illegal for ordained priests to return and minister in England is extended to all laymen and women assisting in the matter”.

Meanwhile, Father Henry Garnet and Robert Southwell arrive undercover in England from Rome and are escorted to a safe house, Hurleyford in Buckinghamshire, by William Weston their Jesuit superior.

A secret welcoming party is held there in late July lasting eight days. William Weston and several unnamed friends are present as is the owner and host Richard Bold, a very skilled musician. One of the unnamed friends may have been William Fitton of Bailes who had “exchanged letters with Byrd on the subject of music”. The house has an organ, and Bold employs several instrumental musicians as well as choristers. It is an ideal retreat to sing songs, hear confession, and say Mass.

William Byrd is also present.

Father William Weston later writes “Mr Byrd, the very famous musician and organist, was among the company. Earlier he had been attached to the Queen’s chapel, where he gained a great reputation. But he had sacrificed everything for the faith – his position, the court, and all those aspirations common to men who seek preferment in royal circles as means of improving their fortune”.

Byrd certainly did not give up his post at the Chapel Royal, but stayed there until his death, albeit in semi-retirement when he moved to Stondon Massey around 1594.

In September Hurleyford is raided, its owner Richard Bold, and William Fitton, are arrested.

Investigators into the Babington Plot find a letter on the person of John Reason, Byrd’s servant, to “m[aste]r Fyton”. Walsingham’s office diary notes: “’To seek out matters against Bryde’, ‘to sende to Fra[nci]s Mylls m[aste]r Brydes note’ and ‘To sende for M[aste]r Byrde’”.

Byrd’s home in Harlington is searched in August.

Byrd is undeterred. His meeting with Henry Garnet at Hurleyford begins a friendship with the most wanted man in England. Garnet is a keen musician with a fine singing voice. Byrd gives lessons to Garnet sharing his love of music. Garnet undoubtedly reciprocated by giving Byrd instruction in theological matters.

John Stow’s chronicle of 1605 records on the same page as Campion’s martyrdom: “1582. John Paine executed at Chelmeford. John Paine priest, being indicted of high treason for words by him spoken to one Eliot, was attained, and condemned at Chelmesford on the last of March, and was there executed on the second day of Aprill”.

John Payne was arrested in Warwickshire having been detected for celebrating Mass in July 1581 at Haddon, Oxfordshire. George Eliot was his betrayer, the same man who had turned in Campion. Eliot already knew Payne was an ardent Catholic: he had met Payne while he was employed by the Petre family at Ingatestone Hall. Payne was employed as a steward to Lady Ann Petre but, in truth, was her private priest.

Payne was brought before Francis Walsingham who “could find no grounds upon which to convict Payne”. He was however found guilty on a fresh, invented charge that he attempted to enlist Eliot to murder the Queen. He protested at the gallows that “his ‘feet did never tread, his hands did never write, nor did his wit ever invent any treason against her Majesty’”.

It is said that the poet Henry Walpole attended Edmund Campion’s execution. Afterwards he wrote twenty-one verses beginning ‘Why Do I Use My Paper Ink and Pen’ naming the martyr. Byrd set the first three verses to music in 1588 without naming Campion. It was probably sung in the Petre household also in remembrance of John Payne. Maybe the additional verses were sung in secret.

It is well documented that Sir John Petre became Byrd’s patron. Byrd was a frequent visitor to Thorndon Hall, West Horndon and Ingatestone Hall and stayed at Ingatestone Hall over the Christmas season of 1589.

John Petre was a keen musician. In 1589 he commissioned an expensive instrument from a Mr Brough (costing £50) which could have been an organ or elegantly decorated virginal. Mr Robert Broughe, a frequent visitor to Thorndon Hall where he was paid £2 a year ‘to keep all my Master’s wind instruments and virginals’ was Byrd’s brother-in-law. He had married William’s sister Barbara.

Byrd in the meantime was busy composing three illegal Masses (“Mass Ordinary”). The Mass for Four Voices is completed around late 1592, and those for three and five voices by 1595. These are written in Latin and probably received their first performances in the Petre household. These were circulated secretly. The title page of the printed version is blank, and the work was not published at the time of composition.

Byrd later completes and publishes two books of Latin religious music known as the ‘Gradualia’. To the uninitiated these are merely a collection of out-of-date Latin liturgical texts. The index merely shows a list of jumbled titles. Reassembled this, and the following set, form a complete set of Latin sung liturgy for the Roman Catholic year (known as “Mass Proper”).

These volumes become treasured possessions of Byrd’s Catholic friends.

In November 1605 Charles de Ligny is arrested at an inn and sent to Newgate prison “on account of certain papistical books written by William Byrd”. This is clearly the ‘Gradualia’ because the person to whom it is dedicated is named.

In gratitude for a pay rise at the Chapel Royal Byrd dedicates the first volume to Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton. He is a privy councillor to King James I. Known to be a closet Catholic in the royal household, the King described him as a “tame duck with whom he hoped to catch many wild ones”.

There are many disaffected Catholics. In June 1605 Garnet has a strange and theological conversation with his friend Robert Catesby over the killing of innocents, and the week later celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christi “with great solemnity and music”, at Fremnalls in Downham, Essex, the home of Sir John Tyrell. Mass is said at 2am and “it is tempting to think that Byrd may have been present”. Spies are watching the house. The priests manage to escape safely but Garnet is uneasy about Robert Catesby’s behaviour to the extent that he pays another visit to Fremnalls in early July where Francis Tresham and Lord Monteagle are also present with Catesby. He urges them against “rushing headlong into mischief”.

A few days later, in mid-July Garnet is visited at his London home by Father Oswald Tesimond where he hears under seal of Confession that Catesby intends to assassinate both monarch and government by blowing up the House of Parliament. Garnet is alarmed and writes to his supervisor in Rome, “There is a risk that some private endeavour may commit treason or use force against the King”.

The detail of the “Powder Treason” is unrelated to Byrd. Early on 5th November John Johnson, alias Guy Fawkes, is found in the cellar of the House of Parliament with several barrels of gunpowder round about him ready to ignite and with no plausible alibi.

There is great national celebration that the plot is foiled. Either way this is unwelcome news for all Catholics. The terrorists are hunted down. Garnet is also looked for although it is unclear of his involvement in the plot. He is on the run and arrested in Worcestershire on 27th January 1606. He is taken to London where he is repeatedly questioned and confesses that he heard about the Plot under Confession but states he is not guilty.

Garnet’s trial on 28th March is presided over by Robert Cecil, now the Earl of Salisbury, and others including the Earl of Northampton, Byrd’s dedicatee of the ‘Gradualia’. The Jury to find Garnet “guilty of treason for not revealing the Powder Plot”.

Garnet was executed at St Paul’s Churchyard on 3rd May 1606.

Undeterred by the Gunpowder Treason Byrd publishes a second volume of ‘Gradualia’ in 1607. He dedicates the book to his patron and friend Lord Petre. Sir John Petre became baron in 1603, a title conferred on accession of King James I to the throne.

The final pieces of music in the volume are settings for the Feast of St Peter and St Paul. Set for six voices it contains a complete Mass plus two psalm settings intended for the Feast Day (29th June). However, there is also a setting for St Peter ad Vincula, St Peter in chains, commemorated on 1st August. It does not take much stretch of the imagination to align this with the chains that have bound Catholics throughout Elizabethan England.

Peter, the first Pope is also seen as a protector. For Byrd Lord Petre is also his protector and patron. Peter is the rock, and stone. Lord Petre is from Ingatestone.

It is the ultimate tribute to one of his greatest supporters and friends.