Mistaken Identity

Writing during the time of the Covid lockdown, Rory McCleery in The Guardian (28 April 2020) refers to a visit to Ingatestone Hall in July 1586 by Henry Garnet and Robert Southwell two Jesuit priests who had just arrived from the Continent. Singing in secret: how William Byrd created his best work in isolation | Classical music | The Guardian.

William Byrd was present according to Henry Garnet– but they were not at Ingatestone Hall.

The secret welcoming party to the priests was held at Hurleyford in Buckinghamshire. The house is about thirty miles west of London on the bank of the river Thames, itself a county boundary, two miles upstream from Marlow. Justice is administered by county officials and to cross the Thames by boat is a quick means of evading capture. Garnet, Southwell, and Father Weston, who escorted them there, are the most wanted men in England.

Confusion may have been caused by Edmund Fellowes who, in his 1936 biography of William Byrd, refers to Mr Bold or Bolt as organist to Sir John Petre. He repeats Father Morris’ ‘Troubles of our Catholic forefathers’.

It is true that John Bolt (or Bold) had been a Court musician and became organist to John Petre, according to A. C. Edwards 1975 biography to John Petre.

However, the man who owned Hurleyford was Richard Bold, says Philip Caraman in his 1964 biography of Henry Garnet.

This all happens at the time of the Babington Plot.

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” who was thought to be present at the Hurleyford event.  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’”.

William Weston is later arrested and imprisoned, but Garnet and Southwell remain at large.

Edwards also refers to another error. “There is supposed to be a family tradition that Robert Parsons, the Jesuit, spent his first night in England at Ingatestone Hall and there received John Petre into the Roman Catholic Church”. Both are dubious. Edwards then goes on to suggest that “as Arthur Negus would say, ‘It doesn’t look right’”.  You must be a certain age to know that Arthur Negus was a television antiques expert appearing at the end of his career in ‘The Antiques Roadshow’ but earlier in ‘Going For A Song’. A musical twist on this is that the theme tune of the latter was by Respighi – “The Birds”.

‘Singing in Secret. Clandestine Catholic Music by William Byrd’ by The Marian Consort, directed by Rory McCleery, is an excellent disc. The choir appeared at the Roman River Festival at Coggeshall in September 2022 and it was Rory McCleery’s note that led me to reconsider who William Byrd was. The talk ‘The Life and Times of William Byrd: A Local History’ is nearing completion. It will be given this summer in two locations. Details soon!!