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!!
