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AMONG close to three hundred pieces contained in the most famous keyboard manuscript of the English Renaissance, now known as The Fitzmlliam Virginal Book, is William Byrďs "The Earl of Oxford March" (Fitzwiüiam II 402). The Oxford March has become well known to present-day early music enthusiasts, and apparently was well known at the beginning of its life as well (Musica Britannica И 207). The most beautiful and best-preserved surviving manuscript of keyboard music from the period, My Lady Nevelľs Book of 159}, includes it under the title "The March Before the Battle," where it precedes and sets the mood for a group of nine individual sections called "The Battle" (Neveli 15). In Thomas Morley's The First Book of Consort Lessons of 1599, an unsigned, truncated version of the march, arranged for a mixed group of instruments, appears as "My Lord of Oxenfords Maske" (Morley 134)- Anthony Munday's 1588 A banquet of daintie Conceits, a collection of his lyrics for various well-known tunes, contains verses to be sung to a melody he describes as "a gallant note" called the "Earle of Oxenforďs March" (Munday 227).
Circumstances surrounding the Oxford March and the battle pieces suggest an association of at least ten years between the Seventeenth Earl of Oxford and William Byrd.
WILLIAM BYRD (c. 1540-1623) is considered the greatest composer of the English Renaissance, and perhaps of the entire Renaissance- A fine singer and keyboard performer as well, Byrd was eager to rise in the world, and in this he was aided by influential patrons, including Queen Elizabeth and the Earl of Oxford- He was a devout Catholic, and was officially named as a "recusant" a number of times, but nonetheless he continually escaped any serious consequences for openly professing his religion.
Byrd was bom in London sometime between October 1539 and the end of September 1540, one of the seven children of Thomas and Margery Byrd (Harley, Byrd 4). By 1572, he was employed foil time as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, the group of about twenty-four male singers and organists charged with providing church music for the royal household, who remained with the Queen as part of her entourage as she travelled from palace to palace.
Byrd was a protégé of the...