The imperious will of the Tudor monarchs had, hitherto, prevented the dissemination of Calvinism in England, and so, to the boisterous, happy-go-lucky temperament of the Elizabethan Englishman, the ostentation of religious phraseology, added, probably, to their quaint pronunciation of the language, made them at once a butt of scorn and contempt.
The expression used, too, by the clown "By'r lady" shows that Protestantism had as yet made little inroad on the life of the people.
It is worthy of note that it was from this part of England sailed the first batch of emigrants to the new world in the "Mayflower," now immortalised in history.
[13] A canon is a form of composition in which a melody is started by one voice and followed by another, one or more bars later (or even less) in strict imitation of it.
CHAPTER III
EARLY ENGLISH COMPOSERS
THOMAS TALLIS (OR TALLYS)
Most of the pre-Reformation music destroyed—Tallis, the oldest English musician of which anything certain is known—Organist of Waltham Abbey at time of the suppression of the monasteries—Date of his birth unknown—Favourite of King Henry VIII. and Queen Elizabeth—State of difficulty and danger in intervening reigns—Chaotic state of things in the Church—Queen Elizabeth's policy—View of it taken by the present Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral—Greatness of Tallis as a composer—His death.
We are, unfortunately, not able to write of the earliest English composers, as much of their work (and with their work their very names) perished at the time of the destruction of the monasteries by King Henry VIII. in 1540, and what was left of it was destroyed by fire during the sacking of the cathedrals by the Puritans in the Commonwealth period. We are, then, obliged to begin with the early English composers, who date no further back than the sixteenth century and the Reformation.