The monks, who had hitherto jealously guarded the secret of the manipulation of the keys, began to teach others, and thus came into existence that body of organists and composers who for many centuries upheld the standard of English music, and who, until the days of the Reformation, kept England in the forefront of musical art.
Let it be well borne in mind that up to this time England owed its music to England alone.
Till then Thomas Tallis was the greatest exponent of the art who had lived in this country, and, if anything were wanting to prove the extraordinary genius the monks had exhibited in teaching the profoundest mysteries of music, the mastery displayed by Tallis in his Song of Forty Parts would be sufficient to supply it.
He was the link that united English pre-Reformation and post-Reformation music.
In the reigns of Henry VIII. and Queen Mary, he was a gentleman of the Chapel-Royal, subsequently becoming organist in Queen Elizabeth's time.
It was during this period that he set to music that part of the English liturgy that is now sung.
As regards Henry and Elizabeth, the feelings of both these monarchs towards the Reformation were, doubtless, more political than religious, and to this cause may be attributed the retention of his post by Tallis, since there is no proof that he ever embraced the reformed faith.
Then came an epoch that may well be called the Augustan age of English music, seeing that to the genius of Tallis was added that of Byrd and Orlando Gibbons, culminating in the arrival of Purcell, when it attained its zenith.
With the death of Purcell began the long decline that resulted in the practical decay of English music.
Everything tended to that end.