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414 CAVALIERS AND ROUNDHEADS. |
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they were doing it, danced and skipped, crying, " There, boys, there, boys, hark! it rattles, it rattles:" upon which, says the writer, " Pray, mark what musick that is to which it is lawful for a Puritan to dance." In Westminster Abbey, " they brake down the organ and pawned the pipes at several ale-houses for pots of ale. They put on some of the singing men's surplices, and in contempt of that canonical habit, ran up and down the church; he that wore the surplice b'eing the hare and the rest the hounds." At Exeter, they " brake down the organs, and taking two or three hundred pipes with them, in a most scornful and contemptuous manner, went up and down the street, piping with them, and meeting some of the choristers of the church, whose surplices they had stolen before, scoffingly told them, ' Boys, wo have spoiled your trade, you must go and sing Hot pudding ~pyes.'" At Peterborough, under Cromwell, after defacing the tombs of Queen Catherine and Mary, Queen of Scots, " when their unhallowed toilings had made them out of wind, they took breath afresh on .two pair of organs, piping with the very same about the market place lascivious jigs, whilst their comrades danced after them, some in copes, others with the surplices, and they brake down the bellows to blow the coals of a bonfire to burn them." On their first visit to Canterbury, they slashed the service books, surplices, &c, and " began to play the tune of The Zealous Soldier on the organs or case of whistles, which never were in tune since." But on this occasion, some ran to the Commander-in-Chief, who called off the soldiers, " who afterwards sung cathedral prick-song as they rode over Barham Down towards Dover, with pricking leaves in their hands, and lighted their tobacco pipes with them; and such pipes and cathedral music," in the opinion of Culmer, " did consort well together." St. Paul's Cathedral was turned into horse-quarters for- the soldiers of the Parliament, except the choir, which was separated by a brick wall from the nave, and converted into a preachÂing place. The entrance to it was by a door which had formerly been a window. The Corinthian portico at the west end was leased out to a man who "built in it a number of small shops, which he let to haberdashers, glovers, and sempsters or milliners, and this was called Paul's Change.
Charles the First's love of music is mentioned by Playford, in his Introduction to the skill of Musick, edit. 1760. He says that he was not " behind any of his predecessors in his skill and love of this divine art, especially in the service of Almighty God;" and that he "often appointed the service and anthems; being, by his knowledge in musick, a competent judge therein, and much delighted to hear that excellent service composed by Dr. William Child, called his Sharp Service. And for instrumental music, none pleased him like those incomparable Fantasies for one Violin and Base-viol to the Organ, composed by Mr. Coperario" a (Cooper). In the British Museum (Addit. MSS., 11,608, fol. 59) is a song the music of which was composed by Charles I., the poetry by Thomas Carew. It commences :— " Mark how the blushful morn, in vain, Courts the am'rous mavigold."b
"During the prosperous state of the King's affairs" (says Lord Orford,
* The only known manuscript of these Fancies by last that were purchased from Thorpe, the celebrated Coperario is now in the possession of Dr. Rimbautt. bookseller, for the British Museum. It is an important
b The manuscript which contains this song is one of the manuscript in several respects. |
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