Regular episode Season 2 9 (New) The Deprivations of the Puritan Non-Conformists.

Audio • Season 2 • Episode 9  •  The Deprivations of the Puritan Non-Conformists

Artwork • Portrait of Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury.

Lord Clarendon, in praise of him stated that “If Bancroft had lived, he

would have quickly extinguished all the fire in England that was kindled

at Geneva.”

Music 1        •   “O Mistress Mine” 

Composer :  •  Thomas Morley (1557/8–1602).

He was  an English composer known for madrigals and other secular music.

The song :   •  An instrumental piece titled "O Mistress Mine" appeared in his 1599 collection, Consort Lessons.

The lyrics :  •  The famous lyrics are from William Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night, appearing in Act II, Scene 3. 

Scholars speculate Morley may have written the music for the play, though the timeline suggests his published instrumental piece came before the play was first performed.

The song is a plea from a lover to his mistress to embrace the present moment, with the lyrics emphasizing that "youth's a stuff will not endure" and that "in delay there lies no plenty".  The song is a call to carpe diem, or “seize the day”, urging the mistress to "come kiss me, sweet and twenty". 

Twelfth Night, or “What You Will”,  was written around 1601–1602.

It was likely intended for performance as a Twelfth Night entertainment to celebrate the end of the Christmas season. The first documented public performance took place on 2 February 1602. This romantic comedy was first performed at Middle Temple in London, one of the four Inns of Court, during the Candlemas celebration.

Candlemas is a Christian festival celebrated on February 2nd, commemorating the

presentation of Jesus at the Temple and the purification of Mary. It marks the end of the Christmas season with a focus on light, as it is the day when churches traditionally bless candles that symbolize Christ as the "Light of the World".

Matteo Bandello (c.1480–1562) was an Italian writer, soldier, Dominican friar and bishop, best known for his novellas. His collection of 214 novellas, many of which made the journey to England, made  him the most popular short-story writer of his day. 

Four Bandello stories were adapted by Shakespeare, including Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night.

Episode Description

One significant incident in the history of the English church during the reign of James I that is frequently mentioned by historians is the Deprivation of the Puritan Non-Conformists.

In March 1604, Richard Bancroft introduced 141 Canons aimed at regulating church life, specifically targeting Puritan ministers who did not comply with the established norms.

These regulations met strong opposition in Parliament, which argued that no Canon enacted in the previous decade could infringe upon individuals' freedom of expression.

As a result, church authorities suspended around 300 ministers, many of whom later publicly retracted their previous statements. 

Despite this backlash, at least seventy ministers were removed from their positions, marking the most significant reduction of Puritan ministers up to that point. 

The dismissals were carried out harshly, with little compassion shown to those affected. 

Among those dismissed were Richard Bernard, John Smyth, Richard Clyfton, and John Robinson.

Regular episode  • Season 2  • 8 • (New) The Lambeth Articles to Hampton Court - No Bishop, No King!.

Audio • Season 2 • Episode 8 • The Lambeth Articles to Hampton Court, No Bishop, No King!.

 Artwork •        Lambeth Palace

 Music 1  •     Royal Brass Music Of King James 1

This collection features 17th-century English instrumental music, primarily composed for brass instruments of the time, and recorded under the direction of Thurston Dart. The ensemble includes:

- Maurice André and Jean Pirot (trumpets)

- Maurice Suzan, Henri Arqué, Camille Verdier, and Bernard Gallot (trombones)

- Robert Veyron-Lacroix (harpsichord continuo)

The piece is performed by a six-member ensemble of trumpets and trombones, composed initially for King James I's court.

The ensemble, known as the Royal Wind Music, would have originally featured a twenty-piece band of sackbuts and cornetts.

A sackbut, is an early trombone from the Renaissance and Baroque eras, it features a telescopic slide, that adjusts the tube length to change pitch. Known for its softer, mellower tone, due to a narrower bore and smaller bell, the name "sackbut", comes from the Old French words for "push" and "pull," which describe its slide action.

The cornett, is a historical, lip-reed, wind instrument, from the Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque periods, made of wood, and covered in leather. It features fingerholes and a mouthpiece, enabling it to blend seamlessly with voices. The cornett was popular, for both instrumental and vocal music, before the invention of valved instruments.

Episode Notes:

In 1603, John Robinson delivered a sermon in Norwich based on Psalm 118:24, expressing the hope that King James would have a positive impact on the Church of England.

On 20 November 1595, church leaders, including Archbishop of Canterbury John Whitgift, convened at Lambeth Palace to draft the Lambeth Articles without Queen Elizabeth's consent. 

These nine statements aimed to address predestination controversies and marked the first Calvinistic addition to the Thirty-Nine Articles, tackling the emerging threat of Arminianism.

In January 1604, King James I convened at Hampton Court Palace with representatives of the Church of England, including Puritans, in response to the Millenary Petition for reform. 

The meeting, postponed from November 1603 due to the plague, featured Archbishop Whitgift leading eight bishops, including Richard Bancroft, who opposed the Puritan demands.

Regular episode  • Season 2  • 7 • From Refugees to Millenary and the New King.

Artwork • Funeral of Queen Elizabeth I - April 28, 1603.

Published by janetwertman

Music • Drop, drop, slow tears. Sung by the Cambridge Chorale, in Ely Cathedral.

From a Poem by Phineas Fletcher (1582-1650), Composer is Orlando Gibbons 1583—1625).

Drop, drop, Slow tears, is a devotional reflection sung at Passiontide, but not specific to that season. Orlando Gibbons, joined text by the Jacobean poet and clergyman Phineas Fletcher to a hymn tune, Song 46, which was published in 1623.

Interestingly, the poet and composer are linked by their connection with King’s College Cambridge, where Gibbons was a chorister and Fletcher a student.

By the 1610s, Gibbons was the leading composer and organist in England.

His career was cut short when he died , aged 41, in 1625, which is thought to have been caused by the Plague.

Passiontide, in the Christian liturgical year, is a name for the last two weeks of Lent,

beginning on the Fifth Sunday of Lent, long celebrated as Passion Sunday, and continuing

through Lazarus Saturday.

It commemorates the suffering of Christ , Latin "passio" meaning is “suffering”.

Music 2  • Prevent Us, O Lord - Sung by Recordare Chamber Choir.

Composer William Byrd. c. 1540-1623

Manuscript: 1580 in Dow Partbooks, no. 58. The Dow Partbooks is a collection of five partbooks in Oxford around 1580. The collection includes choral and also instrumental pieces. Robert Dow was a trained calligrapher and the books are unusually easy to read among Tudor manuscripts.

Regular episode  • Season 2  • Episode 6 • Exiles in Amsterdam.

Artwork • The Canons of Dort, or Canons of Dordrecht.

Formally titled The Decision of the Synod of Dort on the Five Main Points of Doctrine in Dispute in the Netherlands, is an exposition of orthodox Reformed soteriology against Arminianism, by the National Synod held in the Dutch city of Dordrecht in 1618–1619.

Music • Be Still for the Presence of the Lord.

Text & Melody by David J. Evans. Both the words and the music for ‘Be Still for the Presence of the Lord’ were written in 1985 by a piano teacher called David Evans. Born in Dartford in Kent in 1957, he grew up in Winchester and studied Social Sciences at the University of Southampton.

Hymn, sung by the congregation and choir of Beverley Minster. Beverley Minster, otherwise known as the Parish Church of Saint John and Saint Martin, in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, is a parish church in the Church of England.

It is one of the largest parish churches in the UK, larger than one-third of all English cathedrals and is regarded as a Gothic masterpiece

Episode Type • Season Episode Season • Episode Episode Number • Episode Title

Artwork • John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1602.

John Whitgift (c1530-1604) was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1567-1576. He became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1583. He attended Elizabeth I on her deathbed and crowned James I.

Music (1) • Hela'r Dryw (Hunting the Wren).

An Ancient Welsh folk song, sung by the band Fernhill.

Hunting the Wren’ in Wales usually took place between the 6th of January and the 12th which was Twelfth Night. It was a custom connected with luck-visiting and formed part of the celebrations around the winter solstice.

Music (2) • The Passionate Shepherd to His Love (1599).

A pastoral poem from the English Renaissance (1599). Written by Christopher Marlowe (1485–1603).

Marlowe composed the poem in iambic tetrameter (four feet of one unstressed syllable followed by one stressed syllable) in six stanzas, and each stanza is composed of two rhyming couplets; thus the first line of the poem reads: "Come live with me and be my love".

Read by @thebardscz

Regular episode • Season 2 • Episode 4 • Imprisonments, within London's Jails

Artwork • The Gasthuiskerk is a Protestant church of the Christian Reformed Churches in Middelburg in the province of Zeeland .

The church was built in 1493 as a chapel dedicated to Saint Barbara . The originally Roman Catholic hospital chapel was used by the residents of the abbey from 1568 to 1571 and was rented to English merchants from 1579 to 1589. The chapel was subsequently assigned to the Reformed Church in 1589 and in 1799 it became a Roman Catholic church again. In 1845 the building was sold to the Christian Separated Churches and in 1936 it was purchased by the Christian Reformed Churches.

Music • My Sweetest Lesbia, composer: Thomas Campion, performed by Andreas Scholl.

The poem, "My Sweetest Lesbia", is sometimes described as a translation. Its inspiration is the Latin poet Catullus's poem, Carmen V.

The theme of the poem is; We must live now, because we don't have forever.

Thomas Campion belongs to that fascinating tradition of medically-trained poets. He was a poet, composer, musical and literary theorist, and physician. Born in London in 1567, left Cambridge without a degree, briefly studied law, but ultimately graduated from the University of Caen with an MD. After practising medicine in London he later returned to the continent as a gentleman-soldier. He is believed to have died of the plague in London in 1620.

Regular episode • Season 2 • Episode 3 • The Puritan presses are closed down

Artwork • Scrooby Manor House

Music • At the Round Earth's Imagined Corners, Performed by The Aeolian Chorale.

The poem "At the round earth's imagined corners", is one of English poet John Donne's(1572–1631) Holy Sonnets, where he explores the struggles and consolations of his Christian faith. The speaker in the poem tries to imagine Judgment Day and finds comfort in the idea of God's infinite mercy and forgiveness.

Williametta Spencer, born on August 15, 1927, is an American composer best known for her award-winning choral work.

Regular episode • Season 2 • Episode 2 • Martin Marprelate

Artwork • The Cambridge University Library copy of:

'The Protestation of Martin Marprelate’, 1589.

Hastily created on an antiquated press hidden in a barn on a Coventry property, this last pamphlet was probably typeset by Martin’s collaborators, Job Throckmorton and John Penry. of Martin Marprelate'.  

Music • Daniel Bacheler: To Plead My Faith · The Consort of Musicke · Anthony Rooley

Daniel Bacheler, 1572 – 1619, was an English lutenist and composer.

This is his only surviving song, set to the words of Robert Devereux, the Earl of Essex, 1565-1601.

Regular episode • Season 2  • Episode 1  • The killing of a Queen. - Shorter listen. 

There are some writings which Seethe, with a barely concealed anger, even after more than four centuries.

Two memoranda by Robert Beale, Clerk to the Privy Council under Queen Elizabeth the first, exemplify this; in them, he expresses his outrage at Elizabeth’s efforts to shift the blame for the death of Mary Queen of Scots.

After agreeing to the assassination of Mary, Elizabeth would later blame Secretary of State William Davison and the Privy Council, for executing the very death warrant, she had signed.

Artwork • The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1587, drawn by Robert Beale (1541-1601), Clerk of the Privy Council to Queen Elizabeth I, who wrote the official record of the execution to which he was an eyewitness.

The evening before the execution he had read-out to Mary her death warrant and informed her that she was to be executed the following morning.

Regular episode • Season 2 • Episode 1 • The killing of a Queen.

There are some writings which Seethe, with a barely concealed anger, even after more than four centuries.

Two memoranda by Robert Beale, Clerk to the Privy Council under Queen Elizabeth the first, exemplify this; in them, he expresses his outrage at Elizabeth’s efforts to shift the blame for the death of Mary Queen of Scots.

After agreeing to the assassination of Mary, Elizabeth would later blame Secretary of State William Davison and the Privy Council, for executing the very death warrant, she had signed.

Artwork • The Execution of Mary Queen of Scots at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1587, drawn by Robert Beale (1541-1601), Clerk of the Privy Council to Queen Elizabeth I, who wrote the official record of the execution to which he was an eyewitness.

The evening before the execution he had read-out to Mary her death warrant and informed her that she was to be executed the following morning.

Key to numbers: George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury and Henry Grey, 6th Earl of Kent are seated to the left (1 & 2) and Sir Amias Paulet, one of Mary's guards, is seated behind the scaffold (3)

Music • Christum wir sollen loben schon, 1586 · Württemberg Chamber Choir

Lyricist: Martin Luther. Composer: Lukas Osiander.

Martin Luther initially adapted his melody from the Latin hymn melodies associated with 'A solis ortus cardine' by Caelius Sedulius to make it suitable for his German verse.

The chorale text and melody first appeared in print in Erfurt 'Enchiridion' in 1524.