CHELYS
THE
JOURNAL OF THE VIOLA DA GAMBA SOCIETY
Volume
7-1977
The
Viola da Gamba Society 1978 Issued
free to members of the Society; price to non-members £5.00
RICHARD MICO
By JOHN BENNETT AND PAMELA WILLETTS
Introductory
Richard Mico is one of the most elusive figures of
the golden age of English music. Both
Christopher Simpson '(Compendium of Practical Music, 1665) and Roger North (Memoires of Musick, 1728) named him
alongside leading consort composers like -Alfonso Ferrabosco, Coperario and Jenkins. Mico's surviving works support their
judgement; and although he published nothing, the distribution of manuscripts
of his consort music shows that it circulated quite widely. Yet his life has been forgotten; even his
dates. Our ignorance was acknowledged
in Professor Robert Donington's article on Mico in the 1954 edition of Grove1.
Oblivion set in early. Simpson tells us nothing about Mico except that he was dead
before 16652
and Mace (Musick's Monument, 1676)
nothing at all. Mico is nowhere mentioned
by that viol-playing antiquary Anthony Wood (1632-95), either in the passages
about music in his own Life and Times3 or
in his manuscript biographies of English musicians4. Roger North, who in youth had sat at
Jenkins's feet, apparently knew nothing more than Mico's name, and speaks of
his works as lost in 'the oblivion that is come over all', although some might
still be found in 'gentlemen's old collections5.
Interest in Mico's' music is reviving. An example of his four-part compositions,
edited by Trevor Jones, was published in 1976 as a supplement to Early Music. In 1977 came the publication of Mico's five-part works,
edited by Richard Nicholson, in the English
Consort Series. It may interest both musicians and
social historians to have some account of an English composer's life during the
troubled seventeenth century.
The present article is based mainly on original
research into contemporary manuscript sources.
Facilities given in the Public Record Office (PRO), London, the Essex
and Somerset Record Offices (ERO & SRO), the Westminster City Archives
(WCA), the Bodleian Library, Oxford, the Royal College of Music, and the
archives of the English Province of the Society of Jesus are gratefully
acknowledged. The Catholic Record
Society's published series of early documents, and other sources of recusant
history, have also proved of value.
Acknowledgemcnt is due to two articles on other topics published during
the 1960s, one historical and one musicological, containing important
sidelights on Mico which seem hitherto to have escaped general notice. By piecing together material from many
different sources (documented in the footnotes) it is now possible to
reconstruct the outline of Richard Mico's life and to bring out some of the
background to his music, although there are still dark corners which await
further research.
Family background and education
The starting point is a pedigree and coat of arms in
the 1634 Visitation of London registered
by 'Richard Mico of London', tracing descent from a Gilbert Micault who came
from the Isle de France (Paris) to Axmouth in East Devonshire around 15006.
The pedigree gives a few locations, mostly west country, but no other
dates nor any occupations. It includes
no less than five Richard Micos, and the frequent combination of that Christian
name with a very unusual surname makes it reasonable to look for the composer
among them. Of the two Richards of the
right generation to fit Roger North's rough dating, one can be identified from
other sources as a Weymouth merchant7. The London one proves to be our man.
It had sometimes been conjectured that the surname
was of Italian origin like Ferrabosco or an Italianisation like Coperario. The document from Paris reproduced in the Visitation is not conclusive proof of
French origin since while it certifies the nobility of the French Micaults
(whose arms Richard Mico of London adopted) it does not lineally connect them
with the English Micos. The composer's
circumstances in the 1630s, as will be seen, might have made him anxious to
claim noble French ancestors.
Nevertheless there is nothing improbable in a French origin. In the sixteenth century English west
country cloth had one of its main markets in Normandy and Brittany, and French
merchants were to be found in Lyme Regis, another small Channel port only a few
miles from Axmouth8.
Parts of the 1634 pedigree can be confirmed and
amplified from parish registers, wills and other local records (which also
reveal several more Richard Micos, but none of the right generation). The general picture that emerges is a family
mainly of prosperous merchants, rooted in the west country (Somerset, Dorset,
and East Devon), with a tendency for the more enterprising members to gravitate
to London9 a familiar enough pattern for its
period, if less usual as background to a musician. The most notable member of the family besides the composer
himself was his cousin Sir Samuel Mico (1610-65), son of Richard of Weymouth,
who settled in London by the 1630s, grew rich trading overseas, supported
Parliament during the Civil War, rose under Cromwell to be an alderman of
London and Master of the Mercers' Company, and was knighted after the
Restoration10.
The composer, according to the pedigree, was the
eldest of three sons of Walter Mico of Taunton in Somerset11.
His younger brother Walter can be traced through the records of the
English College in Rome as having become a Jesuit12,
and these also provide useful sidelights on Richard. The youngest brother Emanuel appears during the Commonwealth as a
substantial citizen of Taunton13. Richard's father has not been traced in any
of the surviving Taunton parish registers.
But Richard's mother Margery (d. 1616) and his unmarried sister Margaret
(d. 1620) were buried in the parish of Taunton St. James, where too his brother
Emanuel christened five children (1628-39) and was buried (1663)14.
There is thus a strong presumption that Richard himself was born in the
same parish. We cannot be precise about
the date of his birth since the St. James registers of baptisms are missing
before 1606. However, his brother
Walter's birth can be dated to 1594/5, by inference from ' statements which
Walter made on admission to the English College in 161615, which also show that there were five
sisters (nothing is known of the other four).
Richard, who as will be seen started work in 1608 at an adult wage, must
therefore have been born about 1590.
Richard Mico's parents, according to his brother's statement in Rome,
were middle-class Protestants of modest education ('genere mediocres, literarum
non omnino ignaros, sed haereticos')16. His father was quite likely in the cloth
trade, as were two close relatives: Aaron Mico of Croscombe, Somerset (a
cousin), was a 'clothyer'17, and
John Mico of Taunton (Emanuel's eldest son, the composer's nephew) was a
'sergemaker'18. Taunton and Croscombe were both centres of
cloth manufacture'19.
Richard's mother figures in the 1634 pedigree as daughter of one Awdrey of
Oxfordshire; there was a minor gentry family of that unusual name at Asthall in
the woolproducing country near Burford20. Perhaps we may trace to her the new outlooks
and talents which led her two elder sons to break away from the mercantile
Protestant background in which they grew up.
Taunton at this period possessed a good free grammar
school, under a succession of scholarly masters21. No record of pupils' names survives. But Walter Mico's statement in Rome shows
that he had been brought up at home and had attended Taunton school ('scholis
publicis') until he was 18, studying 'humanities' and finishing among the top
pupils. It seems likely that his elder
brother would have done the same.
Richard's subsequent career suggests that he had some general liberal
education as well as professional musical training.
We do not know where or from whom he learnt
music. Since it was then regarded as
part of a liberal education, some elementary instruction in music might
conceivably have been available at Taunton grammar school. Mico's compositions, while remaining within
the general idiom of the times, betray no outstanding affinities with any one
contemporary master. Certain thematic
traces of Alfonso Ferrabosco II have been noticed22,
but such resemblances by themselves are uncertain ground for inferring any closer
relationship. The following section
shows that as a young man Mico would have had opportunities of learning from
William Byrd.
Service with the Petre family, 1608-1630
The Catholic Essex magnate Lord Petre is mentioned
in the State Papers of 1627 as having a Richard Mico among his dependants23.
Essex was the birthplace of the Jesuit Father Edward Mico, one of Titus
Oates's victims in the so-called Popish Plot, who died in 1678 aged 5024; and the 1634 pedigree gives 'Richard
Mico of London' a young son named Edward.
Although none of these initial clues refers to music, they led naturally
to the seventeenth century Petre family papers deposited in the Essex Record
Office, which have proved fruitful, despite tantalising gaps.
The presence of a resident musician named Richard
Mico at Thorndon Hall (near Brentwood), the main Petre Essex residence in the
sevententh century, was first noticed in the course of an article on William,
2nd Lord Petre (1575-1637), published in 1968 by Miss Briggs of the Essex
Record Office25. Her work-has since been quoted in a study of
John, first Lord Petre (1549-1613), published in 1975 by the Essex historian A.
C. Edwards26. Neither author however identified the Petre
servant with the composer known to viol players, and Mico was only peripheral
to their main fields of interest. These
references, being concerned mainly with local history, seem to have escaped
notice in the musical world. Further
research into the Petre papers and other sources makes it possible to add considerably
to Miss Briggs's remarks about Mico.
How did an obscure Somerset youth become attached to
an Essex nobleman? The Petres
originated in the sixteenth century from Devonshire, and several west country
men can be traced among their Essex dependents during the following
century. For example, William Smith,
resident tutor at Thorndon Hall to William Petre's sons from 1605 to 1613
(overlapping Mico's service there), was bom in 1582 at Taunton, in the next parish
to Richard Mico's presumed birthplace27. The master of Taunton grammar school from
1594 to 1623 (covering Mico's schooldays), Richard Mercer, had previously been
a Fellow of Exeter College Oxford, with which the Petre family had a special
connection through William Petre's grandfather having refounded the College;
William himself was an undergraduate there (1588-91) during Mercer's time, and
doubtless knew him28. The Petres were known as patrons of music,
and it is not difficult to picture a young Taunton musician being brought to
notice through some such channel.
William Petre visited the family's west country estates on the Somerset
Devon borders in the autumn of 1607, less than twelve months before Richard
Mico entered his service in Essex29.
Richard Mico's arrival at Thorndon Hall can be dated
to spring 1608, when he would have been about 18. His first quarterly wages appear in William Petre's accounts at
midsummer that year30, and
'Richard Mico's chamber' figures in a Thorndon inventory of May 1608, with the
previous occupant crossed out31. William Petre was then living at Thorndon
Hall with his elderly widowed father John the first Lord, on whose death in
1613 he succeeded to the title32.
There survives a receipt dated 160833, signed in a youthful hand 'Richard
Micoe', of instruments and 'singing books' delivered into his charge by 'my
Lady' (William Petre's wife Katherine, daughter of the Earl of Worcester). The list begins 'Imprimis the chest of
violls wh. are in number 5 viz 2 trebles 2 tenors and the base, with bowes to
same'. It also includes 'my Lords Lute
with a base to it' and the keys of the 'wind Instrument' (a new organ had been
installed in 1590), the 'great virginales' and the 'violl chest'. The books comprised mainly published works
by William Byrd, identifiable as Songs
of Sundrie Natures (1589), the first
set of Cantiones Sacrae (1589) and
both sets of Gradualia (1605 and
1607, the latter dedicated to John Petre), with a set of 'prict' books
corresponding with one of the surviving Petre manuscript part-books34 which contains Latin church music by
English composers from Fairfax to Byrd and by their Netherlands and Italian
contemporaries-altogether a rather sober and old fashioned collection.
William Byrd lived nearby; he was a frequent visitor
at Thorndon Hall (the 1608 inventory also lists 'Mr. Birds chamber') and an
intimate of the Petre family35. The latter had apparently not employed a
resident musician since the departure of John Bolt in 1593, just before Byrd
settled in Essex, and Byrd may have become in effect their director of music;
the terms of the dedication of Gradualia Book II imply that its contents were mostly
composed at Thorndon for the Petres' private chapel36.
By 1608 Byrd was 65 and beset by the lawsuits which clouded his later
years37; a natural enough moment to hand over
day-to-day responsibility for music at Thorndon to a younger man. His last recorded douceur – ‘To Mr. Birde for his riflings for song books 10s.' -
occurs in William Petre's accounts in June 160838
the same month as the first wages paid to Richard Mico. We do not know if Mico was Byrd's nominee,
but he could hardly have been appointed without Byrd's goodwill. On stylistic grounds it seems less likely
that he had actually been Byrd's pupil; but in his early years in Essex Mico must
have come to some extent under Byrd's influence, through meeting him in the
house and living with so much of his music.
Mico was evidently already regarded as a promising
young musician. His starting wages-£10
a year and a 10 shilling bonus at Christmas, plus board and lodging - were as
high as those paid to any of the senior Petre household staff (including the
tutor William Smith, who shortly afterwards rose to be Warden of Wadham College
Oxford) and double the average wage attributed by Woodfill to country house
musicians at the time39.
Direct evidence for Richard Mico's musical
activities at Thorndon is scanty, owing to the fragmentary state of the
records, particularly after 1613.
Chapel music must have been one regular duty, in so devout a Catholic
household. There is evidence for the
celebration of mass, and for a resident chaplain40,
anyway at times; perhaps we may picture Byrd's masses being performed under
Mico's direction and in the ageing composer's presence (mass books and music
would naturally not appear in inventories, as a precaution against the penal
laws). Another duty evidently was
teaching his patron's children. The
accounts for November 1611 include expenditure 'for a pair of virginales bought
by Ri. Mico for Mall Petre - Mary, William
Petre's second daughter, then aged 1141. Shortly before Christmas the same year we
find Mico escorting Mall Petre and her little sister Kate (4) to the nearby
market town of Romford, a charge suggesting that the Petre family were already
coming to regard him as a trusted retainer.
The Petre accounts for the second decade ot the century, when William
Petre's elder children were growing up, reveal an active social life--visits
from relatives, neighbours and suitors, entertainments for the tenants during
the twelve days of Christmas, excursions during the 'season' to London, where
the Petres had a house in Aldersgate42. In accordance with the practice of the
times, music could be expected to play its part on such occasions, which can
perhaps be seen as a likely background to Richard Mico's first essays in
composition.
Although brought up a Protestant, Richard Mico verv
probably became a Catholic on entering Petre service in 1608, if not
earlier. He may have been disposed in
that direction by his schoolmaster; Exeter College in Mercer's time was reputed
a nest of covert Romanists43. Richard Mico was certainly a Catholic before
May 1614, when he converted his younger brother Walter44, who was received into the Roman church
by a Jesuit (probably a former Petre chaplain) then in prison at
Westminster. William Petre took his
seat in the House of Lords in the 1614 Parliament which met at Westminster from
April to June45. No doubt Richard Mico had come up to London
in attendance on his patron, perhaps to help entertain Lord Petre's noble
friends at - the Aldersgate mansion.
The reason for Walter Mico's presence in London is unknown. Later in 1614 Walter went to the Jesuit college
at St. Omer in the Spanish Netherlands, and thence in 1616 to the English College
at Rome, where he spent the rest of his life, dying in 164746.
Shortly after
Walter's conversion, Richard Mico left Thorndon for a time. There survives a hastily written list47, in what is possibly his own hand, of music 'left by Rich: Mico
in the little cupboard in the drawing Roome' - 'with a set of vialls' -
endorsed in another hand. 'An Inventorye of musick books left at Mr. Mycos
going Awaye June 1615' (note that, like Byrd, he is now called 'Mr.'). The
additions since 1608 are interesting. Apart
from the second set of Byrd's Cantiones
Sacrae (perhaps an accidental omission from the 1608 list) they comprise
Byrd's Psalms, Songs and Sonnetts published
in 1611 (but not Parthenia, published
the same year) and 'Watsons set' - doubtless Thomas Watson's First Set of Italian Madrigals Englished,
originally published back in 1590, which contained works by Marenzio and others
as well as two madrigals by Byrd in the Italian manner. These more lively additions to the Thorndon
repertory perhaps reflect Mico's taste.
One is reminded of his 'Latral Part 2', an isolated work associated with
one of the madrigals from Monteverdi's third book (1592).
From a Thorndon Hall inventory of 161348 it sounds as though the 'withdrawing
room to the great parlour' may have been the music room. Besides 'a cupboard of walnutte' (evidently
where Mico kept the household music) its furniture comprised 'a fair short
table' and ‘six high Stooles covered with black velvet' - an arrangement
suggestive of viol consorts.
Mico's departure is unexplained, but clearly there
was no breach with the Petres.
Conceivably he was assigned to escort Lord Petre's third son Edward to
St. Omer, as with the youngest son George in 1627 (see below). In July 1615 Edward Petre received a pass to
travel abroad with two servants49; he was
13, the normal age for St. Omer, whose year began in August, and he did not go
to Oxford like his elder brothers; but the St. Omer registers are lost before
1622.
Mico's music list bears a note in another hand recording
that in June 1616 the music books and viols were 'delivered into the charge of
John Oker'. Oker became organist of
Wells cathedral early in 162050, and
Mico was doubtless back at Thorndon before then, although we have no proof of
his presence until August 1623 (just after the death of William Byrd) when he
witnessed the lease of one of Lord Petre's Essex farms51.
Lord Petre described Mico in 1627 as one 'who has served me long', which
seems to rule out any prolonged break of service52.
The wave of anti-Catholic feeling in the mid-1620s,
which, as Miss Briggs shows, forced Lord Petre to retire into private life,
touched Mico too. The episode figures
in Miss Briggs's article, and is of indirect interest here in so far as it
illustrates the responsible position which Richard Mico by now held in the
Petre household - a striking exception to Woodfill's dictum that 'most
professional musicians started and ended as menials53.
Lord Petre's youngest son George (13) and his young cousin the grandson
of the Earl of Worcester set out abroad in July 1627, escorted at first by
Richard Mico, who later handed over to a Jesuit. They and the Jesuit were intercepted at sea, found to be
traveling on forged passes, and sent up to London under arrest. Lord Petre then sent an embarrassed letter
to the Secretary of State claiming that George was only going to France to
learn the language and that Mico had 'much against my will, procured one of his
aquaintance (but to mee a mere stranger) to undertake his charge for him'. The Venetian Embassy, usually well-informed,
reported home however that the youths had been arrested en route to 'their colleges' (a clue not cited by Miss
Briggs). It was illegal to send youths
to Catholic seminaries abroad, and war had just broken out with France. The tangled story makes sense on the
supposition that George Petre was being smuggled to St. Omer through the
Catholic 'underground', in which Mico was acting for his patron. It emerged that Mico had arranged for the
forged passes, and it was he who was sent as bearer of Lord Petre's letter when
things went wrong. He successfully
covered his own and his patron's tracks by passing responsibility to the
forger. Although Summoned before the
Privy Council, he (like George Petre) apparently suffered no penalties, and he
clearly remained in favour with Lord Petre despite the latter's disclaimers.
In 1623 William Petre's eldest son Robert
(1599-1638, succeeded 1637), then newly married, took over Ingatestone Hall,
only 5 miles from Thorndon Hall. Robert's
accounts survive, although his father's for this period do not. They include a few items of musical interest
but no salaried musician. It seems
reasonable to infer that Mico, while still in Lord Petre's service, ran the
music at Ingatestone too. Mass was
evidently celebrated, and with music, for some time between 1623 and 1639 a
'frame for a payr of harpsicorne virginals' -no doubt played by Mico - was
installed in Ingatestone chapel55. Robert Petre himself became an amateur
musician, presumably under Mico’s tuition.
In June 1627 he paid £13.6s. for 'a Viall and case to it', and in
September that year he bought a lute with a case and strings. After Christmas 1628 he paid 30 shillings
'for mending my Viall', and during 1629 there are payments 'for stringing my
lute' and 'for vial-bokes and strings'.
Robert's interest in viols continued into the 163Os56.
Mico must often
have been at Ingatestone during the later 1620s because he married a member of
Robert Petre's household. The 1634
pedigree names his wife as Ann, daughter of Richard Lambe of Midhurst,
Sussex. Cowdray Park near Midhurst was
the home before marriage of Robert Petre's wife Mary Browne. Mary's father Viscount Montagu had among his
dependents a 'Richard Lambe gent.', who was presented as a recusant in Midhurst
in the early 1620s, along with his wife and three daughters57.
In mid-1627 Mary Petre took on at lngatestone a new 'maid' called in the
accounts 'Lambe', who must have been Ann.
In the quarterly wage list for Christmas 1628 her designation changes to
'Mris. Mico'. Her son Edward seems to have been born late in 1628. Ann Mico kept her post after marriage, until
1630. Her recruitment from a gentry
family at Midhurst, rather than locally like the previous maid Besse Hatch of
Ingatestone (whom she outranked), suggests that she was an intimate of Mary
Petre's. This is confirmed by her being
fetched at Robert Petre's expense in 1631, after the Micos had moved to London
(see below), in order to stay at Ingatestone during the birth and christening
of one of Mary Petre's children.
Through his wife, Richard Mico would perhaps have come to associate on
still less unequal terms with Catholics of rank, a circumstance which might
have had some bearing on his next appointments58.
It was assumed by Miss Briggs that Mico spent his
life in Petre service. In fact he moved
in 1630 to a more distinguished if more vulnerable position. The last trace of him in Essex is in the
winter of 1629/30, when with three other senior Petre servants he witnessed a
group of family deeds settling annuities on Lord Petre's younger sons, the
latest being dated 20th January 1629/30.
The signatures are clearly autography59.
Service in the Queen's household, 1630 until the civil war
Considerable attention has been given to the records
of the 'King's Musick' but less to the Queen's musicians, presumably because
these were considered, with the exception of Richard Deering, to be mostly
Frenchmen. However, the presence of a
'Mr. Mico' in a list (c. 1640) of Henrietta Maria's musicians
in British Library Egerton MS. 1048, published by Ian Spink in 196460, needed investigation. A section of, the vast series of Exchequer
records in the Public Record Office, apparently not so far considered in this
context, has produced fruitful results which supplement the lists published by
Spink of the Queen's musicians in 1625, 1629 and 1640. The section of Exchequer records classed as
'Various Accounts' includes, among the Wardrobe accounts, a broken series of
establishment and acquittance books of the Queen's household from 1630-163561.
These give details of the 'Ordinary' establishment (that is, her
servants in regular attendance receiving fees and allowances) and include lists
of musicians. The acquittance books are
of particular interest as they include the original signatures of all the
musicians as receipts for their salaries.
So far as Richard Mico is concerned, this series
produces several surprises. The
earliest document, an establishment list for Michaelmas 1630 - Michaelmas 163162, authorised by the Queen on 20th March
1630, does not mention him, but in the acquittance book for this period we find
his signatures63, in receipt for fees of
£30 per quarter from Michaelmas 1630 onwards.
Thus some ten years before the list in Egerton 1640, Richard Mico is
already a member of the Queen's music.
The only other establishment book in this series appears to relate to
the year from Michaelmas 163264,
although it is loosely wrapped in a cover relating to 1630-31; Richard Mico is
listed here on the establishment (and Deering's name, see below, has
gone). In the acquittance book for
1634-3565 we find Richard Mico's name with the
marginal note, in a contemporary official hand, 'Richard Mico organist'. As additional evidence that this was the
post to which be was appointed in 1630 we quote a fragmentary series of
accounts relating to payment of arrears66
which includes the entry:
Richard Mico her Ma. Organist for one newe organ to
be set up in the Chappefl at St. James xlv as by her Ma. Warrant dated the xi
of May 1630 with his Acquittance may appeare for the Receipt of
Richard Deering, Henrietta Maria's organist since
her marriage in 1625, died-probably very suddenly - towards the end of March,
1630. Since Richard Mico was still in
Lord Petre's service in late January that year but in the Queen's service by
early May, he must have been appointed almost at once to fill Deering's
place. Possibly he already held the
reversion of the post and had to take up duty in a hurry, for his wife
(doubtless with their infant son) stayed on in Essex in Mary Petre's service
until the end of 163067. (Giles
Tomkins, for example, who inherited Deering's place in the 'King's Musick', was
appointed on 2nd April 163068, within
a fortnight of Deering's death). Lord
Petre was in favour at Court and might conceivably have recommended Mico to the
Queen. In any event Mico's long service
in the Petre chapel must have been a qualification. There are also pointers to possible contact between Mico and Deering. Deering's nearest blood relation, who proved
his will, was named Edward Bold. Apart
from John Petre's organist John Bolt, several Boults or Bolds appear as Petre
dependants during Mico's service in Esses69. Mico seems to have spent some time in London
during the winter of 1626/2770, and
could have met Deering then. Two of
Mico's compositions are attributed in one manuscript to Deering71.
The full lists of names of the Queen's musicians in
two of the Exchequer acquittance books cited above are set out, for convenience
of reference, in an appendix at the end of this article, in order to fill the
gap in the lists printed by Spink; and for comparison, the establishment list
of c. 1640 is repeated. Names are standardised.
These lists show Richard Mico's chief associates
during ten years of his professional career in London. As had been surmised, they are mainly French
musicians, some of whom remained in Henrietta Maria's service for many years. Louis Richard, Pierre de la Mare, Simon de
la Gard and Mathurin Marie were among those who came over with her in 1625 and
all appear on the latest available list of c.
1640. Anthony Robert, Camille Prevost,
Nicholas Duval, Jacques Gautier and Richard Mico himself all served the Queen
for at least ten years as musicians. It
is hardly surprising that she retained the services of her musicians for they
were extremely well paid - £3O per quarter being the standard rate (and Mico's
own) as compared with £40 per annum for the King's musicians - and all Catholic
members of her household had the right, in accordance with the terms of the
Queen's marriage contract, to the unmolested exercise of their religion in her
chapel.
Participation in the service of the Queen's chapel
in conjunction with her Capuchin priests was indeed a prime duty of her
musicians, and the non-French members too were presumably Catholics. Mico certainly was, and there is some
evidence that the handful of other Englishmen came from recusant families. William Drew was probably related to John Drew
of the 'King's Musick', who had been briefly dismissed from his post, when
musician to the Prince of Wales in 1623, for attending mass72 . The Greenbury in the lists is
presumably of the same family as Richard Greenbury, ‘Painter to the Queen73; Richard Greenbury 'pictur drawer'
occurs in a return of recusants by Westminster JP's in 162874.
Richard Wells 'ye Queens Ma., servant in her chappell is reported in the
same return.
Henrietta Maria was notorious for using her
influence to mitigate the harshness of anti-Catholic legislation and to
extricate priests and other recusants from prison, but there can be no
suggestion that English Catholics were given 'Ordinary' places in her music if
they were incapable of the duties. The
standards of performance in the Queen's chapel were regarded as very high by
those such as Bulstrode Whitclocke who were not of her party. When making plans for the masque The Triumph of Peace presented by the
joint Inns of Court in 1634 he says that as well as selecting Simon Ives and
William Lawes to compose the musicaI also made choice of four of the most
excellent musicians of the Queen's chapel, Monsieur la Mare, Monsieur du Vall,
Monsieur Robert and Monsieur Mari, and of divers others of foreign nations, who
were most eminent in their art75,
Jacques Gautier and Dietrich Steiffkin from the Queen's music also took part in
the performance, although Mico apparently did not.
Thus Richard Mico was a member of a group of
musicians of the highest standing. As
organist his position would have been of considerable importance. During the 1630s Henrietta Maria was working
energetically not only to 'improve the condition of Catholics in England, but
towards conciliation and reunion with Rome, and she used her musicians to
further her religious policy. One of
her immediate concerns on her arrival in England had been to provide suitable
facilities for celebrating mass for her household at St. James's Palace. As we have seen, one of Richard Mico's first
duties in her service was to obtain a new organ for St. James's. With the enlargement of her ecclesiastical
household on the arrival of the French Capuchin friars in 1630, the Queen
persuaded Charles I to allow her to construct a larger chapel at Somerset
House. The foundation stone was laid by
her on 14th September 1632 followed by solemn high mass, celebrated by her
Grand Almoner in an elaborate tented structure, when 'une musique harmonieuse
ravissait les coeurs', according to Father Cyprien de Gamaches, one of the
Queen's Capuchins'76. Some two thousand people attended this
cermony77.
At the opening of the completed building on 8th December 1635 there was
again music; Gamaches gives no details apart from saying that it included an
eight-part motet, and that 'Messieurs de la musique' were so encouraged by
their success in the morning that they surpassed themselves at Vespers in the
evening. Whatever the music it was not
unaccompanied, for Gamaches specifically mentions the organ and other instruments,
and the organist would have given foundation and guidance to the ensemble. We now know that the organist was Richard
Mico. 'The occasion was of critical
importance for the Queen's policy and recognised as such by the Papal emissary,
Gregorio Panzani, who paid her his compliments on her success and reported to
Rome 'La Regina ha sentito con molto gusto le mie congratulationi per
I'applauso, che ha ricevuto la nuova Cappella, et il suo vago apparato78.
Gamaches also records that regular weekly Vespers with music took place
at the Somerset House chapel, followed by disputations with Protestants79; Richard Mico may also have been at the
organ for these propaganda occasions.
Mico's duties as organist would have entailed
considerable travelling, when the Queen and her household made their normal
summer progresses round the country during the years before the Civil War. In 1636, when London was visited by a
particularly tenacious epidemic of plague, the court was out of town for most
of the year. Details of the movements
of the Queen's household and occasional references to the conduct of her chapel
occur in the reports to Rome from Panzani and from the first Papal nuncio to
the court of Henrietta Maria, George Con.
In August 1635 Con wrote of a visit to Holmby House -in Northamptonshire
'Sua Maesta calò nella Cappella alle Lettanie cantate con bellissima musica',
and 'In tutti li luoghi dove và la Regina si mette in ordine la Cappella, quale
stà aperta, ed e visitata da tutti li vicini con molta riverenza80.
From Hampton Court in September he reported 'La Regina . . . andò alle
litanie, quali ogni giorno di festa con bellissima musica se cantano nella sua
cappella'. We know that the Capuchins
remained in London at Somerset House during the plague of 1636, so that the
music for the Queen's chapel out of London must have been provided by her own
musicians.
Nothing has yet been found to connect Richard Mico,
either as composer or performer, with the masques which were in such vogue in
the capital during the 1630s and in which (as noted above) others of the
Queen's musicians took part. Perhaps
his duties in the Queen's chapel took priority. His Protestant merchant cousin (Sir) Samuel Mico was in London
during the 1630s, and the particulars in the 1634 pedigree, suggest that they
were acquainted despite their different backgrounds. On 16th February 1636 an 'Extraordinary' member of the Queen's
household (a Benedictine), writing to Italy about arrangements for sending a
consignment of silk to London, suggested that it should be sent to Signor Giovanni
Mico at Livorno for embarcation81. This must be the same man as John Mico,
English merchant, who on 8th November 1646 dined at the English College in
Rome, where Richard Mico's brother Walter had lately (1644) become agent for
the English Jesuit Province82; and
Samuel Mico had a younger brother named John.
These glimpses of family connections transcending religious and national
frontiers are an interesting sidelight on the times.
Richard Mico's position in the Queen's household no
doubt explains his successful claim, in the 1634 Visitation, to gentry status and the Micault coat of arms, with its
supporting certificate from one of the French king's heralds. He is called 'Richard Mico of London gent.'
in a document of 23rd October 1639 among the Petre papers, an inventory of the
estate of the late Robert 3rd Lord Petre (d. 1638), to which he owed a bond for
£2083.
A little of the background to his life while in the
Queen's service can be traced in the surviving ratebooks of the parish of St.
Martin's in the Fields. From 1633-36
'Mr. Michoe' was living in King Street, Covent Garden, near the Queen's French
physician, Maurice Aubert84. He must have been one of the earliest
residents in that fashionable new quarter, which lay conveniently near Somerset
House. Mico was in arrears in 1636 and
absent in 1637, which supports the suggestion above that he might have been
with the Queen's chapel out of London during the plague years. From 1638-41, as plain 'Richard Mico'
(variously spelt), he is found as a ratepayer in Long Acre85.
The same source provides a clue to what happened to
him at the outbreak of the Civil War, on which we have been unable to find any
direct evidence. When Henrietta Maria
left hurriedly for Holland on 23rd February 1642 her entourage included her
confessor and four other priests, and some of her chapel plate was lost at sea86.
Several of her French musicians are known to have been in France by 1644
– 46, and it is reasonable to suppose that they left England with the Queen87.
However, while the sequence of St. Martin's ratebooks is unfortunately
broken in 1642, in 1643 we find 'Richard Michoe' still listed, for the last
time, in Long Acre88. It seems very likely that he simply stayed
on in London as long as he could.
Before Henrietta Maria sailed from Dover she instructed those left
behind to continue the service of her chapel 'en consideration du reste de ma
maison qui deineure a Londres, et ce seulerrent en attendant mon retour'89.
Thus Mico could well have been present during the violent scenes when
the Queen's Capuchins were first arrested.
One of them, Father Robertus de Vantelet, in a letter of 4th March 1642
describing their arrest, says that two laymen ('Iaici duo') were detained with
them90.
He also reports on 26th May/5th June 1642, after their release, that
they had been permitted to celebrate mass privately in their oratory, and that
at Easter 'celebrata est Missa solemnis, cantante et respondents Musica, et
musicis organis'.
During 1643, as the war gathered momentum,
Parliament adopted a series of repressive measures against royalists and
Catholics. Richard Mico's position as a
former servant of the unpopular Henrietta Maria would have been particularly
exposed in the Puritan capital; and presumably he could no longer receive any
salary from the Queen. It is hardly
surprising that from 1644 onwards (like many of his Long Acre neighbours) he
disappears from the St. Martin's ratebooks.
We do not know where he went.
Roger North says that some of the music 'masters' of London 'turned
adrift' by the 'troubles' dispersed to cavalier country houses. For Richard Mico a natural and nearby refuge
could have been Ingatestone Hall, where Mary Petre, widow of the 3rd Lord and
Ann Mico's former mistress, managed to keep going throughout the 1640s and
1650s despite sequestrations. The
chapel at Ingatestone Hall was still functioning in 1647 when she refused to
'dissemble' it in face of an invading Puritan mob91. But particulars of her household during
these years have not been traced.
Wherever Richard Mico was himself during the civil
war after 1643, he got his young son out of the country. Edward Mico was at St. Omer from September
1643 until 1647 (usually among the top six in his class)92, and then at the English College in Rome
until 1650, in both places under his Jesuit uncle's alias of Harvey. On admission at Rome he described his
parents as 'Catholic gentry' (nobiles et Catholici’), but did not disclose
their whereabouts. He added that he had
no brothers but one sister, of whom nothing else is know93.
Edward appears in the English College register as 'Essexiensis’94.
This may mean no more than that he was born there; but since his boyhood
must have been spent in London, it perhaps tends to support the hypothesis that
Richard Mico, with his wife and daughter if surviving, had by 1647 gone to
ground in Essex.
Later years
The next definite information about Richard Mico
does not come to light until 1651, when things were beginning to settle down
after nearly a decade of civil war. He
is then found again-or stilIiving in London and in touch with the Petres; and
unlike some musicians during the 'broken times', evidently not destitute. On 31st July 1651, described as 'Richard
Mico of St. Martins in the fields London gent.', he appeared before the Essex
Commissioners for Sequestrations to authenticate certain of the Petre family
deeds which he had witnessed in 1629/3095. Three of the younger sons of Mico's former
patron William, 2nd Lord Petre (uncles of William, 4th Lord, the young current
holder of the title) - had recently petitioned to recover annuities which had
been sequestred for recusancy, and needed to prove that the deeds were pre-war96.
The speed with which Richard Mico and the other surviving witness came
forward suggests pre-arrangement. One
of the petitioners, Edward Petre (whom Mico had perhaps accompanied abroad in
youth), described himself as 'of London esq.' in a deed of 164897, and in September 1657 he died in the
parish of St. Martin's in the Fields98. Mico might perhaps have lived in his house
or under his protection.
By December 1658, as Miss Briggs records, Mico was
receiving a life annunity of £20 per annum from William 4th Lord Petre
(1627-84)99. He appears as 'Richard Mico gent.' in a list
of regular payments to 15 Petre relatives and former dependents (coming next
after Henry More, his contemporary at Thorndon Hall as chaplain, who may well
have remained in touch with Mico in his later capacities as Jesuit Provincial
in London 1635-43 and Rector of St. Omer 1649-53). Mico's position as Lord Petre's pensioner seems to have been
fairly recent, for shorter lists dated 1649 and 1650 do not include his name100.
The inference is that Mico must have had some other means of subsistence
during the civil war and the early 1650s.
Lord Petre was perhaps hardly in a position to be generous, for his
estate was sequestred from 1643 (when he was still a minor) until 1652, and
then under the management of his creditors until March 1655101.
The 1658 document also lists £60 p.a. interest due
from Lord Petre on a loan of £I,000 from 'Mr.
Mico'. Miss Briggs assumes that
this too was Richard, but the title (on the same page) is different, and it is
not easy to see a pensioner being able to lend on that scale. The loan was perhaps from Richard's wealthy
London cousin Samuel; Lord Petre borrowed heavily from the City financier
Nathan Wright102, with whom Samuel Mico
had previously been in partnership103. If this was the case, it adds to the
probability that Richard and Samuel were in touch with one another. Samuel Mico had become an alderman of London
in 1653104, and the presence of
this influential relative might conceivably have helped Richard to continue
living quietly in London during the Puritan dominance.
On 10th April 1661 'Mr. Richard Micoe' was buried in
the chancel of St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden, London105.
Although no memorial survives (the church was gutted by fire in 1795),
there is no reasonable doubt about identifying him with the composer. The person in the parish register was
evidently someone of standing since 90% of the burials that year were in the
churchyard and without title. This
tallies with the 1651 description as 'gent.'. St. Martin's in the Fields is the
neighbouring parish, and both were centres of London's Catholic
population. Nor need burial in a parish
church imply that in later life Richard Mico had conformed (as many did under
the social and financial pressures), since Anglican resistance to Catholic
burials had largely collapsed before the civil war106.
The story does not quite end with Mico's death. On Ist April 1663, John Hingeston, keeper of
the King's organs, received a warrant from the Lord Chamberlain in repayment of
expenses for installing organs in the chapel and music room at St. James's
Palace in London for Charles II's new (Catholic) queen Catherine of Braganza,
which included an item 'for portage of a larger organ from Mr Micoes to St.
James's and setting up there'107. The work had probably been carried out since
Hingeston's last periodical bill in July 1662108. There is no trace then, or at other times,
of payment for this organ itself, only for portage. Could it have been one of Henrietta Maria's which Richard Mico
had somehow managed to rescue during the debacle of 1642/43 and to preserve in
London throughout the 'troubles', which was now returned to its royal owners
after his death? The expression 'Mr.
Mico's', used nearly two years after he died, almost implies a known place of
resort, even if his widow or daughter were still alive and living in his former
house. This suggests that the 1663
organ was used by Mico during the Interregnum for musical gatherings at his
home in the Covent Garden district, comparable to those which Anthony Wood
frequented during the same period. ‘Ellis’s’ in Oxford - Ellis being an
unemployed professional who accompanied on the organ while the gentlemen
amateurs played their viols. One might
even speculate whether Mico collaborated with Hingeston in performing Deering's
Latin motets before Cromwell! Nothing
else has yet come to light about any musical activity during the last two
decades of Mico's life.
By way of epilogue, it should be added that Richard
Mico's son Edward returned to England as a Jesuit missionary after his father's
death, became secretary during the 1670s to the Provincial Thomas Whitbread,
was arrested with him in the 'Popish Plot', and would doubtless have shared his
fate at 'Tyburn had he not died in prison (December 1678) while awaiting trial109.
The death of Richard Mico's only son in an unpopular cause and without
recorded issue may perhaps have contributed to the oblivion which soon overcame
the composer's memory.
Some musical conclusions
This is not the place to attempt any assessment of
Richard Mico as a composer. But there
are two or three places where what we now know of his life may throw light on
his music.
The composer himself can now definitely be
associated with the set of partbooks, Royal College of Music MS. 1197,
containing his complete four-part works.
The inscription on the inner covers 'Pavans and fancies of 4 parts.
Rich: Mico' agrees closely with his signature as found in the Petre
papers of 1629/30 and in the Exchequer documents of the early 1630s. The similar inscription on the outer covers
(evidently added some time later, since the inner covers show signs of wear) is
in a different hand, not yet identified, which also added titles to three
pieces. The music in these partbooks is
probably also Mico's autograph, but we have no absolute proof, as there is no
evidence to link the text-hand on the inner covers with the music-hand. His signature on a complete collection (the
only known one) of his works in one medium suggests that it was compiled under
his own direction if not by himself, and that Lcm 1197 may now be credited with
more authority than other surviving manuscript sources of Mico's four-part
works.
A start can also be made at dating Mico's
compositions. We have specimens of his
signature at three ages, roughly 20 years apart (four, if the 1615 document is
autograph - the 1623 one is certainly only a copy). There are significant differences between them. In 1608 he signs 'Richard Micoe' in an unformed
youthful hand, with ornate capitals and scrolls. Around 1630 he signs 'Rich: Mico' in a neat educated italic, much
less elaborate than in 1608 but with distinctive loops to the capital
initials. The 1651 signatures use the
same spelling as in 1630, but the hand is further simplified, and a trifle
shaky, though less so than the other surviving witness. The signatures in all four partbooks of Lcm
1197 closely resemble the consistent group of signatures found around 1630 both
in Essex and in London. It can thus be
inferred with fair certainty that all Mico's four-part works (21 pieces in all,
more than half his total output)110 must
have been completed by middle life, say before the outbreak of the civil war in
1642.
Converging evidence exists for two other groups of
compositions. All three of Mico's
five-part pavans are included in British Library Add. MSS. 17792-6, a set of part-books compiled by John Merro who died
in 1639. All seven of his three-part
fantasies appear in Bodleian Library MSS.
Mus. Sch. c. 64-9, a collection
dateable by an inscription in the covers to 1641 or earlier. This brings the total of pre-civil war
compositions to 31 out of 39, over three-quarters of Mico's total known
output. Circumstances during the war
can hardly have been favourable to composition, and he was about 60 by the time
it was over.
We can probably go further, and suggest that well
over half of Mico's consort music, perhaps more, is likely to have been written
during his long service in Essex before 1630.
Statistically this would follow anyway, assuming a reasonably steady
rate of composition, during a productive life of say 30 years c.
1610-1640. Moreover the evidence shows
that viols were cultivated in the Petre households (although Mico played the
other household instruments too), whereas viols are not mentioned during his
London yeas, which apparently concentrated on the organ. The absence of compositions for more than
five viols recalls that the 1608 Petre chest lacked a second bass. Stylistic considerations point the same
way. Richard Mico's consort music
stands between that of the Jacobean masters and John Jenkins (almost an exact
contemporary, b. 1592), much of whose consort music for viols is now thought to
date from the early part of his life, probably the 1620s111.
There is some ambiguity between Richard Mico as composer
and as performer. His selection as the
Queen's organist shows that by the age of about 40 he excelled at the
keyboard. Yet he wrote only for viols,
and in a manner suggesting that he was fully at home on those instruments
too. Less than one in three of his
works for viols have organ parts, and the autograph set has none. The absence of Byrd's keyboard works at
Thorndon, among so much of Byrd's other music, would seem surprising if in
youth Mico had been primarily a keyboard player. After his death he was remembered (if at all) as a consort
composer, forgotten as an organist.
Perhaps Mico's musical life should be seen in two phases, dividing at
1630: first the years of fruitful isolation running the music of a big country
house, during which he probably wrote and helped perform much of his consort
music (does this remind us a little of Haydn at Esterhaz?; then the decade of
dangerous eminence at court, when the organ monopolised his attention, and he
gradually ceased to compose. Afterwards
his achievements were soon forgotten in the eclipse of the politico-religious
causes he served.
Nevertheless there remains a mystery. Performance at mass (on whatever
instruments) must have been a regular part of Mico' - duties in Petre service
and was apparently his main duty in the Queen's service. Why have we no compositions of his for the
church? His predecessors Byrd and
Deering point the contrast. Did their
church music overshadow him? Was his
vein of inspiration purely instrumental and secular? Or arc there lost church works of Richard Mico's yet to be
recovered, if all did not perish in the Civil War?
APPENDIX
List of the Queen’s musicians
1630-1631
(from Exchequer acquittance book E.101.438/11): Louis Richard,
Camille Prevost, Pierre de la Mare, Nicholas Duval, Anthony Robert, Simon de la
Gard, Mathurin Marie, William Drew, John Prevost, Michael Rogier, Richard Wells
(paid at a lower rate of £5 per quarter), Dietrich Steiffkin, Jacques Gautier,
Richard Mico, Daniel Cahill (described as 'Harper' and paid at £IO per
quarter).
1634-1635
(from Exchequer acquittance book E.101.439/3): Louis Richard,
Camille Prevost, Pierre de la Mare, Nicholas Duval, Anthony Robert, Simon de la
Gard, Mathurin Marie, John Prevost, Richard Mico (described as 'Organist'),
Michael Rogier, Dietrich Steiffkin, Jacques Gautier, William Drew, Richard
Greenbury ('Keeper of the organ').
Circa
1640 (from British Library, Egerton MS. 1048, f.186): 'Of
the Musique' (no Christian names): Richard, Robert, Lamar (de la Mare), Gard (de
la Gard), Varcnn, Richard, Marie, Prevost, Flaisle (Le Flelle), Le Grand,
Fremin, St. Amant, Gautier, Gifford, La Pierre, Mico, Le Roy, Charbo. Noted elsewhere in the list, Nicholas Duval
as Page of the Chamber, and Richard Greenbury (of the Chappell Organblower').
Footnotes:
1. Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London,
5/1954), v, p. 742
2. Christophcr
Simpson: A Compendium of Practical Music (reprinted
from 1667 edition, Oxford, 1970), p. 78
3. A. Clark ed.: The Life and Times of Anthony Wood . . .
described by himself (Oxford, 1891), passim', especially i, p. 204-6 and 273-5
4. Ob
MS. Wood D.(19)4
5. Roger
North: Memoires of Musick, (printed
from original MS., ed. E. F. Rimbault,
London, 1846), p. 83-84
6. The Visitation of London, 1633-35 (ed. Harlcian Society, London, 1880), ii, p.
99-100
7. Misceilanea Genealogica es
Heraldica (Misc. GH), iv (1920), p. 33
8. Somerset and Dorset Notes and Que@s
(SDNQ), xxix (1974), p. 240
9 Somerset
Record Office (SRO), D /P Crcs. 2/l/2; Somerset Record Society (SRS), Commonwealth Quarter Sessions Records, p.
61-3; Registers of St. Botolph's,
Aldgate, London ed. Harl. Soc.), s.v. Mico; Public Record Office
(PRO), wills, PCC 203 Pell; Calendar of
State Papers Domestic (CSPD), 1661/62 , p. 2; Historial Manuscripts
Commission (HMC), Finch, i, p. 230, 254, 308, 399; Calendar of Clarendon State Papers, v, p. 477; Registers of the Parish of Branscombe, Devon (Devon and Cornwall
Rccord Society, 1913), s.v. Mecho
10. Registers of St. Michael Bassishaw and St.
Stephen's Walbrook, London (Harl.
Soc.); Misc: GH, ii (1888), P.
116, and iv (1920), P. 33; PRO SP. 19/63, f. 150; PRO, PCC 75 Mico; CSPD. 1649/50, p. 587; ib. 651/52, p.
92; ib. 1653/54, p. 33, 542; ib. 1655 , P. 25 : Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, i, p. 733, and ii, p. 668;
A. Beavan: The
Aldermen of the City of London (London, 1908). P. 160; Le Neve's Knights (Harl. Soc.), P. 190
11. Pedigrce
in note 6
12. H. Foley, SJ: Records of the English Province of the Society of Jesus (London,
1878 et seq.), v, p. 251
13. SRS,
Commonwealth Quarter Sessions Records, p.
101, 185
14. SRO,
D/P/tau. ja. 2/l/l, 2/l/2, and Bishops' Transcripts 409 (Registers of Taunton
St. James)
15. English
College, Rome (ECR): Responsa Scholarum, printed
from original MS. in Catholic Record Society (CRS), liv (1962). p. 294; and
ECP, Nomina Alumnorum, in CRS. xxxvii
(1940), p. 179
16. ib., first reference
17. PRO,
PCC 203 Pell
18. SRO,
D/P/tau. Ja 2/1/2 (John son of Emanuel
Mico baptised, Taunton St. James, 1628), and PRO PCC 122 Bond (Will Of John
Mico of same parish, 1694
19. Victoria County History (VCH), Somerset, ii,
p. 34, 301; P. J. Bowden: The Wool Trade in Tudor and Stuart England, (London,
1962), p. 45-50
20. Ob
MS. Rawlinson B.400F, f. 47 (printed in
Oxford Record Society: Parochial Collections, i, p. 8). The Asthall registers of the period are
missing. There were seventeenth century
Awdrys nearby in Wiltshire (see Burke’ss Landed
Gentry)
21. VCH Somerset, ii, p. 444; J. Collinson :
The History and Antiquities of Somerset
(Bath, 1791) iii, p. 239; SDNQ, xxvii (1961), p. 195
22. Chelys, ii, (1970), P. 45
23. CSPD
1627/28, p. 249, 259, 271
24. Litterae Annuae Provinciae Angliae, 1679,
Summarum Defunctorum, in archives of the English Province of the Society of
Jesus, London : Cardwell transcripts (1872), from originals in Royal Library,
Brussels, p. 98; ECR Responsa, in
CRS, 1v (1963), p.503 (Edward Mico 'nearly 19' on 27 October 1647)
25. Nancy
Briggs: 'William 2nd Lord Petre', in Essex
Recusant, x (1968), No. 2. p. 57-8
26. A.
C. Edwards: John Petre (London,
1975), p.31
27. R.
B. Gardiner ed.: The Registers of Wadham
College, Oxford (London, 1889), i, p. 3; Briggs, op. cit., p. 55
28. SDNQ, xxvii (1961), p. 195; C. W. Boase
ed.: The Registers of Exeter College,
Oxford (Oxford 1899), p. 81; A. Clark
cd,: Registers of the University of Oxford (Oxford, 1888), Vol. ii Part iii,
p. 165
29. Essex
Rccord Office (ERO), T/A. 174 (transcript of Folgcr MS. 1772 in Library of
Congress, Washington, D.C., U.S.A.), f. 100-102, s.v. his 'western journey'
('Merifield' was the seat of his aunt Dorothy Wadham, between Axmouth anal
Taunton; the Petre estates were in the same region, see C. Clay: "The
Misfortunes of William, 4th Lord Petre', in Recusant
History, xi (1972), p. 87
30. ib.,
first reference, with its continuation, ERO, D/DP.A.33 (original MS.,
unfoliated), under quarter days between 1608 and 1613, when these accounts
break off
31. ERO, D/DP.F.218
32. Edwards,
op. cit., p. 100
33. ERO,
D/DP.E.2/1
34. ERO,
D/DP.Z.6/1
35. F.
G. Emmison: Tudor Secretary (London,
1961), p. 213-4; Edwards, op. cit., p. 73
36. Text
of dedication in O. Strunk: Source
Readings in Musical History (London, 1952), P. 330; for the chapel, see C.
T. Kuypers: Thorndon, its history and
associations (Brentwood Diocesan
Magazine, 1930)
37. E.
H. Fellowes: William Byrd (London,
2/1948), p. 25-8
38. ERO,
T/A.174, f. 107r
39. W.
L. Woodfill: Musicians in English Society
from Elizabeth to Charles I (Princeton, 1953), p. 68
40. ERO,
D/DP.A.33 (1612); ib., D/DP.A.40 (1623); ib., D/DP.Z.30/13 (1624); Ob, MS. B. L litt. 366, V. 189 (unpublished Oxford
thesis, 1976, by N. C. Elliott: The Roman
Catholics in Essex, 1625-1701)
41. ERO,
D/DP.A.33, under dates named
42. ERO,
D/DP.A.31, D/DP.A.35, D/DP.F.160
43. Boase,
op. cit., Introduction, quoting
Strype's Annals
44. ECR
Respoizsa, in CRS, liv (1962), p. 294
45. Journals of the House of Lords ii, p.
688 et seq; ERO, D/DP.A.27 (Lord Petre in London 29 March-14 May 1614)
46. Foley,
op. cit., v, p. 251
47. ERO,
D/DP.E.2/8
48. ERO,
D/DP.F.219
49. ERO,
D/DP.F.157
50. HMC Wells,
ii, p. 376
51. ERO,
D/DP.E.25, f. 278v
52. PRO,
SP.16/70, f. 65
53. W op.
cit., p. 243
54. References
for this episode in Briggs, op. cit. supplemented
by PRO, SP-16/70, 65; SP.16/71, f. 27 et
seq.; and Calendar of State Papers, Venetian,
xx, p. 307
55. ERO,
D/DP.F.222; D/DP.F.224
56. ERO,
D/DP.A.40, under dates named
57. ERO,
D/DP.E.164; Sussex Record Society, xlix (1948). P. 11, 12, 20, 63, 98, 106; ERO, D/DP.F.21 (he witnesses Mary's jointure)
58. ERO,
D/DP.A.40, under quarter-days 1627-1631; ERO, Q/SR 253/46. For Edward Mico's date of birth, see note
24; his baptism is not in the Ingatestone register (ERO, D/P 31/l/1), but
Catholic baptisms were often private
59. ERO,
D/DP.F.23; D/DP.F.29-31; D/DP.E.40
60. Acta Musicologica, xxxvi (1964), p.
178. Spink did not, apparently. know of
Mico's connection with the Petre family
61. PRO,
E.101.438/7, 11, 13-15. 439/3
62. PRO,
E.101.438/7
63. PRO,
E.101.438/11
64. PRO,
E.101.438/14
65. PRO,
E.101.439/3
66. PRO,
E.101.674/11
67. ERO,
D/DP.A.40
68. CSPD, 1629/31, P. 295
69. ERO,
D/DP.T/A.174, f. 71v (Tom Boult, 1603); D/DP.A.35 (Mris. Bould, 1617) Mr. Robert Boulte, 1619);
D/DP.Z.30/13 (Jane Bolte, one of Lady Katherine Petre's maids, remembered in
her will, 1624)
70. PRO,
SP.16/71, f. 27 et seq.
71. King's
College, Cambridge, MSS. Rowe 114-7
(see Chelys, ii, p. 51)
72. Calendar
of Clarendon State Papers, i, p. 26
73. Thieme-Becker:
Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden
Künsiter, xiv (1921), p. 570
74. PRO,
SP.16/123, no. 12
75. B.
Whitelocke; Memorials of the English Affairs (Oxford, 1853), i. p.
54. See also
M. Lefkowitz:
"I'hc Longleat Papers of Bulstrode Whitelocke', in Journal of the American
Musicological Society, xviii (1965), No. 1. p. 42-61, listing performers in
The Triumph of Peace, among whom
Mico's name does not appear
76. P.
Cyprien de Gamaches : Memoires de la Mission des Capucins, ed. P. Apollinaire de Valcence (Paris,
1881), p. 29, 34-37. Gamaches' dates
are unreliable and have been corrected
77. T.
Birch: The Court and Times of Charles the First, (London,
1848) ii, p. 176
78. Transcript
of letter of 16/26 Dec. 1635, in PRO, Roman Transcripts, PRO.31.9/ 17B
79. Birch,
op. cit., ii, p. 315
80. Transcripts
of Con's letters of 1/11 and 11 Aug. 1635 in Lbl, Add. MS. 15389, 174v, 180v; and of letter of 30
Sept. 1635 in Roman Transcripts, PRO.31.9/124
81. Transcript
of letter of D. David Codner, in Roman Transcripts, PRO.31.9/91
82. Foley,
op. cit., v, p. 251, and vi, p. 634
83. ERO,
D/DP.F.224
84. Westminster
City Archives (WCA) (Public Library, Buckingham Palace Road, London), F.360,
F-362-364, F.1016
85. WCA,
F.365-368
86. Transcript
of London newsletter, 7 March 1642, iii Rome Transcripts, PRO.31.9/ 139
87. Revue de Musicologie, xxxvi (1954), p.
118-119
88. WCA,
F-1037
89. Transcript
of letter of 23 Feb. 1642 in Roman Transcripts, PRO.31.9/145
90. Transcripts
of letters of P. Robertus de VanteIet in Roman Transcripts, PRO.31.9
91. Roger
North, op. cit., P. go, and Foley,
op, it, ii, p. 425-8
92. Lbl
Add. MS. 9354, f. 112v-127v
93. ECR, Responsa, in CRS, iv (1963), p.
503; Foley, op. cit., vi, p. 369
94. ECII, Nomina Alumnorum, in CRS xl
(1943), P. 39
95. ERO,
D/DP.F.30 and 31, endorsements
96. PRO,
SP.23/14, f. 164-165; SP.23/111, f. 517-525; Calendar of the Committee for
Compounding, i, p. 167
97. ERO,
D/DP.F.258
98. Registers of St. Martin’s in the Fields,
London: Burials, 1653-1663, in WCA
99. ERO,
D/DP.Z.30/30
100. PRO,
SP.23/111, f, 535, 541. These lists
(not mentioned in Briggs, op. cit.) may
admittedly be incomplete
101. Clay,
op. cit., p. 94, 106, 109
102. Clay,
ib., P. 108-9
103. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial and East
Indies, 1630/34, p. 276; CSPD, 1636/
37, p. 85
104. Beavan,
op. cit., p. 160
105. Registers of St. Paul's, Covent Garden,
London (Harl. Soc.,London, 1908), iv, p. 21
106. J.
Bossy: The English Catholic Community, 1570-1850
(London, 1975), p. 141-142. See also
ERO, D/P.31/l/l, Registers of
Ingatestone, for 6 Petre burials in Ingatestone church between 1613 and
1641
107. PRO,
LC.5/137, f. 420; incorrectly transcribed as 'Mr Nicoes' in H. C. de
Lafontaine: The
King's Musick (London 1909), p. 156
108. PRO,
LC.5/137, f. 209
109. Foley,
op. cit., vi, p. 369; Warner's History of English Persecution of Catholics
and the Presbyterian Plot (Written
during 1680's), in CRS, xlvii, p. 47 et
seq.
110.
Chelys, ii
(1970), p. 50-51
111. Editorial
introductions to John Jenkins: Consort
Music in Five Parts (ed. Richard
Nicholson, London, 1971), and Consort
Music in Six Parts (ed. Nichol3on
and Andrew Ashbee, London, 1976)
112. Somerset
House Chapel was 'sacked' in March 1643 (Clarendon- History of the Rebellion (Oxford,
1888), iii, p.11) and Thorndon Hall was virtually looted in June 1645 (Clay, op. cit., p. 99), both under
Parliamentary authority