My Little Gnudren,

Mr. Thomas Tomkins [1572-1656] seemed to get on with life despite living through turbulent times. He was born 14 years into the reign of Good Queen Bess and “lived through” the Spanish Armada, The Gunpowder Plot, The [departure of the] Pilgrim Fathers, the English Civil War, the Execution of Charles I, Oliver Cromwell’s installation as Lord Protector and the Drogheda Massacre to name but a few of the events of that troubled period. Are not the details of his life more fully recorded in the Chronicles of Mr. WakiPedia? If you think you are having a hard time, consider the life of Mr. Thomas Tomkins and be rebuked and edified:

The good bits came in the first part of his life:

• Born in St David’s in Pembrokeshire in 1572. Father, originally from Cornwall, was a vicar choral & organist of St David’s Cathedral 
• Around 1586, Tomkins family move to Gloucester. Father a canon at Cathedral
• Thomas becomes a chorister of the Chapel Royal
•  Almost certainly studied under William Byrd, and it is likely that under Byrd’s influence he became a chorister in the Chapel Royal
• 1596 appointed Organist at Worcester Cathedral

• 1597 Married Alice Patrick, a widow nine years his senior, the wife of his predecessor, Nathaniel, who had died. Thomas and Alice had a son and named him Nathaniel. That tells you a lot about the humanity of Thomas Tomkins
• 1603, given an honorary post in the Chapel Royal
• 1607 B.Mus. Magdalen College, Oxford

• 1612 oversaw the construction of magnificent new organ in Worcester Cathedral by Thomas Dallam the foremost organ builder of his day. Thomas Dallam also built a new organ in King’s College Cambridge, where Mr. TT’s half-brother, Mr. John Tomkins, was organist
•  1621 he become a Gentleman Ordinary of the Chapel Royal, and organist under senior organist, Orlando Gibbons. But also continued to hold his post at Worcester
• 1625 composes 8 anthems for the coronation of Charles I when Orlando Gibbons dies of a stroke under the pressure[?] The Plague and postponement gives him more time to do this

And here beginneth the bad bits:

• 1628 Tomkins is named “Composer of [the King’s] Music in ordinary”, highest honour available to an English musician,
• The post was quickly revoked on the grounds that it had been promised to his predecessor’s son. [This shabby treatment was to be only the first of a series of adversities that overtook the composer for the last fourteen years of his life.]
• 1642 His devoted wife Alice dies in 1642, the year civil war broke out
• Worcester Cathedral was desecrated, and the magnificent organ of Thomas Dallam substantially damaged by Puritan Parliamentarians
• 1643 Tomkins’ house near the cathedral suffers a direct hit by cannon shot, making it uninhabitable for a long period, and destroying most of his household goods and probably a number of his musical manuscripts
• About this time Tomkins married his second wife Martha Browne, widow of a Worcester Cathedral lay clerk
• 1646 Further conflict causing untold damage to the city. The Choir disbanded and the Cathedral closed
• Tomkins turned his genius to the composition of some of his finest keyboard and consort music

• Charles I was executed in 1649, and a few days later Tomkins composed his superb A Sad Paven For These Distracted Tymes. Old Gnu has provided a transcription for organ of this beautiful piece. So if you are ever accompanying a Tomkins Setting for Choral Evensong, this piece would be a be a wonderful piece to play before hand, Mr. Carson
• 1653 His second wife Martha died, and deprived of his living [see Mr WakiPedia for fuller explanation]. Tomkins, now 81, is in serious financial difficulties
• 1654 his son Nathaniel, a chip off the old block, comes to the rescue. He also marries a widow, Isabella Folliott. She was wealthy!  Thomas goes to live with them in Martin Hussingtree, some four miles from Worcester. He expressed his gratitude by composing his Galliard, The Lady Folliot’s in her honour. Two years later he died and was buried in the churchyard of the Church of St Michael and All Angels in Martin Hussingtree on 9 June 1656

Mr. Thomas Tomkins, poor man, “suffered the indignation of watching the demise of church organs and the rich choral tradition under the Puritans.” But ever keen to learn, in his last years he withdrew from public life to study the music of his predecessors, and write keyboard music, unfashionable but delicious for Gnu’s ears. They make his horns tingle.

As for Mr. Thomas Dallam, although his fabulous Organs in England were destroyed, including the one at King’s College Cambridge, that was not the end of the story. The Dallam Family of Organ Builders scarpered and took a boat to Morlaix on the coast of Brittany, France. That’s how we know the Dallams built magnifique organs. Twelve of them remain intact and a number in their original condition. Young Gnu went on a pilgrimage to 6 of them in the late 1980s. Fabulous!

Vetus Pater Gnu
Musicorum et Theologia
Turris LA
XV Mensis Septembris MMXXI