Memorializing Mary Tudor: William Byrd and Edward Paston's 'Crowned with Flowers and Lilies'

Abstract

The manuscript books compiled by Edward Paston (1550–1630) shed light on the musical interests of a Norfolk gentry family at the turn of the seventeenth century, as well as on the contemporary circulation of the music of William Byrd. This article interprets one of the composer’s English-texted songs unique to the collection—the elegy for Mary Tudor, Crowned with Flowers and Lilies —against the context of the Pastons’ religious identity as Catholics. As a through-composed setting of an English sonnet, most likely written by Edward Paston himself, this musical memorial for the late queen reveals another aspect of Byrd’s craft as a composer of vernacular song. The circumstances behind the song’s survival in Paston sources, and analysis of Byrd’s responsive word-setting, suggest a degree of creative collaboration between the two men, including connections with Lady Penelope Rich and the court of Mary Tudor.