Music at the British Court, 1685-1715

Abstract

This chapter examines the part played by sacred music in the royal court in England during the reigns of Charles II (1660-1685), James II (1685-1688), William III and Mary II (1689-1702), and Anne (1702-1714). In this period, religious music, in the Chapel Royal and elsewhere, was subject to the deeply divided politics of the period. Charles II and James II favoured Catholicism (James was a Catholic), and music at their courts reflected both their religious inclinations and also the foreign influences that came with them. After the Revolution of 1688, which saw the ejection of James II and the accession of his nephew and daughter, William and Mary of Orange, the court and nation returned to Protestantism. The sacred music of their reign, and that of Anne, showed that foreign, Catholic influences in the Chapel Royal were gone. The wars with France in the 1690s and also in the War of Spanish Succession (1701-13) provided an opportunity for sacred music to take on a martial flavour which endorsed the idea of a monarchy sanctioned by God, evident in military victories.