‘My Ladye Nevell’ Revealed

Abstract

My Ladye Nevells Book is a manuscript of keyboard music by William Byrd, dated 1591. Its exceptional importance has long been recognized, but ‘Ladye Nevell’ has never been firmly identified. However, the only person to whom the title could correctly have been applied in 1591 was Elizabeth, the wife of Sir Henry Nevell of Billingbere (c.1518–93); and fresh examination of the arms represented in the book has confirmed that they are Sir Henry’s. Elizabeth Nevell’s principal home was Greenland, at Hambleden in Buckinghamshire, and Byrd and his brothers had homes nearby. The possibility of a local connection between Byrd and Lady Nevell is strengthened by the fact that his daughterin-law’s mother came from a Hambleden family. After Sir Henry’s death Lady Nevell remarried, and as Lady Periam received the dedication of The First Booke of Canzonets to Two Voyces by Byrd’s colleague and probable pupil Thomas Morley, who had married one of her servants.

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