‘Unlawful song’: Byrd, the Babington plot and the Paget choir.

In late September 1586, Edward Barker (a royal registrar who reported directly to the English Secretary of State, William Cecil) interrogated three suspected Catholic activists, including onesinger, Henry Ediall. The interrogations were conducted in the wake of the Babington plot, an alleged assassination attempt on the life of Queen Elizabeth in which Mary, Queen of Scots, was found to be complicit. Barker questioned the men about their dealings with the attainted exiled Catholic activist Charles Paget (and his brother Lord Thomas) and about their reactions to the government’s execution of Edmund Campion. Ediall was questioned too about a choral establishment he allegedly ran for the Pagets and his performance of ‘direges’ at their residence. Under interrogation, Ediall, who mentioned the music of Tallis and Byrd in his testimony, claimed that he had sung nothing unlawful. But a look into the repertory he alluded to in his testimony suggests he did sing works that would have been of interest to the government. In this article, which includes full transcriptions of these State Paper documents, the evidence of these interrogations and relevant musical works are analysed to draw new conclusions about the well-known ‘political motets’ of Byrd, shedding fresh light on their legal status, how they could be positioned politically and how they could be put to use in a politically charged environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]