Two Sixteenth-Century Virginal Makers:
A Story of Plague and Religious Intolerance
2024-08-26 by Lance Whitehead
It is difficult to gain an overall picture of virginal making in Tudor London: there is only one extant signed instrument, a combined organ-harpsichord by Lodewijk Theewes (BMO-1942), and the variability of spellings makes the identification of makers problematic. Nevertheless, we know the names of as many as 22 individuals, who are listed as ‘virginall maker’, or who received payment for repairing a virginal during the sixteenth century. Some, such as William Reynolds (fl.1594) and Anthony Lingham (d.1582), are known only from parish registers, while Hans Fothermaker has been identified from a marriage licence granted on 11 March 1583 to ‘Jodocum Williamson, of Whitechapel’ and ‘Nelkinam Bowens, Widow, relict of Hans Fothermaker, Virginall Maker’.
A significant proportion of the virginal makers were economic migrants or religious refugees and are typically described in primary sources as either ‘aliens’ or ‘strangers’. Paul Defield, for example, seems to be listed three times in the Returns of Aliens Dwelling in the City of London: as ‘Pavyll Fandevell’ in 1568, as ‘Polle Fyeld’ in 1571, and as ‘Pawle Defield’ in 1582. If the entries all relate to the same person, we know that he was born in Leuven and was a religious refugee; he was perhaps a Protestant, who fled to England to escape the ‘Second War of Religion’ (1567–68).
The same source also provides testimony that Defield and his wife Marie resided at the home of two other ‘alien’ virginal makers working in London – Lodewijk Theewes in 1568 and John James in 1571 – and it is tempting to suggest that Defield was employed as a journeyman in the workshops of Theewes and James. Moreover, recent research has identified that by the early 1590s, perhaps earlier, the Defield family resided in the parish of St Botolph Aldgate and it was here that four children of ‘Paull van de Feld’ were buried in rapid succession, suggestive of having succumbed to the plague: Sara (27 September 1593); Abygale (12 October 1593); Elizabeth (26 October 1593); and Paul (8 November 1593). As well as giving his occupation as ‘verginall’ or ‘virginall’ maker, the burial register provides us with the location of his premises: ‘Kercoms Rents being in the precinct neare the tower’, perhaps a barbican known to have existed on Ludgate Hill, rather than the Tower of London. Defield may have died shortly after that of his children, but no record of his burial has been identified.
More is known of the organ builder and virginal maker Robert Broughe (fl.1555–1603), probably a maker of English heritage and someone who seems to have practiced religious tolerance. He was an important member of the Fletchers’ Company, serving as an Assistant to the Master from 1575 to 1603, and three terms as Warden (1574, 1582 and 1600–1). We also know that Broughe resided in the parish of St Martin’s Ludgate: he was a vestryman there from 1586 to 1600, and it was where four of his children were baptized. Moreover, Broughe was married to Barbara Byrd, the sister of the composer William Byrd, who is known to have been a lifelong Roman Catholic. Like Byrd, Broughe enjoyed the patronage of Sir John Petre (1549–1613), another Catholic, and there is documentary evidence that on at least one occasion composer and instrument maker travelled together from London to Petre’s estate in Essex. Broughe supplied an organ to Sir John Petre and ‘a payer of small virginalls for Mr John Petre’, perhaps a diminutive instrument intended for his young son.
In the late 1590s, Broughe accused the warden of the Fleet prison of extortion, and was summoned to appear before the Privy Council on 18 April 1598. Broughe’s action was unsubstantiated and he was consequently sentenced to a term of imprisonment in the Marshalsea. How long Broughe remained in jail is unknown, but the proceedings of the Privy Council provide us with Broughe’s home address: the Old Bailey, a thoroughfare running between Ludgate Hill and Newgate Street. Whether he recommenced working as a keyboard instrument maker after leaving jail is similarly uncertain, but we do know that he died of the plague in 1603 (indicated by the letter ‘P’ in the burial register) and that he was buried in St Andrew’s Holborn on 27 August 1603.