Anne Cromwell's Virginal Book is a manuscript keyboard compilation dated 1638.[1] Whilst the importance of the music it contains is not high, it reveals the sort of keyboard music that was being played in the home at this time.[2]
The uprightquarto book originally contained 51 pages, five of which have been torn out. It retains its original calfbinding with gold tooling, and the initialsA.C. are stamped on both back and front covers. Theverso of the title page bears a table ofnote values and four lines of verse:
Fouer moodes in musicke you shall find to bee
But two you only use which heare you see
Devided from the sembreefe to the quaver
Which you with ease may larne if you endevour
Each of the following 33 pages bears eight sets of six-line ruledstaves on which are fifty short pieces of music, written in at least twohands. The remaining pages are blank apart from the last, on the verso of which is written:
This Book was my Grandmothers Ann Daughter and Coheiresse of Henry Cromwell Esqr. of Upwood in Count. Huntingdon & was dated 1638 But somebody has torn out þe [the] Leaf.
The book is currently inMuseum of London
Anne Cromwell was born in 1618, the youngest child of Henry Cromwell († 1630) ofUpwood, now inCambridgeshire. Henry was the brother of Robert Cromwell (c. 1570-1617), the father ofOliver Cromwell, making Ann a first cousin of theLord Protector.[1] Anne later married John Neale ofDean,Bedfordshire. HerCoheiresse (above) was her sister Elizabeth Cromwell (born 1616) who with Anne may have had a hand in the writing of the manuscript.
The pieces contained in the manuscript are relatively simple, and written for the amateur performer. Most are anonymous, and consist ofsongs,dances,psalms andsymphonies (masque music). Only nine pieces are attributed, of which six are toSimon Ives (1600-1662),[3] one toJohn Ward, one toBulstrode Whitelocke and one to (possibly)Thomas Holmes († 1638). However composers of some of the other pieces can be identified from other sources, and includeJohn Bull,John Dowland andHenry Lawes. The contents (maintaining the original spelling) are as follows:
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