Thomas Campion

With his over 100 lute songs Thomas Campion can be regarded as one of the leading exponents of the form.  There is no evidence that he played the lute himself, but his closest friend was the fine lutenist Philip Rosseter.  The family held claims to nobility and were comfortably off with connections to the Inns of Court . . . Thomas was baptized in the nearby church of St Andrew’s, Holborn, in Feb. 1567.  His father died in 1579 and two years later Thomas was enrolled at Peterhouse, Cambridge, age 14, where he must have been the junior member of Gabriel Harvey’s Areopagus “academie” to which Spenser and Sidney belonged.  In such company Campion was soon drawn to literary endeavours.  In 1586 he settled at Grey’s Inn which placed him in touch with future personages in government and at court, and his poetry began appearing alongside such luminaries as Philip Sidney.

His first lute songs appeared in Rosseter ‘A book of ayres’ (1601) and in 1607 he became increasingly involved in the Court masques.  When Prince Henry died in 1611 the primary musical tribute was ‘Songs of Mourning bewailing the Untimely Death of Prince Henry: worded by Thomas Campion . . . ‘ (1612).  His 4 ‘Bookes of Ayres . . . ‘ were printed between 1613 and 1617 and dedicated to Sir Thomas Monson his patron and co-defendant in a murder case, thankfully both were exonerated!  He died in 1620 and buried at St Dunstan-in-the-West, Fleet Street.  Never married he left a small inheritance to Rosseter.