John Bull

Sometimes credited as the composer of the melody now known as God Save the King (or My Country 'Tis of Thee) John Bull was one of the most admired English musicians of the Tudor and Jacobean era, and a prolific composer for the keyboard. The exact story of his life, however, is surrounded by myths and uncertainty. Bull is sometimes said to have worked as a spy for Queen Elizabeth I, and he is known to have had a complicated and often messy personal life: in 1613 the then Archbishop of Canterbury declared that Bull "hath more music than honesty and is as famous for marring of virginity as he is for fingering of organs and virginals". It seems reasonably certain that he began his musical career around 1573 as a chorister at Hereford Cathedral, studied at Oxford and subsequently held posts in the Chapel Royal and Gresham College, London. Bull eventually fled overseas to escape scandal and became assistant organist of the cathedral in Antwerp, where he died in 1628. His music includes numerous works for the virginal (seven of which were published in the anthology Parthenia in 1612-13), a series of playful keyboard miniatures that survive in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, some 120 highly inventive canons and several striking (and widely admired) choral anthems, including the five-part Star Anthem.