Anne Cromwell's Virginal Book is a manuscript keyboard compilation dated 1638. 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.

The Manuscript

The upright quarto

Quarto (text)

Quarto is a book or pamphlet produced from full 'blanksheets', each of which is printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded two times to produce four leaves...

 book originally contained 51 pages, five of which have been torn out. It retains its original calf binding

Bookbinding

Bookbinding is the process of physically assembling a book from a number of folded or unfolded sheets of paper or other material. It usually involves attaching covers to the resulting text-block.-Origins of the book:...

 with gold tooling, and the initials A.C. are stamped on both back and front covers. The verso of the title page bears a table of note value

Note value

In music notation, a note value indicates the relative duration of a note, using the color or shape of the note head, the presence or absence of a stem, and the presence or absence of flags/beams/hooks/tails....

s 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 ruled staves

Staff (music)

In standard Western musical notation, the staff, or stave, is a set of five horizontal lines and four spaces that each represent a different musical pitch—or, in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments. Appropriate music symbols, depending upon the intended effect,...

 on which are fifty short pieces of music, written in at least two hands

Hand (handwriting)

A Hand, in calligraphy and palaeography refers to one of several historical varieties of formal, impersonal, generic and exemplary writing styles...

. 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 Esq^r. of Upwood in Coun^t. Huntingdon & was dated 1638 But somebody has torn out y^e Leaf.

The book is currently in The Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon where it is on loan from the Museum of London

Museum of London

The Museum of London documents the history of London from the Prehistoric to the present day. The museum is located close to the Barbican Centre, as part of the striking Barbican complex of buildings created in the 1960s and 70s as an innovative approach to re-development within a bomb damaged...

 under MS 46, 78/748.

The Author

Anne Cromwell was born in 1618, the youngest child of Henry Cromwell († 1630) of Upwood

Upwood

Upwood, in Huntingdonshire , England, is a village near Bury south-west of Ramsey.In September 1917, the Royal Air Force started work on RAF Upwood, a massive air force base near the village used by both the RAF and the United States Air Force.Two nature reserves, Lady's Wood and Upwood Meadows,...

, now in Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

. Henry was the brother of Robert Cromwell (c. 1570-1617), the father of Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell

Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....

, making Ann a first cousin of the Lord Protector

Lord Protector

Lord Protector is a title used in British constitutional law for certain heads of state at different periods of history. It is also a particular title for the British Heads of State in respect to the established church...

. Anne later married John Neale of Dean

Upper Dean

Upper Dean is a village located in the Bedford Borough of Bedfordshire, England.The village forms part of the Dean and Shelton civil parish, and is close to the settlements of Melchbourne and Swineshead. Upper Dean is the location of Eileen Wade Lower School....

, Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

. Her Coheiresse (above) was her sister Elizabeth Cromwell (born 1616) who with Anne may have had a hand in the writing of the manuscript.

Contents

The pieces contained in the manuscript are relatively simple, and written for the amateur performer. Most are anonymous, and consist of song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

s, dance

Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

s, psalms and symphonies (masque

Masque

The masque was a form of festive courtly entertainment which flourished in 16th and early 17th century Europe, though it was developed earlier in Italy, in forms including the intermedio...

 music). Only nine pieces are attributed, of which six are to Simon Ives

Simon Ives

Simon Ives was an English composer and organist who was active in the court of Charles I of England. He composed many pastoral dialogues, partsongs, glees, and works for organ. He also composed music for the theatre....

 (1600-1662), one to John Ward

John Ward (composer)

John Ward was an English composer who was a contemporary of John Dowland.Born in Canterbury, John Ward was a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral. He went to London where he served Sir Henry Fanshawe both as an attorney in the Exchequer and as a musician. Ward married and had three children...

, one to Bulstrode Whitelocke

Bulstrode Whitelocke

Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke was an English lawyer, writer, parliamentarian and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England.- Biography :...

 and one to (possibly) Thomas Holmes († 1638). However composers of some of the other pieces can be identified from other sources, and include John Bull

John Bull (composer)

John Bull was an English composer, musician, and organ builder. He was a renowned keyboard performer of the virginalist school and most of his compositions were written for this medium.-Life:...

, John Dowland

John Dowland

John Dowland was an English Renaissance composer, singer, and lutenist. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep" , "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe" and "In darkness let me dwell", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and has...

 and Henry Lawes

Henry Lawes

Henry Lawes was an English musician and composer.He was born at Dinton in Wiltshire, and received his musical education from John Cooper, better known under his Italian pseudonym Giovanni Coperario, a famous composer of the day...

. The contents (maintaining the original spelling) are as follows:

1. A Preludium (John Bull)
2. A Psalme
3. Mrs Villers Sport:
4. Besse A Bell
5. Daphny
6. The Building of Polles
7. The French Balletto
8. A French Tuckato
9. Fortune my foe
10. In the dayes of old
11. Frogges Galliard (John Dowland)
12. [untitled]
13. M^r Wards Masque (? John Ward)
14. The Princes Masque
15. A Toy
16. The Queens Masque
17. The New Nightingall
18. The Meiry Companion
19. An Ayre
20. The meiry Milke-maide
21. Simphony
22. The Queenes Galiard
23. Simphony
24. Simphony
25. A Corranto
26. A Masque
27. The meiry old man:
28. The healthes
29. The Sheepeard
30. The Duke of Buckeinghams Masque
31. The Milke maide
32. The
33. Symphony
34. The choyce by M^r Ives (Simon Ives)
35. [untitled]
36. M^r W: M: delight (Simon Ives)
37. The Scotch tune
38. The Blaseing Torch
39. M^r Holmes Coranto (? Thomas Holmes)
40. [untitled]
41. M^r Whitelockes Coranto (Bulstrode Whitelocke)
42. Simphony by M^r Ives (Simon Ives)
43. Among the mirtills (Henry Lawes)
44. [untitled]
45. An almon by M^r Ive (Simon Ives)
46. A Coranto by M^r Ive (Simon Ives)
47. A Coranto by M^r Ive (Simon Ives)
48. The Maide
49. A Simphony by M^r Ive (Simon Ives)
50. al done

See also

• The Mulliner Book
  The Mulliner Book
  The Mulliner Book is a historically important musical commonplace book compiled, probably between about 1545 and 1570, by Thomas Mulliner, about whom practically nothing is known, except that he figures in 1563 as modulator organorum of Corpus Christi College, Oxford...
  
  
• The Dublin Virginal Manuscript
• My Ladye Nevells Booke
  My Ladye Nevells Booke
  My Ladye Nevells Booke is a music manuscript containing keyboard pieces by the English composer William Byrd, and, together with the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, one of the most important collections of keyboard music of the renaissance.-Description:My Ladye Nevells Booke consists of 42 pieces for...
  
  
• Susanne van Soldt Manuscript
  Susanne van Soldt Manuscript
  The Susanne van Soldt Manuscript is a keyboard anthology dated 1599 consisting of 33 pieces copied by or for a young Flemish or Dutch girl living in London...
  
  
• Clement Matchett's Virginal Book
  Clement Matchett's Virginal Book
  Clement Matchett's Virginal Book is a musical manuscript from the late renaissance compiled by a young Norfolk man in 1612. Although a small anthology, it is notable not only for the quality of its music but also for the precise fingering indications that reveal the contemporary treatment of...
  
  
• Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
  Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
  The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book is a primary source of keyboard music from the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean periods in England, i.e., the late Renaissance and very early Baroque. It takes its name from Viscount Fitzwilliam who bequeathed this manuscript collection to Cambridge University in 1816...
  
  
• Parthenia
• Priscilla Bunbury's Virginal Book
  Priscilla Bunbury's Virginal Book
  Priscilla Bunbury's Virginal Book is a musical commonplace book compiled in the late 1630's by two young women from an affluent Cheshire family. It is important more for its fingering indications than for the quality of the music it contains.-The Manuscript:...
  
  
• Elizabeth Roger's Virginal Book
  Elizabeth Roger's Virginal Book
  Elizabeth Rogers Virginal Book is a musical commonplace book compiled in the mid-seventeenth century by a person or persons so far unidentified...