James Lauder (musician)

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James Lauder was a Scottish musician who worked for Mary, Queen of Scots and James VI.

Contents

Career

James Lauder's parents were founders of Edinburgh's Magdalen Chapel Magdalen Chapel, Cowgate, Edinburgh.jpg
James Lauder's parents were founders of Edinburgh's Magdalen Chapel

James Lauder was a son or grandson of Gilbert Lauder, a burgess of Edinburgh, and Isobel MacQuhen or Mauchane. They were benefactors of Edinburgh's Magdalen Chapel, and their son Henry Lauder of St Germains was an advocate to Mary of Guise. [1] [2] [3]

James Lauder was first employed by the burgh council of Edinburgh as a musician at St Giles. In 1552, he was allowed to travel to England and France for a year to further his musical education. [4]

Lauder joined the houshold of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1562, and was granted a yearly fee of £100 Scots paid in three terms and a pension as a valet of the queen's chamber. [5] John Adesoun, a lute player, and David Rizzio received payments on the same basis. An account of pensions paid in 1564 reads "deliverit to James Lawder, ane of the varlettis of the quenis majesties chalmer for his witsonday terme of lxiiij yeirs [1564] of his pensione and fee the sowme of ane hundreth twentye fyve punds". [6] A household roll of 1566 lists "Jacques", who played the lute. Helen Mennie Shire suggested a payment of £20 to Lauder in November 1562 may have reciprocated a gift of a piece of music to the queen. [7]

In August 1566, he was appointed as a chaplain of the altar of St Nicholas in St Giles after William MacDowall. The position had been held in 1532 by a namesake relation who granted a charter to his parents. [8]

After Mary, Queen of Scots, fled to England in 1568, Lauder joined her household and was listed as a vallet de chambre at Tutbury Castle in 1569. [9] He was described as a groom of the chamber and musician in English lists of the houshold. [10]

Mary sent him with Alexander Bog (formerly a porter at Holyrood Palace) to Scotland with her letters in January 1570. Although they had passports from Elizabeth I, they were detained by the Earl of Sussex, Lord President of the North, in reaction to the assassination of Regent Moray. They were allowed to travel on to Scotland in April. They brought Mary's gift of a hackney horse for James VI and its graith, the horse harness and saddle, and his first doublet and long hose, and a writing primer, as well as a number of letters for her "faithful subjects". Mary described the gift in her letter to Annabell Murray, Countess of Mar at Stirling Castle. She may have intended that Lauder would become James's music teacher, but wrote that the two bearers of her letter would "vesey" her son to report on his progress. It is not clear if Lauder and Bog were allowed to present Mary's gifts to James VI. [11]

In September 1571, James Lauder carried a letter from Mary's supporters in Edinburgh Castle to an English courier at Cowthally Castle. [12] In March 1576, Mary asked Réné Dolu, a treasurer of her French estates, to pay him 200 livres for his pension. [13]

As a musician in the household of James VI, in 1580 he was sent to London to buy a pair of virginals for James VI. He still expected payment of his pension from Mary. [14]

In August 1584, the French diplomat Albert Fontenay stayed in Lauder's house in Edinburgh. [15] Fontenay described James VI in a letter to Claude Nau and claimed that he disliked and avoided the courtly arts of dance and music. [16] [17]

James Lauder was still a member of the royal household in the 1590s. In 1593, he examined the competency of John Chalmers as player of the virginals. [18]

A collection of Scottish music includes a dance "My Lord of Marche paven set be James Lawder, set 1584". Written for Robert Stewart, 1st Earl of March, according to Claire van Kampen the music has a "melancholic and sombre nature". [19] The poet Alexander Montgomerie made a sonnet for Lauder. [20] The line I wald se mare serves as an anagram for "Iames lawder". [21]

Family

James Lauder was married to Jean Hay (died 1614), they had seven children. [22] He had a son, possibly from another relationship, John Lauder, who was a member of Mary's household in 1571 and in the 1580s at Sheffield Castle and Sheffield Manor Lodge. [23] John played the bass-viol and was described as a pantry servant. [24] James Lauder wrote to his son John about payments from Mary and mentioned another court musician William Kinloch. [25] In 1584, James Lauder asked Fontenay to recommend that his son be made a valet of Mary's chamber. [26]

References

  1. ↑ Helen Minnie Shire, Song, Dance and Poetry at the Court of Scotland under King James VI (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 75, 262.
  2. ↑ Mairi Cowan, "Spiritual Ties of Kinship in Pre-Reformation Scotland", Elizabeth Ewan & Janay Nugent, Finding the Family in Early Modern Scotland (Ashgate, 2008), pp. 123–124: David Robertson and Marguerite Wood, Castle and Town (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1928), p. 219: Lectures on the Religious Antiquities of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1847), p. 199.
  3. ↑ Margaret H. B. Sanderson, A Kindly Place? Living in Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Tuckwell, 2002), pp. 144–145.
  4. ↑ Helen Mennie Shire, Song, Dance and Poetry at the Court of Scotland under King James VI (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 56, 75, 261: J. Cameron Lees, St Giles, Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1889), pp. 95–96.
  5. ↑ Gordon Donaldson, Thirds of Benefices (Edinburgh: SHS, 1949), p. 102.
  6. ↑ Michael Pearce, "Account of George Wishart of Drymme", Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, 17 (Edinburgh: SHS, 2025), p. 25: Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, 11 (Edinburgh, 1913), p. 214.
  7. ↑ Helen Minnie Shire, Song, Dance and Poetry at the Court of Scotland under King James VI (Cambridge, 1969), p. 75.
  8. ↑ Helen Minnie Shire, Song, Dance and Poetry at the Court of Scotland under King James VI (Cambridge, 1969), p. 75: Gordon Donaldson, Register of the Privy Seal of Scotland, 5:2 (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1957), p. 262 no. 3208: National Records of Scotland GD91/1.
  9. ↑ Helen Mennie Shire, Song, Dance and Poetry at the Court of Scotland under King James VI (Cambridge, 1969), p. 262.
  10. ↑ William K. Boyd, Calendar State Papers Scotland, 3 (Edinburgh, 1903), p. 565 no. 732
  11. ↑ Thomas Finlayson Henderson, Mary Queen of Scots, 2 (London, 1905), pp. 536–537: Calendar State Papers Scotland, 3 (Edinburgh, 1903), pp. 57 no. 90, 93 no. 145: Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth, Addenda (London, 1871), pp. 213, 271: HMC Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Salisbury, 1 (London, 1883), p. 463 no. 1468: Samuel Haynes, A Collection of State Papers (London, 1740), p. 575.
  12. ↑ Samuel Cowan, Mary Queen of Scots and who wrote the casket letters?, 2 (London, 1901), p. 120.
  13. ↑ Alexandre Labanoff, Lettres of Marie Stuart, (London: Dolman, 1844), p. 306.
  14. ↑ Helena Mennie Shire, "Musical Servitors to Queen Mary Stuart", Music & Letters, 40:1 (January 1959), pp. 15–16: National Records of Scotland E22/4 f.53r., transcribed by Sarah Carpenter "Item be the kingis maiesteis precept to his servitour James Lauder _ ijc merkis as for the dew price of twa pair of virginellis cost be the said James in London be his hienes directioun and command and deliverit to his maiestie, Togidder with ane hundreth merkis for his travell and expenss to london and careing & transporting of the said twa pair of virginellis thairfra".
  15. ↑ HMC Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Salisbury, vol. 3 (London, 1889), p. 61.
  16. ↑ Lauren Working, The Making of an Imperial Polity: Civility and America in the Jacobean Metropolis (Cambridge, 2020), p. 13 doi : 10.1017/9781108625227: Leanda de Lisle, Tudor: The Family Story (Chatto & Windus, 2013), p. 366.
  17. ↑ Steven Veerapen, The Wisest Fool: The Lavish Life of James VI and I (Birlinn, 2023), p. 83.
  18. ↑ Helen Mennie Shire, Song, Dance and Poetry at the Court of Scotland under King James VI (Cambridge, 1969), pp. 78, 262.
  19. ↑ Claire van Kampen, "In Practice", Bill Barclay and David Lindley, Shakespeare, Music and Performance (Cambridge, 2017), p. 46.
  20. ↑ Helen Mennie Shire, Song, Dance and Poetry at the Court of Scotland under King James VI (Cambridge, 1969), p. 77–79.
  21. ↑ David J. Parkinson, Alexander Montgomerie: Poems, 2 (Edinburgh: STS, 2000), p. 107: Helena Mennie Shire, "Musical Servitors to Queen Mary Stuart", Music & Letters, 40:1 (January 1959), p. 17.
  22. ↑ Helena Mennie Shire, "Musical Servitors to Queen Mary Stuart", Music & Letters, 40:1 (January 1959), p. 16.
  23. ↑ John Daniel Leader, Mary Queen of Scots in captivity: A Narrative of Events (Sheffield, 1880), pp. 186, 336.
  24. ↑ Helen Mennie Shire, Song, Dance and Poetry at the Court of Scotland under King James VI (Cambridge, 1969), p. 76: Helena Mennie Shire, "Musical Servitors to Queen Mary Stuart", Music & Letters, 40:1 (January 1959), p. 16.
  25. ↑ David J. Smith, "Keyboard Music in Scotland", James Porter, Defing Strains: The Musical Life of Scots in the Seventeenth Century (Peter Lang, 2007). pp. 114–115: Helena Mennie Shire, "Musical Servitors to Queen Mary Stuart", Music & Letters, 40:1 (January 1959), p. 18.
  26. ↑ Helen Mennie Shire, Song, Dance and Poetry at the Court of Scotland under King James VI (Cambridge, 1969), p. 262: Jean Hay's will mentions her son "Mr James Lauder".
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