Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 11.djvu/123

 n s. xi. FEB. 6, 1915.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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It is probable from this that the Henry in Thomas Bradbury's will was his own brother, and not his wife's as stated at the second reference.

Philippa's son Thomas was afterwards knighted ; he married Dorothy, the daughter of Sir Geoffrey Gate, and sister of Sir John Gate, who was beheaded for his support of Lady Jane Grey. The Wisemans of Much Canfield were a notable family; and the Wentworths, who held Gosfield Hall, were ennobled.

Clutterbuck ('Hist, of Herts') says that Philippa was a daughter of William Brad- bury of Littlebury, near Walden in Essex, and further particulars of the family can be found in the county histories of Herts and Essex. I am not quite sure, without reference, if the Jocelyn peerage (Earldom of Roden) is in this line or her cousin Ralph's.

The Bradburys were goldsmiths, which accounts for the profusion of fine plate men- tioned in the will. It is worth publishing in detail, as an example of what some house- holds owned at that time.

Sir Ralph Josselyn, twice Lord Mayor of London, was, I think, the immediate prede- cessor of Thomas Bradbury. He restored the fortunes of the family, which is said to date from the Conquest.

I shall be glad if any one can give me the information about some other Josselyns of this period, which I am asking for in a separate note. RALPH NEVILL, F.S.A.

Castle Hill, Guildford.

OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM (US. xi. 68). I have no wish to reopen the well-worn dis- cussion of the authorship of the air of ' God save the King.'. The subject has been debated times without number in the past fifty years, and the fullest history is to be found in a series of articles by Dr. Wm. H. Cummings, formerly Principal of the Guild- hall School of Music, which appeared in The Musical Times from March to August, 1878. His researches left him confident that Dr. John Bull was the author of the air.

On the other hand, Dr. Fink, who years ago edited The Leipsic Musical Gazette, also a musical antiquary of deep research, was equally positive that Dr. Henry Carey com- posed the tune in honour of the birthday of George II. Mr. Chappell, in his ' Collection of National Airs,' also unhesitatingly attributed the authorship to Henry Carey. In ' N. & Q.,' 2 S. x. 301, there is a letter from Diisseldorf bearing the signature of FRANCIS DICKINS, Associate and Hon. Member of the Societa clella Santa Cecilia in Rome, in which the

writer says, referring to Henry Carey (who was born in 1696, and committed suicide in 1744) : _

" There is not the slightest doubt of the fact that he was the composer and poet of ' God save the King,' the national anthem not only of England, but of Prussia and all the rest of the German States, which borrowed this mighty melody from us."

He scorned the idea of Dr. John Bull, who- was born in 1563, being the author.

MR. HARRISON will find several interesting letters about the adoption of the English air, not only by all the German States, but also by Denmark, Switzerland, and Russia, at 8 S. x. 438 and xi. 10 and 11, which, I think, will supply all the information he- requires, if not more.

In a lecture delivered by Dr. Cummings at the Royal Institution in 1902, after demolishing the claims of Carey, Ravens- croft, Forbes, Lulli, Purcell, and Handel to the authorship of the tune, which he unhesitatingly ascribed to John Bull, he- added that, as a matter of fact, it was; a variation of the old dance form known as the Galliard, which was made up of two bar groups of triple time, with two parts of six and eight bars respectively.

In the same year a very interesting little book on the origin and history of the music and words of ' God save the King ' was com- piled by Dr. Cummings and published by Novellos. In it he states that " the German form to the words ' Heil Dir im Siegerkranz ' was written by Balthasar Gerhard Schumacher, and was first published in the Spenersche Zeitung in Berlin, December 17, 1793,. It was ajtemvards adopted as a national song by- Prussia, Saxony, and other German States. It must, however, have been familiar to German folk in 1791, for in May of that year was published ' Four-and-Twenty Variations for the Clavichord or Fortepiano on the English People's-Song " God save the King." '

In the appendix to his book Dr. Cummings: prints the music of the air as copied from Dr. Bull's MS., but I am bound to state that it appears to me to bear but little resem- blance to the tune of our National Anthem as played to-day.

WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

Julian's ' Dictionary of Hymnology ' says, that the melody of ' God save the King ' became known on the Continent about 1766. It was set in Denmark as a national air to the words " Heil Dir, dem liebenden," a song in eight stanzas, written for the birthday of Christian VII. (a brother-in-law to George IIL of England ), and published in 1 790. Passing