CHARLES I was one of the greatest patrons of the arts to sit on the English throne. His reign began on 27 March 1625, after the death of his father, James I; the first time an adult male had directly succeeded to the English throne since Henry VIII in 1509. Born in 1600, Charles was William Lawes’s senior by two years. By the time Lawes gained a post in the royal household in 1635 Charles had been ruling without parliament for six years. The so-called ‘personal rule’ lasted until 1640, by which time Charles – largely through a mixture of ineptitude and circumstance – managed to bring about a political climate that would result in civil war and regicide.

Charles was an aesthete. He spent a king’s fortune amassing one of the most impressive art collections in Europe, and commissioned the leading artists of the day such as Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony Van Dyck. Also a lover of music, according to John Playford, Charles was taught to play the bass viol by John Coprario. His musical tastes were strongly influenced by his elder brother Henry, who died unexpectedly in 1612. Upon his accession, Charles inherited the existing royal musicians and their organizational structure. The changes that the Royal Music underwent during Charles’s reign were significant in many ways, but perhaps the most important innovation was the formation of the group variously known as ‘Lutes, Viols and Voices’ (LVV), in which Lawes was later employed.

THE main residence of the Tudors and early Stuarts was Whitehall Palace. Royal residences were also kept at Hampton Court, St James’s and Greenwich; wherever the monarch resided he/she brought the administrative structure with them. The structure of the court had to change in 1603 to accommodate the new king. Unlike Elizabeth I, James VI of Scotland (now James I of England), had a consort and children. The main household was now that of the king. His wife, Queen Anne of Denmark, also had her own household, as did the royal children (Henry, Charles and Elizabeth) as they came of age. Each of these establishments had its own staff, including musicians, and essentially mirrored the structure of the main household.