The Viol at Court

IN 1660 the royal music was revived with the rest of the court more or less exactly as it had stood in 1642. At least ten viol players were given places: Thomas Bates, Paul Francis Bridges, Charles Coleman senior and junior (sharing a place), William Gregory junior, Henry Hawes, John Hingeston, John Smith, Dietrich (Theodore) Stoeffken (Steffkins), and his son Frederick William (also sharing a place). In addition, John Jenkins and John Lillie, famous virtuoso viol players, were employed as lutenists. They all served in the Private Music except for Bates and Gregory, who were assigned to the Chapel Royal, probably to support the bass of the choir. Significantly, treble or tenor viols are not mentioned in Restoration court payments. Dietrich Stoeffken was paid for a bass viol on 16 July 1661 and lyra viols on 14 May 1663 and 14 March 1671, while Smith, Bates, Bridges, Hawes, and Gregory were paid for bass viols on 4 September, 22 October and 18 November 1662,17 June 1664, and 7 February 1665 respectively. Hingeston provided ‘a Base Vyall for the Private Musicke’ in 1661-2.

Two related trends are observable during Charles II’s reign. There was a reduction in the number of posts for viol players as individuals died or surrendered their places, and new appointees were increasingly likely to double up as members of the Twenty-Four Violins - where they presumably played violin-family instruments rather than viols. Of the players appointed in 1660, Coleman senior died in 1664, leaving his son in sole possession of the place; Dietrich Stoeffken died in 1673 while on court business in Cologne, also leaving his son in sole possession. Hawes was succeeded by the violinist Joseph Fashion in 1679; and Gregory, who had inherited Bates’s place in 1679, was not reappointed at the beginning of James II’s reign in 1685. Bridges and Smith lost their posts in 1673 because they were Catholics and were therefore banned from the court by the provisions of the Test Act, passed in that year. Bridges was replaced by John Young, described as ‘viol de Gambo’ when he was sworn in on 13 May 1674, though Young was replaced by a violinist, William Hall, at his death in 1679.