Rev. Matthais Rutton, Master Kings Scool Rochester 1641-60 Vicar Boughton Monchelsea, Kent. Father in law to John Gostling, the celebrated bass and friend of Henry Purcell.

The Rev. Matthias RUTTON  

Rutton Family Coat of arms ³

(Head) Master of Kings School Rochester 1641-1660

 A time of Civil War

A daily journal of the parliamentary armies ‘Journey into Kent’, from 19^th August to 3rd September 1642, gives an account of the actions of the parliamentary soldiers in Rochester Cathedral and elsewhere in the county of Kent:

 On Wednesday, being Bartholomew Day, before we marched forth, some of our souldiers (remembring their protestation which they tooke) went to the Cathedrall about 9 or 10 of the clock, in  the midst of their superstitious worship, with their singing men and boys; they (owing them no reverence) marched up to the place where the altar stood, and staying awhile, thinking they would have eased their worship, and demanded a reason of their posture, but seeing they did not, the souldiers could not forbeare any longer to wait upon their pleasure, but went about the worke they came for.¹

Their task consisted of breaking up the altar and altar rails, destroying prayer books and removing any decorative artefact.  Canon John Lorkin, who had attempted to reason with the soldiers, survived unscathed when a firearm was discharged in his direction.  The soldiers then left for Maidstone promising on their return to dismantle the organ.  Taking the threat seriously the Dean ordered its removal and it was taken to a tavern in Greenwich for safe keeping.¹  Those familiar with the history of the Cathedral will be aware of tales of desecration and worse. The Rev. Samuel Denne, an authority on the history and antiquities of Rochester, records as follows:

On the testimony of  Mr. William Head, senior alderman of the city, a very antient worthy man, who died on the 5^th March 1732 - that the church was used as a stable by Fairfax’s troops, who turned their horses’ heads into the stalls in the choir.¹

There is an example of looting which has resonance in more contemporary civil disorder:

The name of one despoiler is on record. In the answer by the Dean and Chapter to an enquiry by Bishop Warner, a certain John W. Tyld, a shoemaker of Rochester, is mentioned as having taken down and sold iron and brass work from some of the tombs.¹

In the interests of balance, it should be mentioned that other Royalist supporters gave witness that the Cathedral was spared much of the damage to windows, monuments, choir stalls and other parts of the fabric, deemed ‘popish’ decoration, meted out elsewhere; Canterbury Cathedral suffered much worse.  Additionally we know from Archbishop Laud’s report to Charles I in 1633 that Rochester Cathedral, its glass, ancient monuments and many of its associated buildings were already in a poor state of repair.²

We do not know if the Rev. Matthias Rutton, Master of the Cathedral Grammar School, the King’s School, and his scholars were present at worship that St. Bartholomew’s day (24^th August 1642); maybe it was a holiday, but these acts of desecration perpetrated by the troops under Colonels Sandys and Smeaton would have shocked many in the City. The Cathedral, stripped of its function, was then condemned to nearly twenty years of neglect and misuse. ¹ Rutton was a member of an extensive family, originally brewers, translating to London from the Low Countries, probably Holland, first mentioned as aliens living in London about 1572. There are various references to the progenitor of the family in England, his grandfather, named Matthias Rutton, alias Tyce (the family name of his wife Mary) or a Matthias Ruyting ‘brewer by the tower’ and his associate Roger James.³ His eldest son, (our subject’s father) was Isaac Rutton, Gentleman and Alderman of Rochester who was born about 1588 and died 10^th November 1625. In times past there was a memorial to him and his wife, also named Mary, in the nave at Rochester Cathedral, now concealed by restoration work.²  

 Isaac and Mary had six children, the eldest being Matthias, born c.1613. There are no known details of Rutton’s early schooling.  Records for University College, Oxford show his matriculation at the age of 18 on 14^th October 1631; his award of Bachelor of Arts on 30^th October 1632 and Masters’ degree on 9^th June 1636.⁴  He was ordained deacon at Canterbury 7^th Oct 1635 and inducted as Vicar of Cobham, Kent by Archbishop Laud of Canterbury on 17^th Oct 1637, a living he may have retained until 2^nd March 1661, although this has not been confirmed.⁵  Details of his first marriage are unknown but he had two sons and three daughters.  His sons, Mathias and Matthew, were educated at Eton and King’s College Cambridge. The younger, Matthew, was admitted as a scholar to both institutions but died of consumption before graduating.³ In 1641 Rutton was appointed Master of the King’s School following the death of Michael Chapman who had held the post since 1631.⁵  

The chirch at Cobham, Kent

Rutton took up his quarters in the School house. There are indications he may have found his lodgings ‘very insufficient for their purpose’.⁶   Under the School’s founding charter there was provision for 20 scholars and an under-master or ‘usher’.  In addition to his salary of £67 per annum, the Master would have been entitled to a living, equivalent to that of a minor-canon, from the patronage of the Dean and Chapter, the governing body of the school. Four scholarships were available with bursaries; two each to Oxford and Cambridge universities.⁷  In addition there were the four more valuable exhibitions to University College, Oxford, (particularly favouring members of the Ayerst family),  shared with the Maidstone Grammar School. These were provided for in the will of the Rev. Robert Gunsley, Rector of Titsey, Surrey, made in 1618.⁷ As part of his entitlement as Master, Matthias Rutton was instituted Vicar of Boughton Monchelsea in 1648. Although in the Diocese of Canterbury, the benefice lay within the gift of the Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral.  However, the Dean and Chapter itself was abolished by the parliament on 30^th April 1649.  A parish document indicates Rutton was ejected from his living ‘at the time of the Commonwealth’ (declared by the Rump Parliament 19^th May 1649). The Cathedral estates were surveyed in the subsequent months, with a view to sale or rent, to provide much needed finance to maintain and pay the New Model Army which, even at this early stage of its formation, was close to mutiny. The parsonage at Boughton Monchelsea is recorded as being part of this survey in November 1649.  It is interesting to note that  the ancient privilege of using the Vines as a place of recreation was preserved for the new tenants of the Rochester Cathedral estate and the King's School (by then probably known as the ‘Free Grammar School’ or the ‘Free School’).⁷  With Archbishop Laud as a patron to his first living at Cobham, Rutton may have found himself in a precarious position. Laud was a protégée of James 1 and continued to find favour on the accession of Charles I.  The latter appointed him to the See of Canterbury. He persecuted non-conformists and his theology was viewed as being dangerously close to Roman Catholicism. Laud was imprisoned in the Tower in 1641 for treason and, after a trial which resulted in the indecision of his peers in the House of Lords, he was finally executed by special decree of the Commons in January 1645.

   Many priests with Royalist leanings or traditionalist views did survive within the church or took secondary posts, such as schoolmasters, or became chaplains to Royalist families.⁸ It may also have been helpful that members of Rutton’s family were supporters of Parliament. His younger brother Thomas was a lieutenant in a regiment of the parliamentary army commanded by Colonel Sir William Fairfax.³ A cousin, also named Thomas Rutton, (born 11.12.1611), was appointed by Parliament to be Rector of St Mary-le-Bow, London 21^st February 1644. He was later ejected from this living, post-reformation in 1662. He may have been a preacher of some note as the text of his sermon on the subject of the ‘judgement to come’, delivered at St. Paul’s Cathedral before Sir Richard Chiverton, Lord Mayor of the City of London, and the Aldermen, on 12^th September  1658, was published the same year.⁹
    

A year or two after the end of the first civil war in 1646, the general population was demonstrating its discontent with the Puritan regime.  Even appearing in public without appropriate clothing ensuring all flesh and hair was covered, particularly for women, could lead to censure. There had been rioting in several major cities over increased taxation to meet the spiralling costs of the army and the suppression of traditional festivities, particularly the feast of Christmas.   A meeting of the ‘gentry’ in Rochester drew up a petition to Parliament for the King to be restored and the army disbanded. The Royalist rebellion started on 21^st May 1648, when the rebels seized Canterbury, Rochester and three other towns in Kent. They also laid siege to Dover Castle. At Chatham on 27^th May, navy officers and crews mutinied in support.   Sir Thomas Fairfax was sent with 8,000 men of the New Model Army to suppress the rebellion.  There then followed the battle of Maidstone on 1^st June where, after several hours of vicious street fighting, the  rebel force in the town, numbering about 3,000, was defeated. Fairfax pursued the remaining 4,000 Royalists, under the command of the Earl of Norwich, who had not taken part in the battle and had retreated to Rochester. Norwich, realising his untrained volunteers were no match for the disciplined troops of the New Model Army, straightaway left towards London.  Rochester was thus spared a battle. To cover their retreat the Royalists destroyed the wooden drawbridge section of the bridge; most likely causing considerable inconvenience to the citizens. Now isolated, the navy mutineers sailed their ships to Helvoetsluys in the Netherlands rather than surrender to the Parliamentary forces.   This last rebellion put down, the King was brought to trial in early 1649 and executed on 30^th January.^{2 & 8}

The School and Master survived these seismic events to enjoy a relatively calmer decade.   A list of pupils’ entrances to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge from 1650, recorded after 1660 in the archives of the new Dean and Chapter, ⁷ include Thomas Ayerst, (Gunsley Exhibitioner to University College, Oxford),⁴  Edward Brown, (Clare College, Cambridge), the brothers James and Robert Dixon, (both to St. John’s Cambridge). ¹⁰ These four, and possibly Thomas Deane (also a Gunsley Exhibitioner) ⁴ and John Lorkin (son of Canon Lorkin, above), (Sidney College, Cambridge and appointed Vicar of Hartlip 21.1.1670), ⁵ would at some time have been under Rutton’s  tutelage.   He was succeeded by Thomas Yardley, Minor-canon and Vicar of Halling, Master of the King’s School from 1660-3. ⁵
    

Contrary to their fundamentalist image the Puritans and Parliament made new provisions for education on humanist lines. (In addition to his duties as Captain-General and Commander in Chief of the army, in 1651 Oliver Cromwell was elected Chancellor of Oxford University, having previously been given an honorary doctorate in 1649.)  In republican England after 1640 – when King and Court had been swept away, the House of Lords abolished as being both useless and dangerous, Bishops banished from the church – Parliament seriously considered plans for education reform based on the lines of Francis Bacon - which heralded the separation of sacred and secular learning….. Puritans did not wither the humanist heritage, even though schools became progressively more godly…. Schoolmasters should grasp the teaching method of understanding of children’s capabilities as well as their learning – that learning is empty unless accompanied by understanding and turned to good use……Confiscated Ecclesiastical endowments were turned to the use of schools and there were innovations at the universities where the colleges, purged of the drones, were sometimes furnished with enthusiast for science. ⁶

There were schisms within the controlling puritan community which varied from benign conformity to outright bigotry. Beyond the reformed Anglican Church there were numerous sects and non-conformists which had large constituencies. The Baptists and Anabaptists were particularly influential in Kent. Anglican clergymen were often challenged on theological interpretation particularly on the subject of infant baptism, proscribed by such non-conformists. In 1655, ‘occasioned by a disputation betwixt Mr. Matthias Rutton, minister of Boughton Munchalse in Kent’, he became embroiled in a public debate with the Anabaptist preacher, George Hammon, on the subject of the loss of the earthly paradise by original sin.¹¹ Although trifling in comparison with events at the time, this incident is an indication of the tensions existing in daily life when figures of authority, such as Anglican clergy, could be subject of such confrontation.¹²  

Boughton Monchelsea the Lych-Gate and Church

Rutton’s departure from the school in 1660 coincided with the Restoration. He resumed his living at Boughton Monchelsea  ‘at the petition of his parishioners’. His name is included in the County Hearth Tax records of 1664; the parsonage had four hearths and would have been considered a comfortable residence.  (This tax is referred to in Samuel Pepys’ Diary as ‘Chimney Money’, and was levied twice a year at Lady Day and Michaelmas).¹³ He lived to see all his surviving four children married. It is not known who was or what became of his first wife, but on 31^st Oct 1671 at Boughton Monchelsea, he married Mary Turner of Maidstone who had previously been living in the Parish of St. Pauls, Covent Garden, London.  She had at least one daughter, Elizabeth, from a previous marriage.   On 27^th February 1675, Elizabeth Turner married the Rev. John  Gostling,  aged 24 years, at Wouldham,  Kent,  the parish of his older brother Isaac, who was Rector from 1667-1682 and a former minor-canon at Rochester Cathedral.⁵  John Gostling was a former pupil of King’s School Rochester and was taught by of John Edwards, Master from 1663 to 1676. ^1O   Gostling was later to become a celebrated bass singer at the Chapel Royal and the Private Music, firstly for Charles II, then to James II, who also appointed him a King’s  Chaplain and Sub-Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. He was also to become a close friend and colleague of Henry Purcell. ¹⁴  

The monument to Matthias Rutton in the nave of St. Peter’s Church, Boughton Monchelsea, is now covered by tiles laid during extensive 19^th century restoration work. However, an earlier parish record described his memorial as follows:

In the middle aisle a large flat stone has the following inscription ‘Here is interred the body of Mathias Rutton, gentleman, and master of arts, who was vicar of this parish 37 years; he died the 6^th day of January, A.D. 1685, in the 74 ^th year of his age’. Arms, three unicorns heads couped 2 & 1, and counter changed.  Crest - 3 unicorn heads with fesse or and azure.  The arms appear on his gravestone in Boughton Monchelsea church. It is not known to whom the arms were granted. ^{15   
                                                                                                                                                Christopher Pell 2012}

References: 

1 The Cathedral Church  of Rochester a description of its fabric and a brief history of its Episcopal See : G.H. Palmer B.A. 

London George Bell and Sons 1897 and ‘Faith and Fabric’ a history of Rochester Cathedral , AD 604 to 1994: Nigel West

and  (Canon) Paul  A. Welsby.

2. The City and Liberty of Rochester: ‘the priory and cathedral church', The History and Topographical Survey of the County

 of Kent: Volume 4 (1798),  Edward Hasted.        

3. Rutton family of Kent: Richard Williams 2011 &  Huguenot Society Vol. 10.2

4. Alumni Oxoniensis 1500-1714: edited Joseph Foster

5. Database of the Clergy of the Church of England.

6  Education and society in Tudor England, Joan Simon 1979: Cambridge University press.

7. The Quarterly volume of education vol. 1O p.257:  ‘Education in Kent’  & Ecclesiastical Regular and Capitular Foundations

/ Dean and Chapter of Rochester Cathedral Estate Records  & Parliamentary Survey 1649.  

8.  British Civil Wars, Commonwealth and Protectorate 1638-60 :   David Plant, 2001-12 

9.The ‘judgement to come’ by Thomas Rutton pastor of M. le Bow, London. Published 1658 by printed by J.H. for J. Rothwell,

 at the Fountain in Goldsmiths-row in Cheap-side in London.  Tuesday 14. September 1658.   Exeter College Library, Oxford  

10. Alumni Cantabriensis Venn 1922: Cambridge University Press 

11. Hezekiah Holland fl. 1638-1661. London: Printed for George Calvert 1656.   Bodleian Library and    George Hammon, 

A Discovery of the· Latitude of the Lass of the Earthly Paradise, 1655,   Anabaptist Quarterly

12. The year 1655 conflicts with  the parish record of his ejection from the living at Boughton Monchelsea during the period 

of the Commonwealth.  As Master of the school he would have mainly been resident in Rochester.

13.  Index Library Kent: Hearth tax assessment Lady Day 1664: edited by Duncan Harrington, context and analysis Sarah 

Pearson.

14. An account of the life and times of the Rev. John Gostling O.R. by Christopher Pell appeared in the Old Roffensian Magazine published December 2010. Volume 4 Number 9.

15. Ruttons’ nephew, Isaac Rutton (son of Thomas Rutton, Lt. Parliamentary Army) was Lieutenant in command at Sandgate

 Castle, and was buried in Hythe Church 14 September 1688; his a memorial had the inscription on a label under the shield,

 which shows Per fess or and azure, three unicorns' heads couped and counterchanged two and one. Above the shield

 — liberally mantled — on an esquire's helmet is the crest, An unicorn's head couped, per fess or and azure. 

The inscription reads: ‘Against this place lyes buried the body of Isacke Rutton gen' livetennant of Sandgate Castle: 1683.’

John Gostling 1650 - 1733 - bass singer extraordinary - friend and colleague of Henry Purcell at the Chapel Royal

Rev. John Gostling  

Born East Malling, 25 March 1650 – died Canterbury, 17 July 1733

They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in geat waters;

These see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep

Psalm 107 vv23-4

The coronation of James II and Queen Mary was evidently a spectacular and sumptuous affair and was meticulously recorded by Francis Sandford, Lancaster Herald. The Rev. Minor Canon John Gostling of Canterbury and St. Paul’s cathedrals was in his eighth year as a member of the choir of the Chapel Royal and the Private Music to Charles II and now to his brother James. In two years time he would be appointed one of the numerous King’s Chaplains (in ordinary) as well as Prebendary of Lincoln and Sub-Dean of St. Paul’s in 1690.¹ He was a friend and colleague of Henry Purcell and was acknowledged as having one of the finest and lowest bass voices of his time. Sandford describes part of the scene at the Abbey:

The Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, with the instrumental musick, and the choir of Westminster (Abbey) sang and played together this verse Anthem, (God spake sometimes in visions by Dr. John Blow) as a solemn conclusion of the King’s part of the coronation…….At the end of which Anthem the trumpets sounded, and the drums did beat and the people shouted, crying out God Save the King!  Meanwhile the Treasurer of the King’s household, attended by Garter King of Arms and Black Rod, distributed alms of gold and silver medals amongst the people as a sign of the King’s largesse…”.²  

 John Gostling was born in East Malling the youngest son of Isaac Gostling, a chandler and his wife Sarah. ³   John’s son William, recalls his date of birth as being Lady Day (25^th March) 1650.⁴  John had three brothers;  Thomas, Isaac, William and two sisters (Sarah and Dorothy.    He and his brother, William, were listed as pupils at the Cathedral Grammar School, the Kings School, Rochester in 1668.  Their father, Isaac Gostling, died in February 1669 and his will gives details of a series of not unsubstantial bequests in the form of money and land in both East Malling and Hollingbourne, Kent. It seems that his third son, William, continued his father’s business and made a will dated 2 Jan 1715. ⁵   Their bother Isaac Gostling, eighteen years older than John, was appointed a Minor Canon at Rochester Cathedral in 1667, and as the Rector of  the adjacent village Wouldham, where he was the incumbent until 1682.⁶  It is not known what became of the eldest son, Thomas, save his father’s will makes a bequest to his son, Isaac’s grandson, also named Isaac. Parish records were severely disrupted during the time of the Civil War and the Commonwealth.

On 21 October 1668 John Gostling entered St. Johns College, Cambridge:

 John Gosling, of East Moiling (Malling), Kent, son of Isaac Gosling, ' mercer '; bred (educated) at Rochester under Mr Edwards; admitted ‘sizar’ for Mr. Worrell (a poor student, who gained admittance by examination, exempted from tuition fees and servant to a fellow). His tutor and surety was Mr Grouch. ⁷  

 He is believed to have been a member of the choir and graduated Bachelor of Arts in 1672 or 1673.  His elder bother, Isaac, by some eighteen years, was also an undergraduate at St. Johns, admitted in 1652, having been educated at East Malling by a Mr. Whitle. Their father’s (also Isaac Gostling) occupation was then shown as Chandler, (candelarii). ⁷   

John was ordained priest at Ely on 30 May, 1675. ⁸  The dates for his appointment as Minor Canon at Canterbury vary, but in this post his first son, John, was baptised at the Cathedral in 1676, a daughter, Elizabeth (named after his first wife), on 1 December 1678, and a second son, Thomas on 22 March 1680. ⁹ His other clerical appointments were: Vicar of Littlebourne near Canterbury from 1675; Rector of All Saints Hope, Romney March from 1682 until he resigned in 1709; a Minor Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral from 1683 to 1689 and Sub-Dean in 1690; Prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral from 1689; Rector of Holy Cross, Westgate, Kent in 1717 and Rector  of Brook and Milton in Kent. His son, William born in 1695 and educated at King’s School, Canterbury, was also a minor Canon of Canterbury Cathedral and succeeded his father as Vicar of Littlebourne. ¹

  

After three or four years as a member of the choir at Canterbury Cathedral, his prowess as an extraordinary singer had evidently reached the Chapel Royal. Gostling received a letter from Thomas Purcell, (then a member of the Chapel Royal and most likely Henry’s uncle and guardian since his father’s death), dated 8 February 1679. In this he alludes to some new composition his “son” Henry Purcell was writing to include his (Gostling’s) low range and “’tis very likely you may have a summons to appeare among us sooner than you imagine”. ¹⁰     

Accordingly, on 25th February, Gostling was sworn a gentleman extraordinary of the Chapel Royal, and on the 28th was admitted “in ordinary” on the death of William Tucker. The entry in the Chapel Royal cheque book describes him as a “base from Canterbury, Master of Arts” ¹¹.

It was quite common for the Chapel Royal to poach singers, mostly boy choristers, from other musical establishments. As master of the Children of the Chapel Royal, Captain Cooke, who achieved his military rank on the Royalist side during the Civil War, includes in his expenses his visits to cathedrals for such a purpose, including Rochester in 1670 and 1671.¹²   Progress towards re-establishing choirs after the restoration was slow. In 1680 the choir at Rochester merely comprised 6 choristers , 4 minor canons and 6 lay clerks. ¹³

Purcell wrote several anthems at different times to include Gostling’s extraordinary voice, a profound bass which is known to have had a range of at least two full octaves, from D below the bass staff to the D above it.   Peter Holman, in his biography on Purcell, comments

It is significant that Purcell marked a low D in the bass part of his symphony song, “If ever I more riches desire”, “Gostling”.  Having taken holy orders he was essentially a church musician and seems to have confined his secular musical activities to the court. (By this time he was also a member of the Private Music to Charles II) ¹⁴

  As a comment on the quality of his voice few other basses either then or today can manage the low D with any real resonance and sometimes Purcell would write an alternative note for lesser singers. Gostling was a great favourite of Charles II who is reported to have said of him “You may talk as much as you please of your nightingales, but I have a Gosling who excels them all”. Another time, the same “merry Monarch” presented him with a silver egg filled with guineas, saying “ that he had heard that eggs were good for the voice”. The King could sing the tenor part of an easy song; he would “oftentimes sing with Mr. Gostling; the Duke of York (the King’s brother James) accompanying them on the guitar”.⁴  The diarist, John Evelyn, on styles of singing, complained of the loud voice of the soprano, Mrs Packer, engaged for an entertainment for Charles II and his brother the Duke of York on 28 January 1685. He was more appreciative of “that stupendious Base, John Gostling, accompanying her”. ¹⁴  

In another anecdote, recorded in several sources, Charles II had given orders for building a yacht, which as soon as it was finished he named the ‘Fubbs’, in honour of the Duchess of Portsmouth; the term “fubby” being a contemporary allusion to those of fuller figure.

The King made a party to sail in the yacht down the river and round the Kentish coast; and to “keep up the mirth and good humour of the company, Gostling was requested to be of the number.” They had got as low as the North Foreland, when a violent storm arose, in which the King and the Duke of York were necessitated, in order to avoid shipwreck, to man the sails and work like common seamen.   They escaped this catastrophe; but the event apparently made a serious impression on Gostling. This deliverance caused him to choose a text from the Psalms “those passages which declare the wonders and terrors of the deep” and gave them to Purcell to compose as an anthem, (They that go down to the sea in ships). Purcell’s composition was so peculiar to the compass of Gostling's voice, “that hardly any person but himself was then, or has since, been able to sing it; but the King did not live to hear it.” ⁴   . 

In addition to the lute which all choristers practised, Gostling was devoted to the bass viol da gamba, an instrument which, apparently, Purcell disliked.   In humorous mood he composed a round for three voices, to the following words, which he presented to Gostling:  

Of all the instruments that are, None with the viol can compare. Mark how the strings their order keep with a whet, whet, whet, and a sweep, sweep, sweep. But above all this still abounds With a zingle, zingle, zing, and a zit zan zounds. ¹⁵

Following the death of Charles II on 6 February 1685, his brother James II, in a major cost cutting exercise, carried out widespread reductions to his court and Royal household including the Chapel Royal, the Private Music, and the instrumentalists in the wind band and the famous “Twenty Four Violins”.   John Gostling was one of only five singers included in the new list of the 30 musicians of the Private Music published on 31 August 1685. Henry Purcell was included as the harpsichordist and also Dr. John Blow the composer. ¹⁶    

In 1689 William and Mary, after their joint accession to the throne, initially continued royal patronage of the Private Music. The next spring, however, the establishment was reduced to twenty four.  Those losing their appointments were all the singers and the continuo section, including Purcell. Both the latter and Gostling still held their positions within the Chapel Royal and, in the case of Purcell, as one of the organists at Westminster Abbey. William, however, was renowned as having little interest in music. Mary continued the patronage until her early death in 1694 but even her taste inclined toward more popular songs.   The Chapel Royal continued to function but much of the private music and the string band just faded away rather than being formally disbanded. ¹⁴ 

Gostling’s brother, The Rev. Isaac Gostling M.A. joined him as a minor canon at St. Pauls Cathedral in 1687. As the new sub-dean in 1690, John Gostling would doubtless have played a major part in the resumption of worship in that magnificent new building. His son William remarked about his father in recorded letters and conversations in 1751 & 1760: “and his memory yet lives in that great cathedral”. ⁴

Gostling eventually retired to Canterbury where, “aged and infirm” he died and was interred in the cloisters.  The St. James's Evening Post ( London, England ) Thursday, July 19, 1733; (Issue 2828) records his passing:

Last Tuesday died, at Canterbury, in the 84th Year of his Age, the Rev.  Mr.  GOSTLING, M.  A.  who had been for near 60 Years Minor Canon of Canterbury, and Vicar of Littlebourn:  He was also one of the Gentlemen of his Majesty's Chapel, Sub-Dean of St. Paul's, and a Prebendary of Lincoln.  

The Clerk of the precincts of Canterbury also recorded his death as 17 July 1733.  There were various bequests to St. Pauls College, London, where he was provided a house as Minor Canon and later Sub-Sean of the Cathedral. He left property to his daughter Elizabeth Gostling, in the parish of St Peter the Apostle, Canterbury  (leased from Mayor and Corporation), and land in the same parish leased from Eastbridge Hospital, together with all household effects in her father’s house in St Paul’s College, London, except the pictures and linen. These were to be equally divided between Elizabeth and her brother William. William also had the choice of a diamond ring and the rest to be equally divided; all his books went to William; the sum of £50 to Elizabeth; £5 to Gostlings’s old servant maid, Ann Nicolls, the remainder to William, as executor. ¹⁷

John Gostling was noted as a copyist of both documents and music. In1681, as a minor canon at Canterbury he was paid ten guineas “for writing the Statutes and the Catalogue of the Bookes in the Library” and a place to work .¹⁸   But his lasting legacy and  important source for Purcell's music and that of other contemporary composers is the Gostling Manuscript; a collection, in his own hand, commencing 1687 and until 1706, which contains sixty-four anthems: seventeen by Purcell, twenty-three by John Blow, three byMatthew Locke, four byPelham Humfrey, four by William Turner, one byWilliam Child, one byHenry Aldrich, three by Thomas Tudway, four byJeremiah Clarke, and a few others.¹⁹  The manuscript  passed into the hands of his son William and then through the family to the early 20th century when it was presumed lost until it was revealed it had been bought at auction byFranklon B. Zimmerman. Various other music copies by his hand exist in U.K. and cathedral libraries.

Christopher PELL 

 2011

 

References

¹  Gostling John: Clergy of the Church of England Database (At first this was just a sinecure following its destruction in the Great Fire of London of 1666 but after 1687 a new choir was recruited and a limited number of services resumed).

². Bruce Wood -  A coronation anthem lost and found.

 ³  Olive Baldwin and Thelma Wilson, ‘Gostling, John (1649/50–1733)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11124.  

⁴  Literary Anecdotes John Nichols F.S.A. Rev.William Gosling p.3391815 Princeton University Library

⁵ Deanery of Shoreham , Probate 14 Apr 1716  William Gostlings’ will names his son Francis as executor and lists his siblings as  Isaac, Anne, Sarah, Bridgett, Dorothy, Mary and William

⁶   Records of Rochester. by  Revd. C.H.. Fielding, MA., Exhibitioner of Tonbridge School, and Lincoln College, Oxford. Dartford,  Cornell University Library    :   and recorded in the data base of the Clergy of the Church of England.    Isaac Gostling appointed Minor Canon by John Dolben, Bishop of Rochester 1666-1683  In 1680 he was appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury as Vicar of Sturry, Kent, which he held until 1691.

⁷   parts i ii jan. 1600 July 1715 Cambridge printed for the college at the university press  by Deighton bell and co.1893  . 

⁸  John Gosling in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press 

⁹ The register booke of christninges, marriages, and burialls within the precinct of the cathedrall and metropoliticall church of Christe of Canterburie".  

¹⁰ Volume 4, no. 1: Performing the Music of Henry Purcell. Edited by Michael Burden. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996  referring to “Voice Ranges, Voice Types, and Pitch in Purcell’s Concerted Works” by Timothy Morris.

¹¹ A Gostling Family from Kent - from a notebook written by Eliza Jacob (1836-1913), daughter of Reverend George Andrew Jacob, and wife of Major-General William Jacob (1837-1917), her cousin.

¹²The English Chorister, Alan Mould.

¹³ Cathedrals under siege: cathedrals in English society, 1600-1700. Stanford E. Lehmberg

¹⁴ Henry Purcell, Peter Holman.

¹⁵ Purcell William H. Cummings, London Sampson Low, Marston,Searle& Riverton, Crown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street, 1881.

¹⁶ Four and Twenty Fiddlers, Peter Holman..

¹⁷ Gostling, John   Will . ( Probate: Will: CKS: Canterbury Consistory Court, PRC 32/61, f.711; 1 Apr 1726; proved.)  :   A Biographical Dictionary of English Court Musicians 1485-1714.

¹⁸[Ramsay 387]  A summary chronology of the libraries of Canterbury Cathedral. David J. Shaw with the assistance of numerous other persons, especially Dr Margaret Sparks.

¹⁹The Gostling Manuscript. Foreword by Franklin B. Zimmerman. Author: Gostling, John, comp. Purcell, Henry, 1659-1695 (Austin, Texas UP, 1977).    

Les buts de l'association/ Aims of the association

 

  L’ASSOCIATION : DEUXPLUS et COMPAGNIE

L’association a pour objet de créer, de promouvoir et de rendre accessible des activités musicales, essentiellement en milieu rural. L’association a également pour but la mise en valeur du patrimoine sous toutes ses formes (culture, architecture et sites en Poitou-Charentes) en liaison avec la création locale.

 Caractéristiques

Ø      Pour la réalisation de son objet, l’association a pour moyen principal d’action :

l’administration et la représentation de l’ensemble DeuxPlus et Compagnie ainsi que des autres ensembles musicaux.

Ø      Edition et vente des enregistrements, reproductions, cartes postales, brochures, sous toutes leurs formes.

Ø      Manifestations culturelles telles que activités musicales, concerts vocaux et instrumentaux, festivals, expositions, présentation audiovisuelle.

Ø      Stages de formation et ateliers ouverts aux professionnels et aux amateurs (adultes et enfants) y compris aux institutions (scolaires). 

Il est fondé entre les adhérents aux présents statuts une association régie par la loi du 1^er juillet 1901 et le décret du 16 août 1901, ayant pour titre : « DeuxPlus et Compagnie ».    N° Siret : 523 821 361 000 12