That he studied music from an early age, we again know from Dowland himself2, but the nature of his studies and the identity of his teacher or teachers remain obscure. It seems probable that in accordance with the custom of the time he may have served an apprenticeship with a noble patron, a theory supported by the fact that in 1580 Dowland went to Paris in the service of Sir Henry Cobham, the ambassador to the French king. Paris at that time would have been a considerable attraction to the young musician, since assuming his training up to that point had been as a lutenist it boasted some of Europe’s most famous teachers and performers on the instrument, in particular Adrian Le Roy, whose published lute method was widely employed in England. At the French court Dowland would also have encountered the airs and dances that played an important role in masques, and whose melodic fluency undoubtedly had an influence on his formative style. An influence that, as we will see, would prove to have a rather less propitious outcome was his conversion in Paris to Roman Catholicism.

It is not known exactly when Dowland returned to England, but most scholars are of the view that he remained in Paris about four years. For further documented evidence relating to him we have to move on to 1588, by which time the young lutenist had evidently established himself. In that year the Oxford academic John Case’s Apologia musices named Dowland as one of the leading musicians of the day and in July, just as England apprehensively awaited the arrival of the Spanish Armada, he was admitted Bachelor of Music by Christ Church, Oxford. To receive the award, Dowland would have had to subscribe the 39 Articles of the Anglican Church, so he must have kept very quiet about his conversion to Catholicism, a curious situation given that the country could have been on the verge of a reversion to that faith! On 17 December 1590 we first hear of a composition of Dowland’s being sung at court before Elizabeth I, an occasion on which a version of the song His golden locks time hath to silver turn’d was apparently sung at the tiltyard as part of the ceremonies marking the retirement of Sir Henry Lee as the queen’s champion. Two years later Dowland took a small part in an entertainment mounted for the queen at Sudeley Castle, when his song My heart and tongue were twins was included.

Some time before this Dowland had married, but next to nothing is known about his wife, not even her name. The fact that she did not accompany him on any of his subsequent travels leads Diana Poulton to the tentative suggestion that she played no great emotional part in his life. Notwithstanding the truth or otherwise of such a notion, the couple certainly produced a family, although again we know for certain only about one son, Robert, whose own wedding documentation shows that he was probably born in 1591. Robert himself would become a musician, best remembered today for his publication A Musicall Banquet (1610), a compilation including songs by his father (among them one of the greatest, In darkness let me dwell) and lute arrangements of airs de cour by such composers as Pierre Guédron.

The Journey to Germany and Italy

On the death in 1594 of John Johnson, one of the queen’s lutenists, Dowland applied for the vacant post, which given his profile at court and high repute he might have been expected to fill. Not for the last time, Dowland’s expectations were disappointed and the post was not filled. As a direct result he decided to embark on a foreign tour which initially took him to Germany and the courts of two cultivated princes, the Duke of Brunswick at Wolfenbüttel and the Landgrave of Hesse at Kassel. Both were known to Dowland by reputation – he later described them as “miracles of this age for virtue and magnificence” – and he was handsomely received by the duke, being plied with gifts and an offer of employment, which was refused. After spending the summer at Wolfenbüttel, Dowland moved on to Kassel in the company of one of Brunswick’s lutenists, seemingly at the suggestion of the duke himself. According to Dowland, he was again offered employment by the Landgrave, but his ultimate objective was Italy and in particular a meeting and study with the great madrigalist Luca Marenzio, whose work was known and revered in England. After crossing the Alps, his first destination was Venice, where he met Giovanni Croce, at the time vice-maestro of St Mark’s.