Dowland’s flight from Italy is recounted in the most remarkable surviving document in his own hand. This is the long letter he wrote to the powerful courtier Sir Robert Cecil (later the Earl of Salisbury whose name is celebrated in works by William Byrd and Orlando Gibbons) once he arrived safely in Nuremberg. Dated 10 November 1595, this extraordinary document makes clear the extent of Dowland’s confusion and highly emotional state of mind4. In it he starts with an account of how he had been drawn to the “idle toys” of Catholicism in Paris some 15 years earlier and after his return had witnessed the gruesome execution of Catholic plotters in London (doubtless a memory at least partially responsible for his present fear). Dowland then moves on to attribute his failure to be appointed as court lutenist in the wake of Johnson’s death to the fact he believed Elizabeth’s view to be that he was “an obstinate Papist”, an unlikely explanation given that the queen personally not only tolerated, but also encouraged such Catholic musicians as William Byrd and Thomas Tallis. He continues with a full account of how he had become ensnared by plotters in Florence, recounting how on realisation of his predicament he had “got me by myself and wept bitterly” and stressing that he had “never loved treason or treachery, nor never heard any Mass in England”, and had now recanted fully his youthful peccadilloes. The letter ends with an abject apology to the queen, assuring Cecil that he has written in order that she may “know the villainy of these most wicked priests and Jesuits, & to beware of them.”

For all its emotionalism and contradictions, the letter is of considerable significance not only for the insight it gives into Dowland’s character, but also for providing biographical detail that is otherwise missing. It is from it, for instance, that we have references to his wife and the fact that the marriage had produced children, Dowland expressing fears for their safety. It is also a clear indication of how much he had exaggerated the importance attached to his Catholic past, even assuming that it was widely known. Certainly, had he been considered a serious threat he would not have been allowed to travel abroad.

By 1596 Dowland was back at the Hesse court, where he received an encouraging letter from his some-time patron, the courtier Henry Noel assuring him of a welcome at the English court, where the queen had on a number of occasions expressed a wish for his return. This seems to have been enough to spur Dowland to come back to England, doubtless now in high hopes of the court post he coveted. But before Noel could provide further assistance, he died in February 1597, leaving the composer only to commemorate his former patron with the Lamentatio Henrici Noel, a set of four-part psalms and canticles. During the same year he published his First Booke of Songes, an outstanding success that went through four more editions between 1600 and 1613 and enhanced further his claim to be considered the leading English composer of his generation. Also in 1597 we find Dowland being eulogised in a famous sonnet by Richard Barnfield in which he is compared with Edmund Spenser: “Dowland to thee is dear, whose heavenly touch/Upon the lute doth ravish human sense”.

At the Court of Christian IV of Denmark

Despite such accolades, Dowland remained without a position at the English court. It was doubtless his continuing disappointment that led him to accept the post of court lutenist to King Christian IV of Denmark, having in the meantime rejected a further offer from the Landgrave of Hesse. Christian was an enthusiastic music lover (and a king who presided over a court notorious for its hedonistic life style) who had gathered around him a number of excellent musicians. To obtain Dowland’s services he was prepared to pay the exceptionally generous salary of 500 daler a year, which made Dowland one of the highest paid members of the court in any capacity. During the period he remained in Denmark, Dowland made return visits to England, sometimes overstaying his leave of absence, but despite Christian’s annoyance, he was always paid, sometimes in advance. During this period, Dowland completed two more books of songs (1600) and (1603), the first of which was sent back to England for his wife to oversee publication. In the summer of 1603 Dowland again set out for England, this time “on his own business” (a previous visit from 1601 to 1602 had been on business to recruit musicians and buy instruments for the Danish monarch), which may have been a fresh attempt to gain a court appointment. Elizabeth I had died on 24 March that year and been succeeded by James I (VI of Scotland), whose wife Anne was the sister of Dowland’s royal Danish master.