Thomas Tallis - no known picture

Thomas Tallis, 18th-century engraving;
a posthumous, invented portrait by Gerard Vanderguch

No known picture. Actually very little known anything. He traveled a courtly world full of well known names, was given a Manor by Mary Queen in honor of his work. hmmm. That is really a world apart as we think of our cell phones on which we have a picture of everything and now Wiki with its endless factoids.

He is know by his work. The beauty, simplicity and elegance.  He wrote and performed for Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary Queen of Scotts and Elizabeth R.  Shakespeare was a budding poet with no known published plays. Galileo was 21 when he died, and the Spanish Armada started gathering for its eventual defeat in 1588 by the English.  What a time.

Thomas Tallis died peacefully in his house in Greenwich in November 1585; most historians agree

that he died on the 23rd. He was buried in the chancel of the parish of St Alfege Church in Greenwich. To this day, the exact location in St Alfege Church of Tallis's remains is unknown. His remains may have been discarded by labourers between 1712 and 1714, when the church was rebuilt. Nothing remains of Tallis's original memorial in the church. John Strype is said in 1720 to have found a brass plate with an engraving on it, which read:

“Entered here doth ly a worthy wyght,
Who for long tyme in musick bore the bell:
His name to shew, was THOMAS TALLYS hyght,
In honest virtuous lyff he dyd excell.

“He serv’d long tyme in chappel with grete prayse
Fower sovereygnes reygnes (a thing not often seen);
I meane Kyng Henry and Prynce Edward’s dayes,
Quene Mary, and Elizabeth oure Quene.

“He mary’d was, though children he had none,
And lyv’d in love full thre and thirty yeres
Wyth loyal spowse, whose name yclypt was JONE,
Who here entomb’d him company now beares.

“As he dyd lyve, so also did he dy,
In myld and quyet sort (O happy man!)
To God ful oft for mercy did he cry,

Wherefore he lyves, let deth do what he can.

Tallis's original tune is in the Phrygian mode and was one of the nine he contributed to the Psalter of 1567 for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker.

Here is a glorious fantasia on the tune.  Just seems perfect.