Tallis's epitaph revisited/ Kerry McCarthy

Thomas Talli's gravestone has been lost, but its rhymed epitaph is well known from a transcription in John Strype's 1720 edition of the Survey of London. An earlier, longer and demostrably more accurate version of Tallis's epitaph, dated December 1585 (the month after the composer's death), can be found in the poetic miscellany Cambridge University Library Ms. Dd.5.75. The epitaph was almost certainly written by Henry Stanford, the scribe of Dd.5.75. who at the time was tutor to the Paget household, a hotbed of Catholic symphathies and a musical centre where 'songes of Mr Byrdes and Mr Tally's were sung. This new source offers a glimpse into the complex social and political realities of Tallis's last years.