William Newark

{{Short description|English choirmaster and composer}} {{Use British English|date=May 2020}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2019}} '''William Newark''' (c. 1450–1509, sometimes spelt Newerk) was an English choirmaster and composer. He served at the Chapel Royal under five English kings.

==Rank and income== Newark was born in Newark-on-Trent about 1450. He was admitted in 1476 into the Fraternity of St Nicholas, a London-area organization of musicians,<ref>[https://www.british-history.ac.uk/london-record-soc/vol 39 British History site. Retrieved 23 August 2019.]{{Dead link|date=November 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}</ref><ref name="ODNB">[https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-70481. Retrieved 23 May 2019.]</ref> and appointed to the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal in 1477, where he served until his death under five English kings (Edward IV, Edward V, Richard III, Henry VII and Henry VIII, see List of English Monarchs).<ref name=Flood>{{Cite journal |title=New Light on Early Tudor Composers. I. – William Newark |author=W. H. Grattan Flood |journal=The Musical Times |volume=60 |year=1919 |issue=921 |pages=606–608 |doi=10.2307/3701584|jstor=3701584 |url=https://zenodo.org/record/2153358 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

On 23 November 1480, Newark was confirmed in the benefice of St Mary's Priory, Thetford, granted to him in the previous year.<ref name="ODNB"/> He received a corrody from there, and also from the Abbey of St Benet of Hulme, Norfolk (from 1487) and Gloucester Abbey (from 1492).<ref name="ODNB"/>

Meanwhile, in 1485, Newark received a life grant of £20 from the King's manor at Bletchingley.<ref name=Flood /> In 1492, he was paid 20 shillings by the King "for making of a Song".<ref name=wallace>{{Cite book |title=The evolution of English drama up to Shakespeare |author=Charles William Wallace |year=1912 |publisher=Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG |isbn=9783111651774 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=s59sDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA239}}</ref> In 1493, Henry VII formally appointed him Master of the Children of the Chapel Royal.<ref name=wallace/>

==Songs== At least seven songs of his have survived in the Fayrfax manuscript (BL, Add. MS 5465), an early 16th-century songbook associated with the households of Henry VII or his son Arthur, Prince of Wales. One of them, for two voices, "The farther I go, the more behynde," sets an early 15th-century rhyme royal stanza by Sir John Halsham (1357–1415).<ref name="ODNB"/><ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQ5bdq0MBs8 Recording with Pro Cantione Antiqua. Retrieved 23 May 2019.]</ref><ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-EWwvQ8FNI Recording with Isabel Alvarez and Sour Cream. Retrieved 23 May 2019.]</ref>

==Death== Newark fell ill in the autumn of 1509 and died in the second week of November,<ref name=Flood /> some six months after his appointment as Master of the Children had been reconfirmed on the accession of King Henry VIII. He was buried in the porch of St Alfege Church, Greenwich.<ref name=wallace/>

==References== {{Reflist|30em}}

==External links== *[http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Fayrfax_Manuscript Compositions in the Fayrfax Manuscript] *[https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Newark,_William Newark, William at IMSLP]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Newark, William}} Category:1509 deaths Category:English Renaissance composers Category:15th-century English musicians Category:16th-century English composers Category:Masters of the Children of the Chapel Royal Category:1450 births Category:Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal