Tessier and the `Essex Circle

In a recent issue of this Quarterly, Gustav Ungerer called attention to several hitherto unnoticed documents concerning the English sojourn of the French lutenist and composer Charles Tessier and on the basis of this evidence concluded that the musician was for a time admitted to the ‘Essex Circle.’ The conclusion should rather be a conjecture, I believe.The documents published by Ungerer include three letters written by Tessier to Anthony Bacon, the brother of Francis, in the spring of 1597. In the first, Tessier asks to be taken into Bacon's service or, failing this, to be recommended to another gentleman for service. In the second, written some weeks later, he describes some newly composed airs which he intends to present to Bacon, but illness has prevented his doing so, and he begs for money

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