Ford, Thomas

(?1580-1648)

   He was a court musician from 1611 to 1625; firstly to Henry, Prince of Wales (Henry was the first child of James VI of Scotland); then to Charles, as prince then as king. His most important work was Musicke of Sundrie Kindes, in two books (1607). The first contained eleven songs, some of them very well known. His love song "There is a Lady Sweet and Kind" is in the repertoire of almost every male ballad singer. The second book contained eighteen pieces. An anthem in five parts, "Let God Arise," was printed in the Musical Antiquarian Society's publication for 1845. To Sir William Leighton's Tears and Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule (1614) Ford contributed the anthems "Almighty God, Which Hast Me Brought" and "Not Unto Us." He contributed three sacred canons to John Hilton's Catch That Catch Can (1652): "I Am So Weary, O Lord," "I Lift My Heart to Thee," and "Look Down, O Lord." He was buried on the in St. Margaret's, Westminster. Some of his other poems: "Faire, Sweet Cruell," "Goe Passions to the Cruell Faire," "How Shall I Then Discribe My Loue," "Shut Not Sweet Brest."

   Sources: Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. English Poetry: Author Search. Chadwyck-Healey Ltd., 1995 (http://www.lib.utexas.edu:8080/search/epoetry/author.html). Here of a Sunday Morning, HOASM: Thomas Ford (http://www.hoasm.org/IVM/Ford.html). The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The New Oxford Book of Seventeenth Century Verse. Alastair Fowler, ed. Oxford University Press, 1991.