The sermon last Sunday at The Royal Hospital was about baptism. The Chaplain (I prefer padre) recounted that he had been to where John the Baptist baptised Christ in the Jordan.
The river at that point marks the border between Israel and Jordan, requiring him to walk between rolls of barbed wire protecting visitors from a minefield. At the river pilgrims are invited to change into a white tunic and immerse themselves. The padre said that it looked uninviting and he did something more in keeping with the C of E; finger tips dipped? When Rupert Everett took his father to Lourdes the latter did opt for total immersion. He stripped to his boxer shorts and, dashingly, they were in his racing colours. But back to baptism. The padre had just baptised Sebastian and Cressida. The former (aged two) politely said thank you, the latter (a baby) cried. Incidentally, the padre – and I told him so – did the opposite of winning The Great Sermon Handicap. He sped through Baptism and Sung Matins in an hour, with a minute or two to spare. “Not bad?” He replied, succinctly.
About twenty years ago I used to go to Evensong at Salisbury Cathedral. If I had friends with me I always showed them the Rex Whistler Memorial Prism, engraved by his brother Laurence. If I go back I will look at the font, installed in 2008 to celebrate the 750th anniversary of the cathedral’s consecration. If you think it looks like a posh garden ornament you are on the right track as it was designed by William Pye.
But today’s post is about Orlando and he must now step on stage. Not Virginia Woolf’s creation or the actor Bloom but the man who composed the Anthem (O Clap Your Hands Together) that was delivered by the choir with such gusto on Sunday. Orlando Gibbons, as it happens, was baptised on Christmas Day 1583. It may have been fashionable to be baptised on Christ’s birthday? He was a distinguished musician. His CV can be summarised: chorister Kings’s College Cambridge, organist at the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey and composer. He died young, in 1625. Two doctors were present at his death and performed a post-mortem. Their report is in the National Archives. If you are of a delicate disposition you may prefer to skip to his sublime setting of Psalm 47.
We whose names are here underwritten: having been called to give our counsels to Mr. Orlando Gibbons; in the time of his late and sudden sickness, which we found in the beginning lethargical, or a profound sleep; out of which, we could never recover him, neither by inward nor outward medicines, & then instantly he fell in most strong, & sharp convulsions; which did wring his mouth up to his ears, & his eyes were distorted, as though they would have been thrust out of his head & then suddenly he lost both speech, sight and hearing, & so grew apoplectical & lost the whole motion of every part of his body, & so died. Then here upon (his death being so sudden) rumours were cast out that he did die of the plague, whereupon we . . . caused his body to be searched by certain women that were sworn to deliver the truth, who did affirm that they never saw a fairer corpse. Yet notwithstanding we to give full satisfaction to all did cause the skull to be opened in our presence & we carefully viewed the body, which we found also to be very clean without any show or spot of any contagious matter. In the brain we found the whole & sole cause of his sickness namely a great admirable blackness & syderation in the outside of the brain. Within the brain (being opened) there did issue out abundance of water intermixed with blood & this we affirm to be the only cause of his sudden death.