Walter Erle

Walter Erle (c.1515/20-1581) (alias Erley, Erell, etc.) of Colcombe in the parish of Colyton, of Bindon in the parish of Axmouth, both in Devon, and of Charborough in Dorset, England, was a courtier and servant of the Royal Household to two of the wives of King Henry VIII, namely Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr, and successively to his son King Edward VI (1547-1553) and two daughters, Queen Mary I (1553-1558) and Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603) during their successive reigns. According to Sandon (1983) his popularity as a royal courtier was in part due to his ability as a musician, particularly as a player of the virginal. He is known to have composed at least one work of church music, namely Ave Vulnus Lateris ("Hail, O Wound of the Side"), a short votive antiphon in honour of one of the Five Holy Wounds of Jesus, his authorship of which is recorded in Peterhouse College manuscripts 471–474, held in the Cambridge University Library, comprising four partbooks from a set of five copied late in the reign of King Henry VIII, which contain seventy-two pieces of Latin church music. As a courtier-musician he well represents the ideal royal courtier described in The Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione (d.1529) and also in The Boke Named The Governour by Sir Thomas Elyot (d.1546). Although he was born into a minor gentry family of Devonshire, he founded a dynasty of substantial landed gentry that survives to the present day, his heir (albeit via several female lines) being the Conservative Member of Parliament Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax (born 1958), of Charborough House. Origins No record of Erle's birth survives, but circumstantial evidence suggests a birthdate between 1515 and 1520. He was the son of John III Erle of Cullompton in Devon, by his wife Thomasyn. Walter's grandfather was John II Erle of Cullompton, the second son of John I Erle of Ashburton, Devon.