John Jenkins (composer)

John Jenkins (c. 1592–c. 1678), was an English composer of the early Baroque period. He was born in Maidstone, Kent and died in Kimberley, Norfolk. Biography Little is known of his early life. The son of Henry Jenkins, a carpenter who occasionally made musical instruments, he may have been the “Jack Jenkins” employed in the household of Anne Russell, Countess of Warwick in 1603. The first positive historical record of Jenkins is amongst the musicians who performed the masque The Triumph of Peace in 1634 at the court of King Charles I. Jenkins was considered a virtuoso on the lyra viol. Charles commented that Jenkins did “wonders on an inconsiderable instrument.” When the English Civil War broke out in 1642 it forced Jenkins, like many others, to migrate to the rural countryside. During the 1640s he was employed as music-master to two Royalist families, the Derham family at West Dereham and Hamon le Strange of Hunstanton. He was also a friend of the composer William Lawes (1602–1645), who was shot and died in battle at the siege of Chester. Around 1640 Jenkins revived the In Nomine, an archaic form for a consort of viols, based upon a traditional plainsong theme. He wrote a notable