Nicholas Lanier

Nicholas Lanier, sometimes Laniere (baptised 10 September 1588 – buried 24 February 1666) an honour given to musicians of great distinction. He was the court musician, a composer and performer and Groom of the Chamber in the service of King Charles I and Charles II. He was also a singer, lutenist, scenographer and painter. Biography Nicholas Lanier was a descendant of a French family of royal musicians, the Lanière family, who were Huguenots, and was baptised at Greenwich. His father and grandfather left France to escape persecutions. His aunt, Emilia Bassano, was the daughter of Venetian musicians at the Tudor court and, before her marriage to Alfonso Lanier, had been the mistress to the Lord Chamberlain, a cousin of Queen Elizabeth I, and possibly Henry Wriothesly, Earl of Southampton. Historian A. L. Rowse suggested that she may well have been the famous Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s sonnets. The family settled in England in 1561. Nicholas Lanier was the son of Frances Galliardello and John Lanier, who was the son of Nicholas Lanier the Elder, court musician to the French King Henry II. His maternal grandfather was another royal musician, Mark Anthony Galliardello. Nicholas was fir