Thomas Tallis

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585) was an English composer who served the Chapel Royal under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I. After posts at Dover Priory, Waltham Abbey—where he received forty shillings when it was dissolved in 1540—and Canterbury Cathedral, he joined the Chapel Royal around 1543 and shaped Tudor church music through decades of religious change.

In 1575 Elizabeth I granted him and his pupil William Byrd a monopoly on printing music, and they published the Cantiones sacrae. His works include the forty-voice motet Spem in alium and settings of the Lamentations. He died at Greenwich in November 1585.