RESTORING THE ENGLISH FOOT MARCH
By the early 1600s, the English March was either in disuse or was so distorted and improvised upon that it was no longer recognizable.
In a warrant signed by Charles I, he explains that an
“ancient custome of nations hath ever bene to use one certaine and constant Marche in the warres, whereby to be distinguished one from another. And the march of this our English nation, so famous in all the honourable achievements and glorious warres of this our kingedome in forreigne parts […] was thorough [sic] the negligence and carelessness of drummers, and by long discontinuance so altered and changed from the ancient gravitie and majestie thereof”.
Warrant by Charles I (5 March 1633)
To summarize, Charles I is essentially condemning his officers and musicians from allowing the original English march to become altered from it’s original “majestie”.
Because of this, Charles I commands his lords, officers, and musicians to conform their march to the music provided.
On 5 March 1634, Edward Norgate, the Windsor Herald, was paid £140 for his efforts in preparing a warrant to restore the uniform use of the English March.
This Warrant was then distributed to “the colonels and by them to the captains of the several regiments of the city so that it might be duly observed in all musters of Trained Bands” (Byrne 50).
Months later, it was distributed to all the Lords of England. The King expected that all the musicians throughout the kingdom would have access to this standardized music through the Lords and Colonels.
At some point (the early 19th century at the latest), Battalion Marches and other quicksteps replaced the Foot March.
The rhythm to the English Foot March has since been lost, despite the availability of music from the seventeenth and eighteenth century.
The Existing Versions of the English March
Charles I issued a Royal Warrant that included the English March in contemporary (17th century) notation.
Original Warrant Version of the English March
The original Warrant still exists in the form of a copy sent to the Earl of Derby. The copy below is a photograph of an original copy sent to the Earl of Derby by Charles I; the original is unfortunately unlocatable.
As we can see in the Warrant, the march has two parts: the “Voluntary” (a preparative order, like the verbal command Forward-MARCH) and seven divisions, or variations.
The Warrant’s music was exactly reproduced in an article printed in The Grand Magazine of Magazines in 1758.
Samuel Pepys (c. 1700s) wrote out another version which included measure lines. These are described as “An Establishment of the certain measure for beating the English March” (quoted in Byrne, “The English March,” 45). It’s unclear where this version originates or when this version was written. It’s not clear if Pepys inserted the barlines seen in his copy. It’s also not clear whether this is the correct placement of the measure lines.
The Warrant uses Mensural Notation, the common form of music notation in the 17th century.
While potentially confusing to the modern reader, this notation actually allows us to reconstruct the entire rhythm from the Warrant version alone.
Instructional Versions of the English March
Additionally, four instructional manuals include a version of the march.
Thomas Fisher
Thomas Fisher includes the oldest version in his Warlike Directions, or the Souldiers Practice (1634). Fisher’s version includes notation for the beating of the Foot March, but rather than notes, he uses symbols.
Since drumming utilizes sticking patterns, and not pitch, historically drum instructors invented terms to describe common sticking patterns. Here Fisher demonstrates an attempt to create a simple shorthand to articulate those terms (today called Rudiments) through symbols. While Fisher’s notation cannot provide rhythmic information, it contains more information on the rudimental structure of the beating.
Like the Charles I Warrant, Fisher breaks the beating down into a Voluntary and then several divisions.
Unlike the Warrant, Fisher’s beating contains nine divisions. However, two of the divisions in the Warrant are long divisions. It seems likely that Fisher has broken those two long divisions into independent lines, perhaps to help indicate measure lines.
Accepting this assumption, we see that Fisher’s version of the beating aligns almost exactly to the original warrant version.
Douce MS
Another version from approximately the same time was found by Maurice Byrne glued into Francis Douce’s copy of Hawkin’s History of Music.
Known throughout this article as the Douce MS, the pages contain an explanation of several rudiments as well as notations for a number of field signals for the drum.
Titled “The Grounds of beating ye drum” and dated to the mid- to late-1600s, this manuscript is also written out as symbols.
While it too cannot provide rhythmic information, it also follows the Voluntary and then seven divisions. Unfortunately, the last division appears to be cut short; at the least, the notation for this last division doesn’t appear to match the other versions in their entirety.
The Douce MS’s explanation of the rudiments makes it particularly valuable, however.
While Fisher gives names to each of his symbols, he does not explain how to perform those rudiments. Douce’s manuscript begins with a brief description of the performance of each symbol.
This document, more than any other, helps us to determine the rudiments depicted.
Randle Holme
Randle Holme, in his Academy of Armory (1688), includes only the onomatopoeic words from the warrant.
His descriptions help to confirm some sticking and basic information as seen in the Charles I Warrant.
The Young Drummer’s Assistant
The Young Drummer’s Assistant (c. 1780), an 18th century drum tutor, lists the final version of the Foot March.
An identical version seen in “Drum Beatings” a drum manuscript dated to the mid- to late-1700s.
These drum manuals utilize a middling form of drum notation, common to the late-18th and early-19th centuries. They clearly depict drags, flams, left and right strokes, etc., but do not contain time signatures, measure lines, or rests. This makes the beatings’ rhythms difficult to determine without other references.
Overall, the left strokes, right strokes, drags, poung strokes, and rolls all align with the other versions. However, YDA’s use of rolls is atypical of its use throughout the rest of the manual and therefore it’s difficult to understand exactly how these rolls should be performed.
YDA, therefore, does not provide a good resource for understanding the rhythm of the English March, but provides a resource to cross-reference the earlier rudiment names against more modern forms.
Attempts to Translate the English March
“It pleased our late deare brother Prince Henry to revive and rectifie the [English March] […] without any addition or alteration whatsoever. To the end that so ancient, famous and commendable a custome may be preserved as a patterne and precedent to all posteritie.”
Warrant by Charles I (5 March 1633)
Drummers and academics have struggled to translate the English March because of the limited information included in both the Warrant version and the shorthand style of the other versions.
In the past half-century, three scholars have attempted to re-discover the sound of the English Foot March.
James Blades
James Blades includes the first published attempt in his Percussion Instruments and their History (original date 1970; reprint 1992).
Blades was a Professor of Timpani and Percussion at The Royal Academy of Music in London and The University of Surrey.
Overall, Blades’s book does a remarkable job of surveying percussion instruments from their origins to modern drums. However, he spends relatively little time researching the English March. His translation sources only the original Warrant and Fisher’s version.
(Blades, Percussion Instruments and their History, 220)
While Blades attempted his translation with only the minimal information in the original Warrant, I find he still introduced two problematic inconsistencies:
- Blades’ interpretation of the ‘R’ or ‘Rou’ is inconsistent and confusing. At various points he translates it as a 5-stroke roll, 4-stroke ruff, or Flams, without an particular reasoning.
- He additionally adds a rest at the end of the short phrases, but not the long phrases, to make his 2/4 interpretation function.
Additionally, he assumes the ‘Poung’ at the end of the phrases, with its fermata in the original Warrant, indicates a long roll. This is, of course, proved incorrect by multiple 18th and 19th century sources.
Bruce Wood
Bruce Wood published the second attempt in his article “The First Performance of Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary,” in Performing the Music of Henry Purcell (1996).
He suggests that English drummers used the Foot March as the drum accompaniment during Queen Mary’s funeral procession.
Wood also uses the Warrant versions and Fisher’s version, as well as Blades’ translation, to formulate his interpretation of the Foot March.
(Wood, “The First Performance of Purcell’s”, 71)
Wood’s interpretation is far more consistent with his interpretation of the ‘R’, but ultimately doesn’t spend any considerable time justifying his rudimental choice.
He also assumes there should be a rest at the end of each phrase, but therefore incorporates that (incorrectly, as we’ll learn later) into the middle of the long phrases.
Maurice Byrne
Maurice Byrne published the third attempted translation his article “The English March and Early Drum Notation” (1997).
His article is an exceptional account of the restoration of the English March by Charles I and the existing versions of the music for the Foot March. I would recommend seeing his article for an in-depth discussion of the history of the versions I quickly highlighted above.
(Byrne, “The English March”, 72)
His interpretation of the music is very similar as the interpretation produced by Wood, and, for this reason, contains many of the same concerns.
Ultimately, Byrne’s interpretation is disappointing. Although Byrne had the Douce MS and The Young Drummer’s Assistant as resources, which the others did not, he does not use this information to explore an interpretation of the rudiments.
While his discussion of the history of the English March and various resources is exceptional, his interpretation falls short.
A New Translation
While these attempted translations help to shed light on the original sound and rhythm of the English Foot March, none have produced a satisfactory final product.
- All three scholars have added rests not indicated in any original versions
- All have misconstrued rules outlined by Thoinot Arbeau to translate the Warrant version into barred measures
- None have successfully dealt with the three rudiments included in the English March.
Thus, all have produced incomplete interpretations.
Here, I will prove that a 3/4 interpretation produces:
- a playable, strong beating
- a beating that follows both Arbeau’s rules for drum rhythms and embellishing drum music
- a beating that conforms to 18th and 19th century English drum practices seen in contemporary manuals
The resulting beating stands to be the closest interpretation to the original beating possible to reconstruct.
Feel free to download a PDF of the English March.
Further Research
In the follow sections, I will discuss:
Translating the rhythm of the English March.
Interpreting the drum rudiments in the English March.
Understanding the Fife Music for the Foot March.
Performing the English March and a final interpretation of the English Foot March.
For more information about the origin and history of the different versions of the English March, see Maurice Byrne’s “The English March and Early Drum Notation”.
I am heavily indebted to Byrne’s work on the location and background for these numerous sources.