Biographical Entry for Rowland Rubbidge
From Ashbee, Andrew, ed. A biographical dictionary of English court musicians, 1485-1714. Aldershot, England ; Brookfield, Vt. : Ashgate, c1998. 2v.
ML106.G7 B56 1998
Side note: See http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/cds/phi46217.htm for a description of a recording of a reconstruction of the 1611 Masque of Oberon.
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RUBBIDGE, ROWLAND (d.1620). Violin, 1602-1620
Violin; replaced Ambrosio Grasso; Sig. wt., 24 May 1603; 20d p.d. and £16 2s 6d p.a. livery (TC); paid from Christmas 1602; replaced at death by Leonard Mell.
Like Ambrose Lupo* and Robert Baker [I]*, Rubbidge lived in the parish of St Alphage within Cripplegate (now called St Alphage London Wall). The ealiest mention of him is a parish document of 10 Mar 1587/8 which includes his mark (in lieu of a signature, as he was illiterate): a stylized fish. Roger Prior has argued that he was a Polish Jew whose name was really Riba or Rybak (the Polish words for fish and fisherman). A list of those contributing to the collection for the Clerk's wages and sundry parish charges around 1590 gives his address as Bell Alley. If he was in the country by 1588, he may well have been serving at Court unofficially from closer to the death of Ambrosio Grasso* in 1582, rather than the official date of Christmas 1602. (He is not listed as receiving mourning at the funeral of Queen Elizabeth of 28 Apr 1603, however, since his Signet warrant had not then been passed.)
Rubbidge took an active part in the life of his parish. In June 1595 and again in June 1596 he was chosen one of the two collectors for the poor of Christ's Hospital for the year, and in December 1597 one of the sixteen assessors 'for the Awgmentacion of the collection booke for the pore'. On 20 Aug 1598 he was ordered to give 20s to the poor of the parish 'for that the parishe remytted hym from service of the place of the ward mott inquest' (this was normally a civic duty but seems to have been within the sphere of the parish here). Perhaps he asked to be released because he had another duty, for at the same time the parish acknowledged receipt 'of James Sherman & Roland Robishe for the overplus of one Fyfteene collected by them in this parish 6s 1d' (the fifteen was a civic tax, again in the parish's sphere here). On 26 Dec 1599, he assumed the onerous parish office of churchwarden, undertaking it again on 14 Dec 1600.
By 1600 he was sharing a 'tenement' with Widow Norris. Shortly afterwards she died, and on 15 Mar 1599/1600 the vestry agreed that 'her howse to avoide many Inconveyniences ... is lett to Rolande Robishe for 21 yeres [from 25 Mar] for £4 yerelie rent and to paie her [estate?] £10 in money'; the duration of the lease was soon amended to 30 years. The rent was perhaps not a bargain, as Norris has been paying 40s a year by herself and 50s a year when Rubbidge joined her. An inventory of leases held by the parish on 1 Feb 1601/2 and similar inventories for 1612-20 show that the house was owned by Sherman.
When the Company of Musicians recieved its Charter from James I in 1604, Rubbidge was named as one of the fourteen Assistants of the Company, along with two other Court musicians (Robert Baker [I]* and William Warren*) and three Waits as well as his friend Sherman, all of whom were appointed for life.
On 25 May 1606 Rubbidge was given back 20s he had lent to the parish to fight a successful lawsuit against John Siddall, a former churchwarden who had spent the 'stocke' of the parish. On 21 Dec 1609 Rubbidge is listed as one of the four sideman of the parish. In his will of 9 Feb 1609/10 James 'Sharman' [Sherman], 'citizen and musician of St Alphage, Cripplegate' bequeathed two bass vios to Rubbidge. In 1611 Rubbidge was one of four violins sharing £10 for performance in Price Henry's masque Oberon. On 21 December that year and again on 20 Dec 1613 he was among the auditors of the yearly churchwarden's accounds, perhaps mindful of the trouble the parish had had with Siddall.
He acted as executor for Thomas Giles*, whose will of 1 Sep 1617 bequeathed him £10 (with a further 32s in gold to Rubbidge's maidservant Benet White). Court records state that Rubbidge died on 21 Aug 1620. He was buried at St Alphage on the 24th; his burial cost 16s 8d., as did that of his widow Elizabeth, buried there on 21 Aug 1624.
Probate: Original nuncupative will: Archdeaconry Court of London, Lg, 9052/5; reigster copy: 9051/6, f.46v; act: 9050/5, f.123; of St Alphage near Cripplegate [London Wall], musician; all estate to wife Elizabeth, except 'one peece of plate wch I do geve unto my daughter Ann Bradford'; Witnesses: Humphry Nicholls, Ursula Sturt, Thomas Swan. Administration to relict, Elizabeth. Inventory valued at £139 7s 11d.
[Holman24; RECM IV, VI, VIII]
[D.L./P.H./A.A.]
Peter Holman, Four and Twenty Fiddlers: The Violin at the English Court, 1540-1690, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993.
Andrew Ashbee, Records of English Court Music
IV: 1603-1625 (Snodland, 1991) VI: 1558-1603 (Scolar Press, Aldershot, 1992)