William Cornish belongs to the generation of men who created the spectacular entertainments that helped to earn the courts of Henry VII (1485-1509) and Henry VIII (1509-1547) their reputations for magnificence. The multitalented Cornish could compose in a variety of genres, and his fame in his own time rested on songs, musical arrangements, and singing performances as well as on poetry, drama, and dramatic performances. As a composer he was ranked with Robert Fairfax, as a poet with John Skelton, and as a deviser of court revels with Sir Henry Guildford; but as the innovator of dramatic performances by the Children of the Chapel, he stood alone at the beginning of a tradition carried on through the century by William Crane, Richard Bower, and Richard Edwards. Today he is regarded as one of the most important composers and influential devisers of court entertainments in the early sixteenth century...