ABSTRACT
The St David's peninsula in Pembrokeshire, a county affectionately known as 'little England beyond Wales', is a place of natural beauty and peace, its cathedral a fine example of medieval architecture in a perfect setting. Thomas Tomkins the elder had arrived in St David's by July 1565, the month in which his name first appears in a series of entries in the Cathedral Chapter Act Books. As elsewhere in the kingdom, the religious and political life of Pembrokeshire had undergone considerable upheaval in the previous three decades, but in Wales there was the added dimension of English hegemony. The chapter deals with several more cases of serious misbehaviour and incompetence in the months that followed, after which, for a while, the musicians of the cathedral caused relatively little trouble. Meanwhile, Thomas and Margaret Tomkins settled in at St David's and were in time blessed with children.
