ABSTRACT
We have no record of what glorious music was sung at the solemn high mass in Holyrood Abbey on Easter Sunday 1507, when King James IV of Scotland (r.1488–1513) was invested with what we know today as Scotland’s Sword of State. But James’s fondness for sacred music is a matter of record, as are his re-founding and lavish endowment of the Chapel Royal in 1501–03. 1 In the pages of history books, music tends to receive less coverage than the visual and verbal components of past ages and, as a result, the role of music in projecting royal authority is not always appreciated. 2 This chapter investigates the rich skein of relationships between the Sword of State and the mass settings L’homme armé and Dum sacrum mysterium made by cleric Robert Carver whose sumptuous works were composed for the virtuoso singers of Scotland’s Chapel Royal. 3
