ABSTRACT
Ralph Bosville was a son of Henry Bosville of Bradboume, at Sevenoaks in Kent. His grandfather, another Ralph Bosville, was Queen Elizabeth's Clerk of the Court of Wards. The younger Ralph was admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 20 June 1591. In 1592 he inherited Bradbourne, to which he brought his wife Mary, a daughter of Sampson Leonard. It is hard to think what Bosville made of a cycle of musical settings for rites most Englishmen had been unfamiliar with for almost half a century. The Bosville family, however, included a Catholic priest John, a son of the elder Ralph Bosville, and therefore the younger Ralph's uncle. As a 'Captaine of a Select Company of Foot in the County of Kent', he was the dedicatee of William Barriffe's Military discipline of 1635, where he is described as 'an Apollo for Musick'. He was the dedicatee of Morley's First Booke of Ayres.
