Early life There is no documentary evidence about Weelkes's early years. According to the biographer
David Brown, circumstantial evidence points to the possibility that Weelkes was a son of John Weeke,
rector of
Elsted in
Sussex and his wife Johanne. If this was so, the boy was the Thomas Weeke baptised at Elsted on 25 October 1576; he had at least five siblings. Brown adds that there is no firmer evidence about Weelkes's childhood and musical training, although one piece of information is found in the preface to Weelkes’s collection
Ballets and Madrigals (1598), where he states that he had been in the service of "his master
Edward Darcy Esquire, Groom to her Majesty’s Privy Chamber".
Early musical career, organist at Winchester College In the preface to his first volume of madrigals (1597) Weelkes states that he was a very young man at the time of their composition – "my yeeres yet unripened" – which, in Brown's view, confirms that he was born in the middle or later 1570s. By 1597 Weelkes, by his own account, had enjoyed the "undeserved love, and liberall good will" of George Phillpot, who lived at Compton, near Winchester. Towards the end of 1598 he was appointed organist of
Winchester College at a salary of 13s. 4d. a quarter, with board and lodging. Weelkes remained at the college for three or four years, and, according to Brown, during this period he composed his finest madrigals. They appeared in two volumes (1598 and 1600); Brown calls the second – works for five and six voices – "one of the most important volumes in the English madrigal tradition."
Chichester Cathedral and Gentleman of the Chapel Royal At some time between October 1601 and October 1602 Weelkes joined the choir of
Chichester Cathedral as organist and '''' (instructor of the
choristers) with, in addition, a well-paid
lay-clerkship. He obtained the degree of
Bachelor of Music from
New College, Oxford in July 1602. On 20 February he 1603 married Elizabeth Sandham, the daughter of a wealthy Chichester merchant; they had at least three children. On the title page of Weelkes's fourth and final volume of madrigals, published in 1608, he refers to himself as a
Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. The records at the
Chapel Royal do not mention him, but the
musicologist Walter S. Collins observes, "one would hardly dare publish such a claim if it were not true". Brown infers that Wilkes may have been a Gentleman Extraordinary – a temporary rather than a permanent appointment.
Poor behaviour While Weelkes was at Chichester members of
its choir were often in trouble with the authorities for poor behaviour. As the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography puts it, Weelkes "was not the only disorderly member of the cathedral establishment, though in due course he would become its most celebrated." In 1609 he was charged with unauthorised absence from Chichester, but no mention of drunken behaviour is made until 1613, and in
The Musical Quarterly John Shepherd has suggested caution in assuming that Weelkes's decline began before that date. In 1616 Weelkes was reported to the bishop for being "noted and famed for a comon and notorious swearer & blasphemer". The
Dean and
Chapter dismissed him for being drunk at the organ and using bad language during divine service. He was reinstated and remained in the post until his death, although his behaviour did not improve; in 1619 he was again reported to the bishop: , Fleet Street ==Later years and death==