“If this is not lyric dialogue of the true poetic water, why then has it such a magic in it that it has turned me into a fool and my taste into untruth.” The story is grippingly told, the tragedy of it appalling, and the characters are limned with an insight that makes them real people, actuated by motives beyond their control. Because of his wisdom in choosing his librettist, Taylor commenced his work with a drama that cried out for musical setting, for a tonal accompaniment to its atmosphere, and to the thoughts and actions of its people; and if in the making of it he has fallen under the spell of Wagner’s musical delineation of the kindred love-drama _Tristan_, or of Debussy, whose love scene in _Pelleas_ is akin to the forest scene in _The King’s Henchman_, who can blame him, for who could have avoided it? Taylor himself has said: “Its form has undoubtedly been influenced by the methods of past masters ...; as to that, I can only hope that its spiritual grandfather may turn out to be Wagner rather than Puccini.” The score of _The King’s Henchman_ makes frequent use of the _leit-motif_, to represent both actual characters, and abstract conceptions. The short prelude opens with the King (Eadgar) motive: [Music] This is frequently found, later in the action, in a broader, more lyric form: [Music] After a brief development, the curtain rises and reveals the hall of King Eadgar’s castle with the King and his nobles seated at the table, while Maccus, the harper, sings of deeds of valor. Then follows a choral response, with the words: “Be the day far off, O harper When thy harp is unstrung! And thy hand still, And thy song sung.” The Aelfrida motive is first introduced while she is being discussed as the King’s prospective bride: [Music] When Aethelwold is mentioned as the one to get her, we hear his sturdy motive: [Music] which is continued and developed while the knights dwell on his fitness for the task, for was it not true that “He shunneth a fair maid As she were a foul marten And should a wench but breathe upon him in the dark, He would bury himself till the smell of her were off him!” While they are talking about Aethelwold he enters, and the expedition is planned, the henchman receives his final instructions, the Archbishop gives his reluctant blessing, and, as the pledge is sealed we first hear the pledge motive: [Music] which is quoted frequently throughout the opera. As the knights drink Aethelwold’s health and bid him godspeed, there comes a rousing choral arrangement of the only folk-song used in the entire work: [Music: Oh. Caesar great wert thou! And Julius was thy name! That furrowed thy way through a fallow spray, And to stormy Britain came! But I would not stand in thy stead, For I’d liefer be quick than dead!]