It must not be forgotten that although during the Commonwealth musicians found it difficult to earn their bread in consequence of the prohibition of all public exhibition of their executive skill, yet many of the learned and erudite musical treatises which have been handed down to us were published at that time. From this we may be sure that the musical predilections of Cromwell were regarded with secret hope by the few musicians who were able privately to pursue their calling; and indeed public signs were not wanting during the latter years of the Protector's life, that had he been spared, the art of music would probably have received more emphatic and distinct assistance at his hands. In 1656 he granted a licence to Sir William Davenant to open a kind of theatre[2] for "an entertainment in declamation and music after the manner of the ancients;" and later on he licensed certain theatrical performances at the Cockpit, in Drury Lane. The extreme Puritan party did, however, so effectually destroy and put down all Church music,[3] deeming organs and service-books superstitious and ungodly, that at the Restoration, when the authorities set about re-establishing musical services in the cathedrals, it was impossible to find either instruments, books, or singers necessary for the purpose; and, indeed, out of the large musical establishment of Charles I., only three men--Dr. Wilson, Christopher Gibbons, and Henry Lawes--came forward at the Restoration to claim their former appointments. We get a further insight into the condition of Church music at the Restoration, from Matthew Locke's _Present Practice of Musick Vindicated_, published in 1673, wherein he says, "For above a year after the opening of His Majestie's Chappel, the orderers of the musick there were necessitated to supply superior parts of the music with cornets and men's feigned voices, there being not one lad for all that time capable of singing his part readily." An examination of the old MS. copies of anthems composed by the organists and singing-men of the various cathedrals in the reign of Charles II., shows that a dearth of singing-boys (trebles) was general throughout the kingdom, the compositions being chiefly for men's voices only. From the preceding slight and brief sketch of the state of music during the Commonwealth, it will be evident that the Puritan rule was most unpropitious for the art; with its professors banned, and its public performance well-nigh extinguished, music might perhaps have been expected to have died an unnatural death; but heaven-born, it retained a vital spark which needed only the breath of freedom and gentle encouragement to foster it into a flame.