Two years later he wrote two settings of _This sweet and merry month of May_ for Watson's _First sett of Italian Madrigals Englished_. Among his other vocal compositions are _Psalms, Songs {16} and Sonets, some solemne, other joyfull framed to the life of the words_. _Fit for voyces or viols_. He also was a contributor to Leighton's _Teares and Lamentations of a Sorrowful Soul_, the work in which Bull's beautiful Motet appears. One of his works he dedicated to the Earl of Northampton, and the dedication infers that not only had Byrd reason to be grateful to that nobleman, but so also had the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, as he seems to have been the means of securing an increase in their salaries. Of course many of Byrd's works were not published, and this is particularly the case with his compositions for the Virginals. Many are in the _Fitzwilliam Virginal Book_[3] and also in _Lady Nevill's Booke_, which is a collection of Virginal Lessons, copied by a singing Man of Windsor named John Baldwin. Before leaving Byrd's professional life it is interesting to note his connection with another musical worthy contemporary, Alfonso Ferabosco; a joint publication of theirs will show this. It was entitled _Medulla Musicke, sucked out of the sappe of Two of the most famous Musicians that ever lived, Master William Byrd and Master Alfonso Ferabosco, Either of whom having made 40 severall ways (without contention) shewing most rare and {17} intricate skill in 2 parts in one upon the Plaine Song Miserere_. This work was most probably the outcome of a "friendly contention" which they had "each one judging his rival's work, they both set plaine song 40 different ways." In private life Byrd's religious feelings made his career rather an anxious one; like many others on the Chapel Royal Staff, though outwardly Protestant, he was probably a Roman Catholic. It was known that the Byrd family were "Papisticall recusants"; as early as 1581 he is mentioned as living at one of the places frequented by recusants, and is also set down as "a friend and abettor of those beyond the Sea, and is said to be living with Mr. Lister over against St Dunstans or at the Lord Padgettes house at Draighton." It is a noticeable thing that though his duties called him to the Chapel Royal, he lived nearly the whole of his life out of London. At one place, Stondon, Essex, he had some sequestrated property granted to him for three lives, but had a good deal of dispute with the previous owners, which went so far as to necessitate the King's intervention. In a law-suit in connection with it "one Petiver submitted the said Byrd did give him vile and bitter words," that when told he had no right to the property replied that "yf he could not hould it by right {18} he would hould it by might." Byrd lived a long life, and died on July 4, 1623.