[11][12][13] "A violent and hopeless passion for a very beautiful lady of a rank superior to his own" caused Clarke to commit suicide.
Apparently, he fell madly in love with one of his female students, a young, beautiful woman, of much higher social rank than himself.
The coin fell with its edge embedded in the clay, so Clarke mounted his horse, returned to London, and went back to his home in the churchyard of St Paul's Cathedral.
It is a large single sheet, entitled "A Sad and Dismal Account of the Sudden and Untimely Death of Mr. Jeremiah Clark, one of the Queen's Organists, who Shot himself in the Head with a Screw Pistol, at the Golden Cup in St. Paul's-Church-Yard, on Monday Morning last, for the supposed Love of a Young Woman, near Pater-noster-Row".
"The Occasion ... is variously Discours'd; some will have it that his Sister marrying his Scholar [Charles King], who he fear'd might in time prove a Rival in his Business, threw him into a kind of melancholy Discontent; and others (with something more Reason) impute this Misfortune to a young Married Woman near Pater-Noster-Row, whom he had a more than ordinary respect for, who not returning him such suitable Favours as his former Affections deserv'd, might in a great Measure occasion dismal Effects."
While most sources give the date as 1 December 1707, music historian Charles Burney, followed by François-Joseph Fétis, says that the event took place on 16 July 1707.
The first edition of John Hawkins fixes it as happening on 5 November 1707, which has been followed by Arthur Mendel, David Baptie, and Brown.
However, Hawkins left a copy of his "History", in which he had made numerous corrections and, in that, the date appears as 1 December 1707, which is given in the 1853 edition of the work.
There is an entry in the Chapel Royal Cheque Book, signed by the sub-dean, to the effect that, on 5 November 1707, Croft was admitted into the organist's place, "now become void by the death of Mr. Jeremiah Clerk", and in Barrett's English Church Composers (p. 106) is a statement that the books of the vicars-choral of St. Paul's contain an entry to the effect that "on November ye first, Mr. Jerry Clarke deceased this life".