Richard Dering

A number of other English composers had taken up residence there, among them Peter Philips and John Bull, and it is thought that Dering became acquainted with them.

[4][2] In Brussels, Dering took up the position of organist to a community of English Benedictine nuns at the Convent of Our Lady of the Assumption.

The preface to Cantiones Sacrae states that the pieces were written "in the first city of the world" — meaning the centre of the Catholic faith, Rome.

Dering's two- and three-voice pieces were published in London by John Playford in 1662, long after the composer's death, but they may have been written in the Spanish Netherlands, for one has a text honoring St James as patron saint of Spain.

It is likely that Dering took the pieces with him to England: they were certainly sung in Henrietta's chapel, and they were used for private devotion during the Commonwealth (when they were reputedly Oliver Cromwell's favorite music).

His best-known choral work is his motet for Michaelmas, Factum est Silentium, a dramatic work which describes the War in Heaven depicted in Revelation 8:1 and Revelation 12:7–12:[4] Factum est silentium in caelo,Dum committeret bellum draco Cum Michaele Archangelo.

There was silence in heavenWhen the dragon fought with the Archangel Michael.This anthem, first published 1618, has found popularity more recently in the repertoire of Anglican church music.