Thomas Whythorne

[3] On leaving the school he briefly attended Magdalen College itself, but left within a year to study under the writer and musician John Heywood.

Chafing against his treatment by some employers as a mere servant (whom he considered below him due to his background and education), Whythorne searched for a patron to allow him to concentrate on composing.

His musical manuscripts indicate that near the end of his life he found a patron in Francis Hastings, but little is known of this relationship despite Whythorne's lengthy preface.

[6] Upon his return to England, Whythorne served as a music tutor in Cambridge and London, where he survived a Bubonic plague outbreak in 1563 that killed members of his household.

[citation needed] In addition to its musical importance, Whythorne's autobiography reveals much about sixteenth-century social customs and habits.