Among the many English musicians exiled for the Catholic Faith was Peter Philips the composer and organist. As is often the case with these musicians, little is generally known about him, and so I am taking the opportunity of using material which has come to light in recent months, in conjunction with the little information which was previously established, to attempt a biography of him, however incomplete. This new material comes from various sources, including the State Papers Holland for 1593, which are in the Public Record Office; a letter to Fr. Persons from Richard Verstegan in the Stonyhurst Archives; the Pilgrims’ Book at the English College Rome; and court accounts and a certificate of residence in the Archives Générales du Royaume, Brussels.

As we have seen (Biographical Studies, Vol. 3, no.2), Thomas went to Brussels in about 1621 and returned home to Walton in 1624 with his Flemish Catholic servant. There his father was alarmed by his open Catholicism and ordered him to leave home. He went to live in the extremely Catholic household of his mother's sister, Mrs Dorothy Lawson, at St Anthony's, Newcastle-on-Tyne. From St Anthony's-where he does not seem to have been noticed by juries— he passed to Naworth Castle, the Catholic stronghold of the convert Lord William Howard. On July 20th 1629 he marriedthere Alethea,younger daughter of Sir Philip Howard and granddaughter of Lord William. The young couple lived at Naworth until 1631 and their first two children were born there. The birth of their first son was duly recorded in the Walton church register. It is not clear what relations between Thomas and his father were like. No marriage settlement seems to survive amongst the extant Fairfax and Naworth papers. Later settlements of Thomas' property give no indication that he received any land as his wife's dowry. Alethea continued to receive a small allowance from her grandfather after her marriage. Her husband was given a rent-charge of £20 a year by his cousin, Lord Dunbar. On January 20th 1631, six months after the birth of Thomas’ son, Lord Fairfax set up a trust, consisting of his Protestant sons-in-law, Robert Stapleton of Wighill and Sir Thomas Layton of Sexhow to hold the Fairfax estates between his own death and the coming-of-age of his grandson. That is to say the 2nd Lord Fairfax was to be a mere life-tenant.