"Bare Ruin'd Choirs"

In 1534, Henry VIII (1491 to 1547), King of England, broke with the Church of Rome, ostensibly because the Pope refused to grant him an annulment of his 24-year marriage to Catherine of Aragon. (The marriage had given him no male heirs.) That same year, Parliament declared him the Supreme Head of the Church of England. To this day, Queen Elizabeth II holds the title, "Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England."

Between 1536 and 1541, Henry enacted the "Dissolution of the Monasteries," which called for Roman Catholic church lands, monasteries, priories, convents, and friaries in England, Ireland, and Wales to be forfeit to the crown. Some of the properties Henry sold for ready cash; some he granted to his favorites; and a few he gave to the Church of England to be used as churches or cathedrals.

In the course of this process, many of the buildings were plundered for building materials and fell into ruin.

Now, as I happen to know from a footnote or commentary for Sonnet 73 that I read in college, "Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang," is, among other things, a reference to the Dissolution of the Monasteries, for the choir is the part of the church where the choristers sat or stood during Mass.

Curiously, I can find no reference to this, which I take as a valid interpretation, in internet commentaries on the sonnet. A valid interpretation, and possibly a poignant one, if Shakespeare (1564 to 1616) did in fact have Roman Catholic roots or beliefs, as some scholars think.

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

  William Shakespeare

Francis Towne, Netley Abbey, 1809. Tate Britain.