Michael Cavendish was an English composer of noble birth (he was a cousin of Lady Arabella Stuart, and lived at court.) He served Prince Charles, son of James I, from some time in the first decade of the seventeenth century through after 1620, but was in essence a country gentleman. Cavendish contributed to East's and Ravenscroft's psalters. Cavendish published a lute song book in 1598 Ayres in Tabletorie, which adapts the consort song to the lute, and contributed and one madrigal for Morley's The Triumphs of Oriana (1601). He is a minor composer who comes close to perfection once or twice.