Although the piece that would come to be called The Earl of Essex, His Galliard appeared first in 1596, in Barley's New Booke of Tabliture (entitled simply A Galliard), and then in 1597, as the setting of Can she excuse in Dowland's The Firste Booke of Songes or Ayres, scholars believe Dowland composed the texted version first. In 1604, Dowland published an arrangement of the piece for five viols and lute as part of the Lachrimæ or Seven Tears, in which it is entitled, The Earle of Essex Galiard. It became very popular outside England in Dowland's lifetime. The piece is printed as No. 42a in Basil Lam and Diana Poulton's The Collected Lute Music of John Dowland.

The Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux, first came to Elizabeth I's court in London in 1584. Shortly afterward, it seems, he and the Queen developed an affectionate relationship tainted by moments of anger and quarreling. He was executed for treason in 1601. While alive, he composed verses to and about the Queen, and one of these, To plead my faith where faith hath no reward, bears a striking resemblance to the poem Dowland set in "Can she excuse," which aptly describes aspects of Essex's relationship with the Queen. If Essex did not write Can she excuse, Dowland may have based his text on To plead my faith. In either case, this establishes a connection between Dowland's song and the Earl of Essex, and it was not until 1604, when both Essex and Elizabeth I were dead, that Dowland thought to make public his tribute to the Earl.

Dowland adheres closely to the traditional form of the galliard, with three distinct phrases, or strains of eight, 12, or 16 measures, each immediately repeated. However, the repetitions of the strains are more varied than in earlier galliards. The basic structure remains in each of Dowland's arrangements of the piece, which contain the same melody, bass line, and the interpolation into the third strain of a song popular at the time, "The Woods so wilde." The moment Dowland introduces this melody, in a middle voice, one hears one of several shifts between 3/4 and 6/8 meter that mark the piece. A characteristic of other contemporary galliards, this shift occurs sometimes from measure to measure in Earl of Essex. Dowland's polyphony is dense, with few homorhythmic sections. Harmonically, the Earl of Essex Galliard is adventurous, first cadencing on the relative minor and then touching briefly on the major form of the relative minor. Its overall mood is melancholy, befitting the tragic end met by the person after whom it was named.



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