Elizabethan England knew her share of warfare, but also reveled in the arts of music and drama. In a man such as William Shakespeare, the two endeavors meet in the history plays, which celebrate the epic battles of English kings past. In a musician such as William Byrd, musical evocations of warfare may honor the exploits of living soldiers, as his titles often indicate. One pair of variations for keyboard, for example, composed upon a very popular tune, apparently honors a specific Elizabethan warrior noble: several early sources call this keyboard work "The Earl of Oxford's March." Yet Byrd was not above double-dipping his dedications. The very same keyboard variations appear in an early manuscript anthology, and they are directly connected to a "Battle" suite. In this same manuscript ("My Lady Nevells Book"), the march bears the title March before the Battle; a Galliard appears similarly appropriated after the Battle as a celebration dance. The Earl of Oxford, however, never participated in the Irish campaigns depicted in the Battle suite. In this case, the march does duty to praise other English gallants. Nevertheless, the stolid martial character of this march—and some specific musical ties to the "March of the Footmen" movement within the Battle—does fit as well with the programmatic suite as it does a freestanding tribute to Lord Oxford.

The most important connection between the March before the Battle and the Battle suite—even if it is a retrospective association—is the plodding and relentless harmonic stability of the march's first phrase. Over three quarters of it treads heavily, again and again, upon the same tonic chord. Yet even in this harmonically rigid opening, William Byrd inserts bursts of musical activity, with individual inner voices breaking into brief scalar runs, often in imitation, as if to evoke flashes of sunlight on marching spears. The second time through the clearly audible melody, Byrd adds even more flourishes. He opens with a running bass line underneath the melody; after a cadence, the upper voice unusually imitates the lower. All voices gradually add more rapid embellishments, ornamental turns, and martial arpeggiations. At one point, the composer even evokes the sound of field trumpets calling to one another, with closely imitative arpeggios in several voices.

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