Henry Lawes became a gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1626 and a royal musician for lutes and voices in 1631. In 1634 he may have written the music for Thomas Carew's masque Coelum Britannicum, and he did write music for John Milton's Comus. In 1636 he and his brother William Lawes composed music for Sir William Davenant's The Triumph of the Prince d'Amour. Henry Lawes's Choice Psalmes (1648) also contained music by his brother and a commendatory sonnet by Milton. Lawes lost his court appointments during the English Civil Wars (1642–51) but regained them at the Restoration (1660). In 1656 he contributed music to Davenant's The Siege of Rhodes.

Lawes's songs, influenced by the Italian recitative style, are characterized by rhyme emphasis, word repetition, many cadences, and deliberate rhythmic discontinuity.