Chapel Royal

Middle Ages

In its early history, the English Chapel Royal travelled, like the rest of the court, with the monarch and performed its functions wherever he or she was residing at the time. The earliest written record of the Chapel dates from c. 1135, in the reign of Henry I. Specified in this document of household regulations are two gentlemen and four servants; although, there may have been other people within the Chapel at that time. An ordinance from the reign of Henry VI sets out the full membership of the Chapel as of 1455: one dean, 20 chaplains and clerks, seven children, one chaplain confessor for the household, and one yeoman. However, in the same year, the clerks petitioned the King asking that their number be increased to 24 singing men, due to "the grete labour that thei have daily in your chapell". The master of the children of the Chapel Royal had, until at least 1684, the power to impress promising boy trebles from provincial choirs for service in the Chapel.

From the reign of Edward IV in the late 1400s, further details survive: There were 26 chaplains and clerks, who were to be "cleare voysid" in their singing and "suffisaunt in Organes playing". The children were supervised by a master of song, chosen by the dean from among the gentlemen of the Chapel Royal; they were allocated supplies of meat and ale and their own servant. Additionally, there were two yeoman of the Chapel, who acted as epistlers, reading from the Bible during services; these were appointed from children of the Chapel whose voices had recently broken. In 1483 the various elements of the chapel were incorporated as the Royal Free Chapel of the Household: letters patent, issued in February that year, envisaged the chapel being governed by the Dean and three new canons: a sub-dean, treasurer and precentor; but Edward IV died two months later and the canonries were never endowed (though the office of sub-dean was retained).

Tudor period

Children (left) and gentlemen (right) of the Chapel in the funeral procession of Queen Elizabeth I

The Chapel remained stable throughout the reign of Henry VIII and the dissolution of the monasteries. The number of singers did vary during this period, however, without apparent reason, from between 20 and 30 gentlemen and eight to 10 children. The Chapel travelled with the King to the Field of the Cloth of Gold and during the second invasion of France.

The Chapel increasingly took on another, unofficial function that grew in importance into the 17th century – performing in dramas. The affiliated theatre company, known as the Children of the Chapel, produced plays by playwrights including John Lyly, Ben Jonson, and George Chapman, and performed them at court and then commercially until the 1620s. Both the gentlemen and the children would act in pageants and plays for the royal family, held in court on feast days such as Christmas. For example, at Christmas 1514, the play The Triumph of Love and Beauty was written and presented by William Cornysh, then-Master of the Children, and was performed to the King by members of the Chapel, including the children.

In music, the Chapel achieved its greatest eminence during the reign of Elizabeth I, when William Byrd and Thomas Tallis were joint organists.

17th & 18th century

In the 17th century, the Chapel Royal had its own building in Whitehall, which burned in 1698; since 1702, it has been based at St James's Palace. The English Chapel Royal became increasingly associated with Westminster Abbey, so that, by 1625, over half of the gentlemen of the English Chapel Royal were also members of the Westminster Abbey choir. Under Charles II, the choir was often augmented by violinists from the royal consort; at various times, the Chapel has also employed composers, lutenists, and viol players.

In the 18th century, the choristers sang the soprano parts in performances of Handel's oratorios and other works. The Sunday service times in 1714 were 'Morning Prayers at eight and eleven, and Evening Prayers at five o'clock'; the 8 am service was omitted if the Queen and her Household were not in residence. In 1792 it was still required that 'Divine Service be performed in the Chapel, morning and evening daily throughout the year, and not to be omitted on any pretence whatsoever'; a century later it was noted that 'the daily services have for many years been discontinued, and the only week day services now held in the Chapel Royal besides those on Sundays are on Saints' Days and on Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent'.

19th & 20th century

The marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert took place in the Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, in 1840; her eldest daughter Victoria, Princess Royal, was likewise married there in 1858. Later, the marriage of the queen's grandson Prince George (the future King George V) to Mary of Teck took place in the same chapel, in 1893.

In 1860 a Chapel Royal Commission recommended the merging and abolishing of several offices and appointments; this took place over ensuing years. For example there had previously been sixteen Gentlemen of the Chapel, formed into two teams of eight who served alternately for a month at a time; the commissioners proposed instead that a single team of eight Gentlemen should fulfil singing duties on Sunday mornings and evenings (and on holy days) through the year. The recommended reduction was achieved over the space of fifteen years, with certain 'senior Gentlemen' being retained as deputies, on half pay (and with the 'honorary rank of Gentleman of the Chapel Royal').

In 1911 the Chaplains in Ordinary and Honorary Chaplains were removed from the establishment of the Chapels Royal and instead placed under the Clerk of the Closet, forming what was thenceforth termed the College of Chaplains. (Nonetheless, the chaplains were still invited to preach once a year at the Chapel Royal at St James's). In 1920, in the wake of the First World War, Lord Stamfordham (the king's Private Secretary) raised questions as to 'whether the Chapel Royal justifies its existence, both from the point of view that the King never goes there, and from that of the Church'. Nevertheless, the Chapel(s) Royal continued thereafter to function and do so to the present day.

16th-century developments

In the early 1500s, King James IV built new or refurbished chapels in Edinburgh and Stirling Castles, and in Falkland and Linlithgow Palaces, as well as in his new Palace of Holyroodhouse. There is also a surviving 16th-century chapel at Rothesay Castle. Some of these replaced an older chapel, but in other cases the older chapel continued to operate alongside the new. Apart from the larger chapel buildings at Stirling and Edinburgh (which were at ground level), the chapels royal were usually located on the upper floor of the north or south range of the palace quadrangle (so as to be correctly orientated); they generally occupied all or most of the length of that part of the building. On occasion, however, something on a larger scale was required: thus at Holyrood, the adjacent Abbey was used for more elaborate royal ceremonies and services (such as the marriage of James IV and Margaret Tudor, and the coronation of Mary of Guise).

The establishment at Stirling

James IV's Chapel Royal at Stirling was a collegiate-type foundation, with a dean, a subdean, a sacrist, sixteen canons, sixteen prebends 'skilled in song' and six 'boy clerics' (or 'songsters'). In addition to the establishment at Stirling, there were twenty-seven chaplains attached to the royal court, who were overseen by the master almoner.

Initially, James Allardyce, the provost of St Mary on the Rock, St Andrews, was appointed dean at Stirling Castle (the two ecclesial offices being united) and certain canonries and prebends were used to endow the new foundation. Authority for the new collegiate chapel was set out in a Papal mandate, dated 2 May 1501 (which exempted the dean and other officers of the chapel from the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of St Andrews). When Allardyce died, however, soon after taking up the new appointment, the link with St Mary on the Rock was dissolved. From 1504 onwards, the deanery of the Chapel Royal was held by successive Bishops of Galloway with the title Bishop of the Chapel Royal and authority over all the royal palaces within Scotland. (Later, in 1621, the deanery was annexed to the bishopric of Dunblane—the offices were held conjointly: Bishop of Dunblane and Dean of the Chapel Royal; this arrangement pertained until the abolition of episcopacy in 1689.)

The Chapel Royal establishment was still in place at Stirling in 1540. During the reign of Queen Mary, the court (and with it the Chapel Royal) was primarily based at Holyrood. In the early 1570s, with the very young King James VI lodged at Stirling, the Chapel Royal was likewise quartered there once again. Subsequently, when the royal court came to be permanently settled at Holyrood, the dean ministered at the chapel there and the chapel at Stirling Castle fell into decay.

The move to Holyrood

In the 1530s, James V replaced his father's chapel at Holyrood with a new Chapel Royal (in the south, rather than the north, range of the building). When Charles II rebuilt the palace in the 1670s, the Chapel Royal was turned into a council chamber; in its place, the Privy Council and the Commissioners of the Exchequer declared (on 23 September 1672) that the Abbey Church was to be 'His Majesteis Chapell Royeall in all tymes comeing'. In 1685 James VII came to the throne and began, the following year, to restore the Abbey as a Roman Catholic place of worship (to serve as a chapel royal and also as chapel to his newly-established Order of the Thistle). Following the Glorious Revolution in 1688, however, a mob in Edinburgh broke into the abbey, destroyed the furnishings and desecrated the royal tombs. From then on, the building fell into decay and became a roofless ruin. The restoration of the abbey has been proposed several times since the 18th century – in 1835, by the architect James Gillespie Graham as a meeting place for the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, and in 1906, as a chapel for the Knights of the Thistle – but both proposals were rejected.

Aftermath

There are no currently-operational Chapels Royal in Scotland, but there are surviving buildings at Falkland, Linlithgow, Rothesay and Stirling, as well as the ruined Abbey at Holyrood and St Margaret's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle. The larger St Mary's Chapel in Edinburgh Castle no longer exists; the Scottish National War Memorial stands in its place.

St James's Palace

The Chapel Royal, St James's Palace, was built around 1540. The building is part of the main complex: it lies between Ambassadors' Court (to the west) and Colour Court (to the east), where it abuts the Great Gatehouse. The chapel is laid out on a north-south, rather than the usual east-west, axis and the altar is placed at the north end. When the gatehouse is viewed from Pall Mall, the large window to its right is the north window of the chapel (above the altar). The chapel interior includes an ornate coffered ceiling, 'one of the most important decorative Tudor ceilings in existence'. Reputedly painted by Holbein, it is richly illustrated with coats of arms and other motifs, including the initials 'H' and 'A' (for Henry VIII and Anne of Cleves) and the date 1540.

Sir Robert Smirke restored the chapel in 1837. As part of this work, the Closet (the south gallery containing the royal pew) was reduced in size (it had previously extended on pillars into the body of the chapel). The newly-exposed ceiling at the south end was made to match the Tudor work, and decorated with the cyphers of King William IV and Queen Adelaide. Box pews, arranged lengthwise, were installed in the chapel in 1876; and in 1894 choir stalls were inserted on either side of the altar.

A German bomb dropped on Pall Mall in 1940 destroyed the north window and the sanctuary furnishings; the building was restored a few years later, and further altered in the late 1960s. In 2002, the chapel was reordered and redecorated to mark the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II. As part of this refurbishment, a new set of stained-glass windows was installed above the altar, depicting a large tree arrayed with the names of the 54 nations of the Commonwealth.

The Queen's Chapel

The separate Queen's Chapel, once also physically connected to the main building of St James's Palace, was built between 1623 and 1625 as a Roman Catholic chapel for Queen Henrietta Maria, consort of Charles I, at a time when the construction of Roman Catholic churches was otherwise prohibited in England. After the Commonwealth period it was restored to use by Charles II for his queen, Catherine. In the 1690s, William III authorised the use of the Queen's Chapel by Dutch and French Reformed congregations; it later came to be known as the French Chapel. At the same time, chapel in the south range of what is now Friary Court was made available as a place of worship for German Lutheran courtiers. The "Minister for many years" of the "royal French chapel" at St James's Palace was Pierre Rival (d. 1730), one of whose sermons is published as no: Sermon prononcé le 7 de Juillet 1713 jour d'action de graces pour la paix dans la chapelle royale françoise du palais de Saint James. In 1781 the French and German congregations exchanged premises; the Queen's Chapel then came to be known as the German Chapel, and the Friary Chapel the French Chapel. The adjacent palace apartments (including the French Chapel) burnt down in 1809; they were not rebuilt and, between 1856 and 1857, Marlborough Road was laid out between the palace and the Queen's Chapel. In 1880 Queen Victoria gave permission for a Danish Church congregation to use the Queen's Chapel, for the benefit of the Princess of Wales (later Queen Alexandra) and her household. The German congregation moved out (to a new church in Montpelier Place) in 1902. The Danish congregation continued to use the chapel until 1938 (when they moved to St Clement Danes); the Queen's Chapel then, at Queen Mary's suggestion, became part of the Chapel Royal and has since then been used for regular services in the summer months (from Easter to the end of July).

Hampton Court Palace

The chapel at Hampton Court Palace has been a Chapel Royal since the 1530s (when King Henry VIII acquired the palace from Cardinal Wolsey). Henry enlarged the chapel, which was later refurbished under Queen Anne. The palace remained a royal residence up until the death of Queen Caroline, consort of George II, in 1737. From the reign of George III the palace provided grace and favour apartments and the chapel continued to serve the resident community.

The choral tradition had ceased with the departure of the royal court in 1737, but under Queen Victoria (who opened the palace to the public in 1838) a new permanent choral foundation was created in 1868. The choir, which sings on Sundays and major feast days, consists of 14 boy members and six gentlemen members. An organ was built in 1712 and, most recently, restored in 2013. In 2004 Elizabeth II and Prince Philip attended a service in the chapel marking the 400th anniversary of the Hampton Court Conference (which was probably the first time a monarch had worshipped there since the 1730s). Since 2017 it has served as the Chapel of the Order of the Companions of Honour; a service marking the centenary of the order that year was likewise attended by the Queen and her husband.

Tower of London

There are two Chapels Royal at the Tower of London. The Chapel of St John the Evangelist (located within and contemporary with the White Tower) dates from 1078. The current Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula dates from 1520 (but previously there may have been a pre-conquest chapel on the same site). The old St Peter's (the predecessor of the current building) was in place by 1200; it was rebuilt by Edward I in 1286-87 but burned down in 1512.

Historically St John's was the chapel used by the sovereign and the royal court, whereas St Peter's served the garrison and staff. On the eve of the coronation of King Henry IV in 1399, the Knights of the Bath kept an all-night vigil in St John's Chapel; this practice continued on the night before each coronation up until 1559 (whereupon the vigil was relocated to St Peter ad Vincula, where it continued to be held until 1661). Subsequently St John's chapel stopped being used for services, and by 1570 it was serving as a repository for public records. By this time the use of the Tower as a royal residence had greatly reduced (though monarchs continued to stay at the Tower on the night before their coronation, up until the Interregnum). In 1858 (following the opening of a new Public Record Office) St John's reverted to being used as a place of worship (for non-conformist members of the Tower garrison). Meanwhile St Peter's continued to serve the garrison and the wider Tower community. Those who were executed on Tower Green (between 1483 and 1601) were buried in St Peter's, as were the bodies of a number of those executed on Tower Hill (including Thomas More, John Fisher and Thomas Cromwell).

In 1965, when the garrison left the Tower, a successful appeal was launched to establish a choral foundation for the Tower's Chapels Royal. Today choral services are sung regularly on Sundays by the twelve-person choir, usually in the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula. In 2014, following a programme of refurbishment in St Peter's, a special service was held there attended by Elizabeth II and Prince Philip.

Savoy Chapel

The King's Chapel of the Savoy ('commonly known', in the 19th century, 'as the Chapel Royal of the Savoy') has a unique status: it is the monarch's by right of his Duchy of Lancaster (Liberty of the Savoy). In 2016, it was brought for ecclesiastical purposes within the jurisdiction of the chapels royal. The chapel maintains a choir of six Gentlemen and around twenty boys, who are pupils at St Olave's Grammar School.

The chapel, which is dedicated to St John the Baptist, dates from around 1515, when the Savoy Hospital (a charitable foundation endowed by King Henry VII) was completed; it was originally one of three chapels within the hospital complex. The hospital closed in 1702 and its dormitories then served as a barracks for most of the 18th century. In the Savoy Chapel, the congregation of St Mary le Strand worshipped (their own building having been demolished to enlarge the Savoy Palace); during this time (and for many years afterwards) the chapel was often known as 'St Mary-le-Savoy', between 1549 and 1723. Prior to the Clandestine Marriages Act 1753, the chapel was well-known as a venue for such marriages. In 1816 most of the old hospital buildings were demolished to make way for Waterloo Bridge, leaving only the chapel standing. A serious fire in 1864 gutted the chapel's interior, which Queen Victoria then had rebuilt by Sydney Smirke. In 1937 King George VI made the Savoy Chapel the chapel of the Royal Victorian Order.

Queen Elizabeth II attended a service in the Savoy Chapel in 2012, accompanied by her husband Prince Philip, to unveil a stained-glass window commemorating her Diamond Jubilee.

Other royal chapels

Buckingham Palace

In the early 1840s, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert created a chapel in what had been a conservatory, designed by John Nash, within Buckingham Palace; it was converted by Edward Blore and consecrated on 25 March 1843. (Though initially referred to as the 'Chapel Royal of Buckingham Palace', it was usually termed a private chapel.) A number of Victoria's children were baptized in the 'Chapel within Buckingham Palace', beginning with their third child, Princess Alice, on 2 June 1843. In 1863, following the death of Prince Albert, moves were made (at the Queen's request) for Sunday services to be sung by the Chapel Royal choir 'in H.M. private chapel at Buckingham Palace' at 9 am and 12 noon; but the plan never achieved fruition. Services in the chapel continued to be taken by a resident chaplain, and only when the monarch herself was in residence.

On 13 September 1940 (during World War II) the chapel in Buckingham Palace was destroyed by enemy bombing. What was left of the building was eventually incorporated into the Queen's Gallery (opened in 1962), where it is known as the Nash Room. Separately, a small private chapel was created nearby in the south-western part of the palace. This was renovated for the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II in 2002.

Whitehall

The Chapel Royal in Whitehall Palace was attached to the east end of the Great Hall; both buildings were left in ruins following the 1698 fire. Subsequently, the Banqueting House (which had survived the conflagration) served as the Chapel Royal, Whitehall. In 1702 the Chapel Royal establishment moved from Whitehall to St James's Palace, but choral services continued to be held in the Banqueting House until 29 October 1890, when the Chapel Royal, Whitehall, ceased to operate.