Chapter 3: The Role of the Royal PeculiarsIntroduction |
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| 1. | In assessing the role of and contribution made by the Royal Peculiars, one has to ask, contribution to what, or to whom? As will be seen, they differ from each other in obvious ways, yet all share in having a national, and even an international role as the repositories of English royal and constitutional history and tradition. As such they are visited by millions of visitors each year from all over the world. They have an important and essential duty of stewardship towards their buildings and their contents, which are of incomparable importance. Even in the twenty-first century, the Royal Peculiars are closely associated, as their name suggests, with the Monarchy and the Royal Household, though in different ways, and in the case of Westminster Abbey, also with Parliament. But they are also functioning places of worship, in which the traditions of centuries are maintained, and which also now provide spiritual support and pastoral care to a wide range of people, from the local community within the particular institutional setting to visitors from overseas. From time to time they organise and host major state and national services, some of them also having an international significance. They themselves would place worship first among their duties, and the long and continuing tradition of worship within their historical and symbolic context is what above all gives them such a unique and particular role. |
| 2. | While there are similarities between Westminster Abbey and St. George's Chapel, Windsor and cathedrals and great churches, there are also important differences. The role and contribution of the Royal Peculiars is not a diocesan one, and their history and royal association means that they sit obliquely to the organisational structure of the Church of England. This is so even though they share in many of the general aims and areas of activity identified for cathedrals in Heritage and Renewal , for example, mission, education, music, service and tourism. Their special role is characteristic of the nation's history, and is bound up with it. They preserve an important part of the national memory, and express the hard fought associations of church and state, Monarchy and Parliament. They symbolise the 'dignified' part of the constitution (although that does not exclude a wider and less formal role). In relation to their independence from the main Church structures, we believe that at times an independent voice may be useful. We also believe that both the history and the contemporary contribution of the Royal Peculiars deserve to be more widely understood and recognised, and we hope that this Report will help to make that possible. |
| 3. | At the same time, it must be borne in mind that the Royal Peculiars, especially Westminster Abbey, occupy an important and sensitive position, and arouse a great deal of legitimate interest. The claims of those who in current terminology might be termed stakeholders, and who come from many different backgrounds, also need to be carefully considered and recognised. |
| 4. | The independent role of the Royal Peculiars is one which can have great value in modern society and we give reasons why it should be preserved. They do, and should, play a far wider role than their specifically royal associations and history suggest. The remit of this Review precludes direct consideration of the status of these institutions as Royal Peculiars. Nevertheless it is entirely reasonable to examine this wider role further and to make suggestions based on a comparison with the work, for example, of cathedrals, and against the context of current debate and expectations in the main areas of activity which the Royal Peculiars undertake. The recommendations in this Report are framed with these objectives in mind, and we hope that they will be found helpful by those involved in the Royal Peculiars themselves. |
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Independence |
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| 5. | In ecclesiastical terms, 'peculiars' are places of worship which fall outside the normal structure of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. There are several different kinds of peculiars. Often, but not always, they are survivals from a period when founders and patrons were anxious to keep their foundations independent of episcopal rule, and when there were many such establishments; in turn, this claimed independence from other jurisdictions was frequently contested. Royal secular colleges were subject to no church authorities and might in turn themselves have parishes belonging to them. In the case of St. George's Chapel, Windsor, which dates from the fourteenth century, Edward III as founder sought to ensure the independence of his restructured chapel by obtaining a Papal Bull to that effect, and indeed popes had been brought in before on the side of the king in order to support the status of royal free chapels (the latter a term still in use today). Westminster Abbey in its monastic period enjoyed exemption not only as a royal foundation but also as part of the Benedictine order as a whole, and Elizabeth I ensured that this exemption continued after its establishment as a secular college. The Chapel Royal began its life as part of the king's household, and the Chapels Royal which we are considering have retained this status until today. It is important to realise that there were originally many more peculiars and many more royal free chapels than now survive, and that the major Royal Peculiars are not the only peculiars still in existence. The subject of what makes a peculiar is by no means clear in legal terms, and their early history is a good deal more complex than these brief remarks suggest.(4) However, the reference of the term 'Royal Peculiars' as used in this Report and as defined in our terms of reference is clear. It refers to the three remaining major peculiars which are held to be independent of episcopal and provincial authority and which fall directly under the Monarch, namely Westminster Abbey, St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and the Chapels Royal under the authority of the Dean of the Chapels Royal. |
| 6. | Still today therefore it is claimed to be of the essence of the Royal Peculiars that they are independent, save for the fact that they answer to the Sovereign, or to the Sovereign through the Lord Chancellor. It is less clear what this independence really means, or how far it should go in practice. Certainly the major Royal Peculiars have been for centuries independent of the main structures of the Church of England, so much so indeed that it might even be asked, if only facetiously, whether they are in fact part of it.(5) Not only are they outside the jurisdiction of a diocesan bishop, but they are also assumed to be extra-provincial, that is, they do not fall under the provinces of Canterbury and York, and therefore are not covered by legislation which applies only to those provinces. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see that the relevant section of the Abbey's 'Red Book' qualifies this independence from episcopal jurisdiction and the fact that the Dean and Chapter are not required to swear an oath of canonical obedience with the words 'saving always the rights and liberties of the Church of England as represented by the laws, civil and ecclesiastical, in force for the time being'. The Deans do indeed attend the Deans' and Provosts' conferences and with the Canons they undertake various roles in the wider Church. |
| 7. | In terms of governance, the Royal Peculiars are ruled by reference to their own ancient Statutes or rules, and are not covered by the Cathedrals Measure 1999. Nor are they covered by the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure 1963. Westminster Abbey and St. George's Chapel, Windsor were not included in the Care of Cathedrals Measure of 1990 and enjoy the ecclesiastical exemption by dint of a separate arrangement approved by the Secretary of State. There are in fact a variety of constraints on this independence. Again, Westminster Abbey and St. George's Chapel, Windsor are not cathedrals, though they have much in common with cathedrals, yet neither are they churches in the usual sense. The Chapels in the Tower of London and Hampton Court are in a sense private chapels, and yet they must coexist with the Historic Royal Palaces Trust, whose duty is to manage the Tower of London and Hampton Court as major tourist attractions open to the public. The Chapel Royal and The Queen's Chapel at St. James's Palace fall directly under the Royal Household, yet though the Chapel Royal is situated inside an occupied royal palace, its services are open to the public. All three major Royal Peculiars are under the authority of Deans, yet one of the Deans is also a diocesan Bishop, and in the case of the Chapels Royal there is no Chapter and there are no Canons. In fact the three institutions considered in this Report are so different from each other in scale, type and circumstance that they might seem to have little in common except for their technical independence from outside bodies. |
| 8. | One must ask therefore in what this independence actually consists. The Royal Peculiars have been the subjects of inquiries in the past. Westminster Abbey and St. George's Chapel were considered in the context of the Commissions on Cathedrals and Collegiate Churches set up by the Church of England in 1854, and the Abbey was the subject of the Westminster Abbey Act of 1888 and of a sub-commission of the Cathedrals Commission of 1927 which led to a Westminster Abbey Measure being passed in 1929. The College of St. George was likewise included in the Cathedrals Commission Report of 1927 and subject to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners' Act of 1840. Independence from existing systems of external regulation, if that regulation is well conceived, useful and effective, is not a virtue unless a better or at least equally good alternative is in place. Even then there may be good arguments for participating, even if in a modified form, in the regulatory systems which exist for comparable institutions. Chapter 7 considers some of these issues, for instance in relation to clergy discipline and fabric matters. There is also the question of whether it is useful for the Royal Peculiars themselves to be structurally isolated from the broader agendas of the Church and of society at large. In the present mood of accountability, demanded of other institutions, it is fair to ask how far the Royal Peculiars can stay - or should wish to stay - aloof from the aims of cathedrals and other great churches, and whether it would be helpful to them if this isolation were to continue. Furthermore we are conscious that it may be argued that isolation is all too liable to lead to criticism and that this kind of independence must be very carefully scrutinised and its dangers assessed if a case is to be made for its continuance. |
| 9. | Agendas which have been adopted more widely as relevant to cathedrals and great churches include for example mission, education and access. Westminster Abbey, St. George's Chapel, Windsor, the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, and the Chapel at Hampton Court are all major centres of tourism, visited by millions of people each year, and with complex and differing relationships with their immediate environment (Windsor Castle or, in the case of Westminster Abbey, as part of a World Heritage Site). Tourism and its management are subjects of major national concern and attention, closely connected in this regard to the national policies for the care of the historic environment which are currently under review. The two largest Royal Peculiars are also large and complex institutions with significant numbers of employees and volunteers. Each of the Royal Peculiars has a choir or choirs consisting of both children and adults, and the two larger ones each have their own choir schools, and are therefore directly concerned with education in the narrower as well as the wider sense. They are working institutions with the same need for good financial management and organisational structures as comparable institutions of their size and complexity. Whatever their history, and however closely they remain associated with the Monarchy and even the Court, they cannot remain detached from the rest of society as it faces the range of concerns listed in this paragraph. |
| 10. | It is of course possible to argue that external regulation is not necessarily required in order to encourage good practice or to ensure that the Royal Peculiars are responsive to these various concerns, or indeed that their clergy and lay administrators participate in these wider agendas. Undoubtedly this already happens in many respects. But again there is no virtue in itself in self-conscious exclusion where inclusion could in practice be both helpful and positive. |
| 11. | Independence, therefore, can be both positive and, in some cases, negative. In order to explore in what the independence of the Royal Peculiars really consists and assess its value, it is necessary to ask what their role and purpose actually is, and indeed how these have changed through the centuries and up to the present day. It will then be helpful as well as necessary to inquire what role is now appropriate in contemporary terms for these historic institutions which have been so closely associated with the history of England and of the Monarchy. |
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History |
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| 12. | The special role of the Royal Peculiars has much to do with their history and their associations with England's royal past. |
| 13. | Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey's origin is monastic, Benedictine and very early, its roots lying in the foundation begun by Dunstan in the tenth century. The early Saxon abbots already had royal patrons, and it was therefore natural for Edward the Confessor to think of building in 1045 a new and greater abbey, built from a royal tithe, which was to be closely associated with his palace and court nearby and also to be his own burial place; according to legend, the foundation was to be a monastery dedicated to St. Peter. In 1066 Edward died and was buried in the church, below the pavement in front of the high altar. Nearly a century later, under Henry II, he was canonised and his remains translated to a new shrine, now the shrine of a saint.(6) William the Conqueror was crowned in the Abbey on Christmas Day, 1066, and from then on it became the Coronation Church. The royal connection, its proximity to the palace of Westminster and the role of the Abbey as a royal burial place were therefore essential features from its earliest days, as was its monastic character, and this continued after its demolition and rebuilding under Henry III (1216-72), when the king was influenced by the example of the French and English cathedrals and the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury. The burial of Henry III on the right hand of Edward the Confessor made an important statement about royal and saintly protection.(7) Royal patronage and the possession of relics were both ways of underlining and enhancing the Abbey's status, and it had already been declared independent of all authority except directly that of Rome since the late eleventh century. However, not all the relations between the kings and the Abbey were happy, nor was royal support unfailing; its somewhat chequered fortunes recovered under Edward III (1327-77) who again chose it as royal burial place, and his successor Richard II was crowned there. The royal association continued in varying degrees until the building of Henry VII's Chapel, consecrated in 1509, and when the king died, the College was to say 10,000 masses for his soul, and to pray for him in perpetuity. With the dissolution in 1540 under Henry VIII, the monastic life of the Abbey came to a formal end and in 1542 the Abbey was reconstituted as a collegiate church with new Statutes, a grammar school, almsmen, a choral foundation, and provision for ten professors and twenty students at Oxford and Cambridge. Both Edward VI and Mary were crowned there, and under the latter its status as a monastery was restored. However this proved a brief interlude: Elizabeth's coronation in January, 1559 and still more, the service which followed the opening of her first Parliament, gave clear enough indications of her religious intentions, and her new Statutes for the Abbey of c.1560 which re-established it as a collegiate church, essentially returned to those of 1542. Its monastic days were over and it is from the Charter of 1560 and these Statutes that its later status has been derived. The later Committee for the College of Westminster set up by Parliament in 1645 did not outlast the Restoration. |
| 14. | In addition to being the seat of coronations and royal funerals and burials, Westminster Abbey has had an important historical role as the repository of the royal treasury and the royal regalia. The latter were taken to the Tower in 1643, but from 1249 part of the royal treasure had been stored in the Abbey, probably in the Pyx Chamber, and since Edward I, this and the rest of the crypt below the Chapter House had housed the Royal Wardrobe, a department of the Royal Household, with its jewels and plate. After 1303 the Pyx Chamber housed records and samples of coinage used to test for purity. Until it was decided to return it to Scotland in 1996, the Stone of Scone, captured in 1296, was for seven centuries under the guardianship of the Abbots and Deans of Westminster and housed beneath the seat of the Coronation Chair made for Edward II in 1308, apart from a few months in 1950-51 when it was temporarily removed by Scottish Nationalists. When it was returned to Scotland, it was agreed that it would be sent back to the Abbey for future coronations. |
| 15. | The fact that the Chapter House of Westminster Abbey, with its important thirteenth-century tiled floor, and the Pyx Chamber, are today Crown property and under the guardianship of English Heritage also reflects their earlier historical role in relation to the medieval association of church and state. The Chapter House continued to hold records into the reign of Elizabeth I. Both it and the Pyx Chamber were included in the 1870 restoration by Sir George Gilbert Scott as Surveyor to the Fabric on the initiative of the Office of Works, which included a new roof. The Pyx Chamber was returned to use as a treasury in 1986, in the form of a display for visitors. The present somewhat anomalous position (with a shop maintained by English Heritage, which also charges admission to the Chapter House) speaks of the complex history and resonance of the Abbey as a building which preserves the memory and tradition of English history. |
| 16. | In our own age the Abbey's role as the place of great royal occasions such as the marriage and coronation of Elizabeth II, and in recent times the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, give it a very special place in national consciousness, and an intimate connection with the Monarchy. |
| 17. | In 1725 the Lady Chapel, dating from the reign of Henry VII, became the Chapel of the Order of the Bath, the second highest order of chivalry in England, refounded in that year by George I. As with the Order of the Garter at Windsor, the banners of living Knights Grand Cross of the Order are hung over their stalls, and every four years new Knights are installed. |
| 18. | A further aspect of the Abbey's role is its place as a repository of memorials to important figures in national life. The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, dating from 1920, and more recently the Innocent Victims' Memorial at the West End forecourt (1996) convey a special symbolic meaning. Poets' Corner is particularly famous for its memorials. Dean Stanley's Historical Memorials of Westminster Abbey (1886) is the work of a Dean who deliberately tried to underline the Abbey's special relevance to national life, and some burials of national figures, such as that of Charles Dickens, in Stanley's time, roused considerable public feeling. It is the privilege of the Dean to decide on inclusion, and because of the Abbey's powerful associations this can still be a matter of great public interest and debate. In recent years additions have included Oscar Wilde, Matthew Arnold, A.E. Housman, Laurence Olivier and John Betjeman. |
| 19. | The national role of the Abbey is exemplified in the numerous memorial services for prominent individuals which are held there and in St. Margaret's, and in the many special services commemorating occasions or organisations. The latter include for example the ANZAC Day service, the Commonwealth Observance service, the Battle of Britain service, the Remembrance Day service and the Florence Nightingale and Children of Courage services as well as many others. They are complemented by wreath-laying, state visits and other major occasions, including the laying out and blessing of the national Field of Remembrance on the North Green. Memorable and important special services are often held in the Abbey in response to national events, for example the beginning of the Gulf War. |
| 20. | Because of its history and its physical position, the Abbey is closely linked with Parliament. In 1614 the Commons received communion at St. Margaret's Church, as likely to be plainer in worship than the Abbey itself, and today the Canon who holds the post of Rector of St. Margaret's is also the Speaker's Chaplain, having a pastoral responsibility for both Houses of Parliament and being responsible for the prayers with which parliamentary sessions begin and for services in the Chapel of St. Mary Undercroft in the Palace of Westminster. St. Margaret's, which became part of the Abbey and under the jurisdiction of the Dean and Chapter as a result of the Westminster Abbey and St. Margaret's Act of 1972, is also the Speaker's Church. This connection, which is further underlined by the fact that the Abbey and the Palace of Westminster, together with Parliament Square, have been designated as forming together a Grade I World Heritage Site, is a historic connection which binds Westminster Abbey particularly closely to Parliament. It has given rise in the minds of some Parliamentarians in turn to the view that the Abbey is in some sense 'theirs', or even, in view of its immense public importance, a 'People's Abbey'. |
| 21. | The Abbey is a building of enormous architectural and artistic importance and a repository of the national historical memory, whose associations encapsulate the most central elements of the public history of England since the Middle Ages. For these reasons alone it attracted over 1.25 million visitors in 1999-2000, in a year when numbers fell overall.(8) Some of these visitors come for their own religious or personal reasons, but many of those who attend the daily services are drawn from the very varied group whom we label as 'tourists'. They come from many countries and are not necessarily familiar with the religious tradition which the Abbey represents. The Abbey's role is therefore far wider than the local or even the national; it has a major international importance. |
| 22. | Although Westminster Abbey holds the patronage of twenty-four livings, the Dean and Chapter themselves are subject neither to the Bishop of London, whose seat is St. Paul's Cathedral, nor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose seat is at Canterbury. This is so because of the particular history of the Abbey, and its independence is not of course absolute. By tradition it is the Archbishop of Canterbury, for instance, and not the Dean of Westminster, who conducts coronations in the Abbey. There are those who would like to see this independence reduced, and the Abbey's exemption from diocesan or provincial authority removed. Yet the Abbey occupies a unique role in the symbolic life of the nation. It is not a cathedral, but equally it is more than a great or parish church. It stands at the heart of the delicate balance of custom and history that is the English constitution, and a nation denies that history at its peril. At the same time the Abbey has a much wider public and popular resonance, and holds an important place in the public mind irrespective of the details of its history or its constitution. This undoubtedly imposes a heavy responsibility on any Dean and Chapter. But though independence can easily be challenged in the name of conformity, it confers a freedom which is valuable in itself and which cannot be regained once lost. We believe that that independence should be upheld. |
| 23. | St. George's Chapel, Windsor The origins and history of St. George's Chapel, Windsor differ from those of Westminster Abbey in several significant ways. |
| 24. | Perhaps because of its situation within Windsor Castle, St. George's Chapel was not subject to the depredations of the iconoclasts and the loss of its treasures, nor did it suffer so directly from the effects of the Reformation (for example, its chantry chapels were not abolished), although the Dean and Canons were temporarily expelled from the Castle during the Commonwealth period, from 1643 to 1660. For the same reasons, it has escaped major breaks in its governance and despite later documents and injunctions (9) has not during its history experienced a major rewriting of its pre-Reformation Statutes, which were drawn up in 1352 by the Bishop of Winchester after the chapel had been rededicated to St. George and the Virgin Mary by Letters Patent of Edward III in 1348. |
| 25. | The establishment of the College of St. George was allowed by Papal Bull dated 1350. A second Bull granted it exemption from diocesan and other ecclesiastical jurisdiction and so ensured its independence. The Dean and Chapter own their part of the Castle and the Lower Ward in freehold and are therefore technically independent of the Royal Household, though naturally the relationship is in practice a close and complex one. |
| 26. | The College was founded in close conjunction with the Order of the Garter, the oldest Order of Chivalry, and totalled twenty-four 'poor knights' (later the Military Knights) and twenty-four priests, including the Warden (later the Dean). The number of Garter Knights including the Sovereign was set at twenty-six, and the numbers laid down for the members of the College were raised accordingly to twenty-six when its Statutes were drawn up in 1352. The circumstances and exact date of the foundation of the Order itself are notoriously obscure, but the restructuring in this way in 1348 of the chapel of Windsor Castle and its subsequent regulation by Statutes in 1352 must have been part of the process initiated by Edward III, and the whole was probably inspired by the similar chivalric foundation planned by Duke Jean of Normandy in 1544.(10) Interestingly enough, ladies were included as associates and awarded Garter robes from a very early stage. The arrangements for the College in 1352 included substantial endowments as well as extensive building work (including residential buildings, Chapter House and hall) and refurbishment of the existing chapel. St. George's was thus founded as a College, a community of lay and ordained individuals; it was never a monastery, and it escaped reorganisation, though not liturgical reform, during the Tudor period. |
| 27. | First among the duties of the members of the College is their obligation to 'wait upon the service of God'. This takes the form of a daily duty to pray for the Sovereign, the nation and the Most Noble Order of the Garter. The main celebration of the Order was the annual ceremony for St. George's Day, an elaborately regulated and complex set of rituals extending over three days which included a feast and constitutional and electoral meetings as well as the religious service in the Chapel.(11) The boy king Edward VI's efforts to introduce drastic reform were swept away under his sister Mary. Although the regularity with which Garter services and ceremonies have been observed at Windsor has ebbed and flowed with the centuries, the College maintains the tradition of daily prayer and since the re-establishment of the Order by George VI in 1948 the annual Garter Day has been resumed and is one of the major events in the royal ceremonial calendar. The daily prayer also continues, within the regular round of services in the Chapel. The Military Knights are housed within the Castle. Since 1907 they have been under the authority of the Constable of Windsor Castle and their housing falls under the Keeper of the Privy Purse, but they remain members of the College with the obligation to attend service in Chapel on Sundays and some other occasions. |
| 28. | Like Westminster Abbey, St. George's Chapel is a place of royal burial, and it contains the tombs of ten monarchs. The Albert Memorial Chapel contains the tomb of Prince Albert, and the tombs of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, George V and Queen Mary are also in the Chapel; George VI lies in the George VI Memorial Chapel, designed by George Pace and consecrated in 1969. |
| 29. | Again like Westminster Abbey, the Chapel holds major services for national organisations, as well as special services, memorial services and services for royal occasions such as the marriages of Prince Edward and of Lady Helen Windsor. |
| 30. | Because of its history and its position within the walls of Windsor Castle, St. George's Chapel has a particularly close association with the royal family. The Dean is ex officio Senior Domestic Chaplain to The Queen, as well as Register of the Order of the Garter. |
| 31. | The Chapel was visited by over one million people in 1998-99, and also has a regular congregation. It maintains a choral foundation, and is patron of fifty-one livings. Its wider role is inevitably different from that of Westminster Abbey because of its different location, but it seeks to serve the wider church and the nation in other ways, in particular through the clergy courses and consultations which have been held at St. George's House since the 1960s and which occupy a good deal of the time of the Dean and Canons. |
| 32. | St. George's Chapel has enjoyed the same independence as Westminster Abbey since the fourteenth century, while on the other hand its close connection with Windsor Castle and its proximity to the royal family place it in an intimate relationship with the Monarch and the Royal Household which is parallel in some ways to that of Westminster Abbey with the Houses of Parliament. |
| 33. | The Chapels Royal The three Chapels Royal under consideration (collectively the Chapel Royal, in the singular) are very different from the Abbey and St. George's Chapel, partly, but not only, in their difference of scale. |
| 34. | Nevertheless there are some similarities. For instance, all three likewise preserve today the historic connection with the royal past. The Chapels Royal had their origin in a single establishment known as the Chapel Royal, effectively the King's Royal Free Chapel or Ecclesiastical Household, which followed the Court wherever it went. By the Eltham Ordinances of 1526 its numbers were reduced and salaries regulated. One of its locations was at the present Chapel Royal in the royal residence of St. James's Palace, begun in 1531, and the main choral centre has been there since Queen Anne moved the Court to St. James's from Whitehall Palace. |
| 35. | During the Tudor period the services held at the Chapel Royal reflected the changing religious politics of the period. Tallis for example continued to compose through the reigns of Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth and adjusted his style and the language of his texts to changing demands.(12) After her accession in 1558 Elizabeth I attended Mass in the Chapel Royal at Whitehall but left the service before the moment when according to custom she should have descended to make an offering in gold at the high altar. A proclamation issued on 27 December ordered the Epistle and Gospel to be read in English and restored Cranmer's English Litany dating from her father's reign. At Easter 1559 the English communion service dating from Edward VI's reign was reintroduced in the Chapel Royal, and the Queen received communion in this form. |
| 36. | The present Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace has been used for royal marriages such as that of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in 1840, and of George V in 1893 while still Duke of York. Elizabeth I prayed there in the Tudor Closet before the Armada, her sister Mary's heart is buried there, and Charles I received communion there before his execution. The Queen's Chapel, begun in 1623 and established by Anglo-Spanish Treaty, was the private chapel of Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, and it was later refurnished by Sir Christopher Wren for Catherine of Braganza, the wife of Charles II, according to the terms of the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1661. Used by these royal ladies and by Mary of Modena for Catholic worship, and visited during this period by Samuel Pepys, it was later used for Reformed and Lutheran worship, and was associated with the Chapel Royal in 1938. |
| 37. | The Children of the Chapel Royal also have a place in the theatrical history of the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods. |
| 38. | The Chapel Royal possesses important ecclesiastical treasures and plate particularly of the Restoration period, some of which is used at coronations and is kept in the Tower of London with the Crown Jewels. |
| 39. | The Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London, commissioned by Henry VIII in 1520, is the burial place of Anne Boleyn, Katharine Howard and Jane Grey, as well as of many other notable figures beheaded on the Green, such as Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher. The Chapel of St. John the Evangelist (not a Chapel Royal) has been used at various times in its history, and particularly in the eighteenth century, to house state documents; these were later removed to the Public Record Office. Indeed, its status as a chapel was suspended between the reign of Charles II until its restoration by Queen Victoria in 1857. However, in earlier times when the King was in residence in the Tower it was used as his private chapel, and served as the location for the services and ceremonies connected with the Order of the Bath until the seventeenth century. |
| 40. | The Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace traces its origin to Wolsey's foundation in 1514 and is closely associated with Henry VIII, who installed its present vaulted ceiling in 1535-36. The Chapel bears the arms of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, and Henry's son, later Edward VI, was baptised there in 1537; Henry married Catherine Parr in The Queen's Closet in 1543. Later the Chapel was refitted for William and Mary and for Queen Anne by Sir Christopher Wren and the oak reredos by Grinling Gibbons installed by him in 1708. Further work was done later, for example the installation of the pews and font in the nineteenth century. |
| 41. | The Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace lies within an occupied royal palace, and in terms of management and accountability it forms part of the Ecclesiastical Household under the Lord Chamberlain's Office. The Sub-Dean of the Chapel Royal is also ex officio Sub-Almoner of the Royal Almonry Household, Deputy Clerk of the Closet of the College of Chaplains, and Domestic Chaplain to the Sovereign, in which capacity he also conducts services at the private domestic chapel in Buckingham Palace and is pastorally responsible for the communities at Buckingham Palace, St. James's Palace and Kensington Palace. The Chapel Royal has been responsible since its inception in 1919 for the annual Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph and jointly conducts the Royal Maundy service with the relevant host cathedral or greater abbey; this is a Royal Almonry service. |
| 42. | The Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula in the Tower of London and the Chapel at Hampton Court are within unoccupied royal palaces owned by The Queen in right of the Crown, and their maintenance falls to the Historic Royal Palaces Trust, formally the Historic Royal Palaces Agency, an authority set up in 1989. However in other aspects of their arrangements the Dean remains responsible to The Queen through the Lord Chamberlain's Office. |
| 43. | The regular services at all three Chapels Royal are open to all and attended by members of the local community and the wider public. All three maintain a choral foundation, the Gentlemen-in-Ordinary and Children of the Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace having a particularly long and interesting history. The clergy also hold pastoral responsibilities both within their particular communities and more widely. |
| 44. | Like Westminster Abbey and St. George's, the Chapels Royal fall outside the main ecclesiastical structures. However, unlike at the Abbey and Windsor, the Dean of the Chapels Royal has by custom since 1748 also been the Bishop of London, and the clergy of the Chapels Royal are licensed by him in his role as Bishop, although he himself as Dean of the Chapels Royal is answerable only to the Sovereign. With the Clerk to the Closet and the Lord High Almoner the Bishop of London as Dean of the Chapels Royal is one of the three senior bishops in the Royal Household. |
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Conclusion |
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| 45. | These are institutions whose history is deeply entwined with the history of England and with the Crown. In the light of contemporary expectations their functioning should be seen to conform in terms of management and accountability with the norms of good practice in comparable institutions, even if they differ from the latter in significant ways. We believe that they have already embraced these aims themselves, and our recommendations are made in that spirit. But we also hope that this Report will have the effect of making their particular role and history more widely known and therefore more widely recognised and valued. |
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