Rebuilding


Henry XII

Edward I’s Chapel Royal was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1512. Henry VIII ordered its rebuilding, which was finished by 1519 or 1520. At this time many fine secular and university buildings were erected, but remarkably few churches, and so the chapel we see today is a rare specimen of early Tudor ecclesiastic architecture. The present arches, the Spanish chestnut roof and the majority of the exciting windows are all as they were in Henry VIII’s reign. Nevertheless, changes were made to Henry’s building during later centuries.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries St. Peter ad Vincula was subjected to the alterations common to many churches then. A cumbersome Restoration reredos or screen was placed behind the altar, blocking out three-quarters of the east window, a lath and plaster ceiling hid the beautiful Tudor roof, and the Chapel was filled with box pews. Later, George II added a gallery on the north and west sides for the accommodation of the garrison troops.


The interior in the eighteenth century,
featuring the box pews and gallery

Lord Macaulay, in his History of England, published in 1848, wrote of the Chapel Royal: ‘I cannot refrain from expressing my disgust at the barbarous stupidity which has transformed this interesting little church into the likeness of a meeting house in a manufacturing town. In truth there is no sadder spot on earth that this little cemetery. Death is there associated, not, as in Westminster and St. Paul’s, with genius and virtue, with public veneration and with imperishable renown; not, as in our humblest churches and churchyards, with everything that is most endearing in social and domestic charities; but with whatever is darkest in human nature and in human destiny; with the savage triumph of implacable enemies, with the inconstancy, the ingratitude, the cowardice of friends, with all the miseries of fallen greatness and blighted fame’.


A number of high-born and otherwise eminent persons, mostly women, were spared the indignity of public execution on Tower Hill and were beheaded behind the walls of the Tower on the Green just in front of the Chapel. Macoulay vividly describes the final journey to St. Peter’s of those beheaded on the Hill or the Green: ‘Thither have been carried through successive ages, by the rude hands of gaolers, without one mourner following, the bleeding relict of men, who had been the captains of armies, the leaders of parties, the oracles of senates, and ornaments of courts’. That Macaulay’s words reflect only two hundred years in the Chapel Royal’s long history is illustrated by the brass plate near the west door on which the most notable people buried in the chapel are listed in date order, a reminder that power and fame often had a high price.

Fortunately the Victorians made some improvements. In 1862, the somewhat insignificant porch on the south wall, which had been the entrance since the days of Elizabeth I, was removed and the original doorway at the west end, which had been bricked up and concealed by plaster, was reopened. The plaster ceiling was taken down to reveal again the Tudor roof beams. In 1876, encouraged by Queen Victoria, a major program of restoration was carried out. The high box pews were replaced by oak bench pews, the unsightly gallery and some unimportant memorial tablets were removed, a new pulpit and a new carved stone reredos, smaller than the Restoration one, were installed, and a small vestry was added at the east end of the aisle.


The Chapel after the Victorians
restoration

In the nave a new stone floor was laid and the sanctuary was enhanced by a marble pavement with octagonal panels, in which were inserted the names and armorial bearings of those buried near the altar. The renewal of the floor, coupled with the decision to bury the body of Sir John Fox Burgoyne, a much-loved Constable of the Tower, in the chancel, led to discovery that some of the more recent interments were barely two feet below the surface and that, to make room for them, earlier coffins had been broken and their contents scattered. The bones found under the nave floor were placed in new coffins and reburied in the crypt in accordance with Queen Victoria’s instructions.

The removal of plastering from the east wall of the aisle revealed a small Tudor piscine (shallow stone basin) and a hagioscope, or squint (a hole through the wall which gave a view of the main altar from the aisle. This view now blocked by the Blount memorial. The Victorian restoration, under the direction of Antony Salvin, was completed within a year and the Chapel reopened for services in June 1877.

The most recent alterations were begun in 1970, when the Victorian reredos was removed and the pews were replaced by chairs of English oak. The stripping of varnish from the Tudor roof revealed the richness of the original chestnut beams. It was decided, that the rather obtrusive pulpit, jutting out from the south wall into the nave, should be discarded and that sermons should be preached from the lectern. On 27 May 1971 Queen Elizabeth II attended an Evensong of Thanksgiving to mark the completion of the work, which had also taken about a year.