THE
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THE VEN. ARCHDEACON
WILLIAM SINCLAIR. D.D.

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Yale Center for British Art and British Studies

THE CHAPELS ROYAL

THE
CHAPELS ROYAL

BY THE VEN. ARCHDEACON
WILLIAM SINCLAIR, D.D.
Hon. D.D. (Glasgow), F.R.S.L., Etc.
AUTHOR OF "memorials OF ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL"
" JOIJN MCWHIRTER, R.A." "JOSEPH FARQUHARSON, A.R.A."
"LEADERS OF THOUGHT IN THE ENGLISH CHURCH" ETC.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM DRAWINGS BY
LOUIS -WEIRTER, R.B.A.

LONDON
EVELEIGH NASH
1912

CONTENTS

The Chapels of St. John and St. Peter in the
Tower of London ....
St. George's Chapel, Windsor .
Henry the Seventh's Chapel, Westminster Abbey
The Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace
The Chapel Royal, Whitehall .
The Chapel Royal, Hampton Court .
The Chapel Royal, Savoy
The Chapel Royal, Kensington Palace
The German Chapel Royal, Marlborough House
The Private Chapels at Windsor Castle and
Buckingham Palace
St. Margaret's Chapel, Edinburgh Castle
Holyrood Abbey ....
Dunfermline Palace and Abbey
The Royal Palace and Abbey of Scone
Chapel Royal, Stirling Castle .
The Chapel in Linlithgow Palace
The Chapel Royal, Falkland Palace .
The Chapel Royal, Dublin Castle

I
21
63 87
151
171
187
201
209
227231243
279287293303311
319 V

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Th;e Chapel Royal, Dublin Castle . . Frontispiece

The Chapels of St. John and St. Peter in the
Tower of London ....
St. George's Chapel, Windsor .
The Private Chapel, Windsor Castle .
Henry the Seventh's Chapel, Westminster Abbey
The Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace
The Chapel Royal, Whitehall .
The Chapel Royal, Savoy
The German Chapel Royal, Marlborough House
The Private Chapel, Buckingham Palace
St. Margaret's Chapel, Edinburgh Castle .
Holyrood Abbey .....
Entrance to Holyrood Abbey .
The Chapel Royal, Stirling Castle .
The Chapel Royal, Falkland Palace .

FACING PAGE

i6
28
48 80
112
168192
216230
240256272
296314

Vll

INTRODUCTION

HE religious side of an institution
is generally the most interest
ing, because religion of any
kind touches the deepest and
highest emotions of human
nature, and calls up whatever
is sincere and genuine even in commonplace
minds. The associations of a parish church, where
many generations have been baptized, confirmed,
married, and buried, are rich in personal remi
niscences of the most intimate and varied kind :
sorrows and joys, struggles of conscience, hopes
and fears, instructions and inspirations, sympathies
and reflections. And therefore, when we come to
families which have to play a large and public part
on the stage of the world, the places devoted to their
worship and religious celebrations cannot but be
full of interest, romance, and the more serious
aspects of brilliant lives. It is from this point
of view that it is worth while to see what can be
told about the Chapels Royal of the United
Kingdom. ix

Introduction
Well-known names at once present themselves :
the Tower of London, Windsor Castle, Hampton
Court, Whitehall, St. James's, Kensington, and
Buckingham Palace ; Edinburgh Castle, Holyrood
House, Stirling Castle, Falkland Palace, Linlith
gow, and Balmoral Castle ; and the Chapel in
Dublin Castle. But there are many more, for in
early days the Kings moved much from place to
place, and had many royal manors and castles,
some permanently in their own occupation, some
disused, some for certain periods, at Others handed
over to different members of their families, or to
friends. Such were Bamburgh Castle, Westmin
ster Palace, Somerset House, Richmond Palace,
Woodstock Castle, Enfield Palace, Hatfield House,
Dover Castle, Corfe Castle, Theobalds, Nonsuch,
Baynard Castle, Eltham Palace, Greenwich Palace ;
or in Scotland, the Castles of Kildrummy, Doune,
Dumbarton, Craigmillar, and Lochleven, Scone,
and many others. All of these had Chapels, which
must have been the scenes of much that would
be interesting: but it is with the more permanent
homes of the royal families that the principal
events are connected, and it is with them that it
will be enough to deal.

X

THE CHAPELS OF ST. JOHN AND ST. PETER
IN THE TOWER OF LONDON

THE CHAPELS OF ST. JOHN AND ST. PETER
IN THE TOWER OF LONDON
3JLTH0UGH the Chapel founded
by Edward the Confessor at
Windsor was earlier in date
than the Tower of London, its
history is so obscure and un
certain that it is more natural
to consider first the Norman foundation in London.
The Tower was begun by William the Conqueror
in 1078, and Gundulph, Bishop of Rochester, who
also built the Keep in his cathedral city, was ap
pointed surveyor. It was repaired or enlarged at
different dates by William Rufus; Geoffry de
Magnaville, Earl of Essex; Thomas k Becket
when Chancellor; William Longchamp, Bishop of
Ely and Chancellor; and finally completed by 3

The Chapels Royal
King Henry III. The whole area comprised
by the walls of the building is rather more
than twelve acres. The Royal Palace of the
Tower, which has now entirely disappeared, was
situated near the White Tower ; the Norman Keep,
in the inner part of the group. "Erected at
different periods, and consisting of a vast range
of halls, galleries, courts and gardens, the old
palace occupied in part the site of the modern
Ordnance Office. Commencing at the Coal Har
bour Gate, it extended in a south-easterly direction
to the Lanthorn Tower, and from thence branched
off in a magnificent pile of building, called the
Queen's Gallery, to the Salt Tower. In front of
this gallery, defended by the Cradle Tower and
the Well Tower, was the privy garden. Behind
it stretched a large quadrangular area, terminated
at the western ailgle by the Wardrobe Tower, and
at the Eastern angle by the Broad Arrow Tower.
It was enclosed on the left by a further range of
buildings, termed the Queen's Lodgings, and on
the right by the inner ballium wall. The last-
mentioned buildings were also connected with the
White Tower, and with a small embattled structure
flanked by a circular tower, denominated the Jewel
House, where the regalia were then kept. In front
of the Jewel House stood a large decayed hall
forming part of the palace ; opposite which was a
4

The Tower of London
court, planted with trees, and protected by the
ballium wall."^ This palace was the residence,
during portions of their reigns, of every sovereign
from William Rufus to Charles II.
The tragic and romantic episodes which make
the history of this grim fortress so fascinating and
so sad are too numerous to allow the mention
of more than some of them ; but most of the
prisoners must have attended one or other of the
Chapels. In 1234, Griffith, Prince of Wales, tried
to escape from the White Tower by a line made
of hangings, sheets and table-cloths, tied together ;
unfortunately for him, he was a stout man, broke
the rope, arid fell from a great height ; his head
and neck were found driven into his breast between
his shoulders. Edward the Third first established
a Mint within the Tower (since removed to Tower
Hill) ; in this his Florences of gold were coined.
In his reign three sovereigns were prisoners there :
John, King of France ; his son, afterwards King
Philip ; and David, King of Scotland. King John
on one occasion in his captivity feasted Edward
III. and all his Court in the Great Hall. In the
fourth year of the reign of King Richard 1 1., a time
of wild alarm came upon the Tower : the rebellion
of Wat Tyler had surged into London, and in
1 W. Harrison Ainsworth, The Tower of London, Book ii.
chap. 4. 5

The Chapels Royal
spite of the garrison of six hundred valiant persons,
expert in arms, and the like number of archers,
the mob seized the fortress, burst into the King's
chamber and that of his mother, to both of whom
they offered outrages and indignities ; and ended
by seizing Simon of Sudbury, Archbishop of
Canterbury and Chancellor, whom they supposed
to be the author of the taxation which they resented,
hurrying him off to Tower Hill, and barbarously
hewing off" his head with eight strokes. This they
fixed on a pole on London Bridge, where shortly
afterwards it was replaced by that of Wat Tyler
himself. The year 1458 was memorable in the
Tower for the jousts held on Tower Green by the
Duke of Somerset and others, before that Queen
of tragedy, Margaret of Anjou. In 1471 Henry
the Sixth, pious and incapable, was a prisoner in
the Tower, and the belief of the day was that he
was murdered. Seven years later George, Duke
of Clarence, died a violent death in the Bowyer
Tower, and the rumour was that he was drowned
in a butt of Malmsey. Five years later, the young
Edward the Fifth, and his little brother the Duke
of York, died in the Bloody Tower, during the
schemes of their uncle, afterwards Richard the
Third, for possessing himself of the Throne ; and
the tradition, never disproved, was that they were
smothered. In 1483, in the course of the same
6

The Tower of London
ambitious career, "by command of the Duke of
Gloucester, who had sworn he would not dine
till he had seen his head off. Lord Hastings was
brought forth to the green before St. Peter's
Chapel, and after short shrift, ' for a longer could
not be suffered, the Protector made so much haste
to dinner, which he might not go to until this
were done, for saving of His Grace's oath,' his
head was laid upon a large block of timber, and
stricken off"." In 151 2 came a lamentable accident :
the woodwork and decorations of the Norman
Chapel of St. John in the White Tower were
destroyed by fire. In the reign of the tyrant,
Henry the Eighth, the prisons were constantly
filled, and the scaffold was deluged with blood.
Among the earlier victims were the extortionate
ministers of Henry the Seventh, Sir Richard
Empson and Edmund Dudley, father of John
Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and grandfather
of Lord Guildford Dudley, husband of Lady Jane
Grey, and of his brother Robert, Earl of Leicester,
the favourite of Queen Elizabeth. There followed
the popular Duke of Buckingham, victim of Car
dinal Wolsey; John Fisher, the saintly Bishop
of Rochester ; the wise and witty Chancellor, Sir
Thomas More ; Queen Anne Boleyn ; her brother,
the Earl of Rochford ; Norris, Smeaton, and others
implicated in her fall; the Marquis of Exeter, 7

The Chapels Royal
Lord Montacute, Sir Thomas Neville; Thomas,
Lord Cromwell, the favourite minister of Henry
the Eighth and counsellor of the dissolution of the
monasteries ; the venerable and courageous Countess
of Salisbury, one of the last of the Plantagenets ;
Lord Leonard Grey, Queen Katherine Howard
and Lady Rochford, and a few days before the
death of the despot Henry, the charming and
accomplished Earl of Surrey. The reign of
Edward VI. was short, and he was a minor ; but
the Council, under the influence of John Dudley,
Duke of Northumberland, brought to the block
the young King's two uncles. Admiral Thomas
Seymour, Lord Seymour of Sudeley, the husband
of Queen Katherine Parr, and Edward Seymour,
Duke of Somerset, the Protector.
In the brief reign of Mary fell the heads of
John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, the am
bitious schemer ; Lord Guildford Dudley, his son ;
and the innocent little girl, Lady Jane Grey, most
pathetic and unwilling of usurpers ; besides those
of Sir Thomas Wyatt and others implicated in
risings against Mary or Philip.^
In the reign of Elizabeth, Thomas Howard,
^ St. Peter's Chapel is connected with the strange and tragic
recantation and mass of the Duke of Northumberland, the Marquis
of Northampton, Sir Andrew Dudley, Sir Harry Gates, and Sir
Thomas Palmer, on 21st August 1553, before their execution.
Next day followed the recantation and mass of the Earl of
8

The Tower of London
Duke of Norfolk, was beheaded for his support,
given as a Roman Catholic, to the cause of Mary
Queen of Scots : he had been a judge at the
impeachment of his two nieces. Queen Anne Boleyn
and Queen Katherine Seymour, and had voted for
their execution. Many recusant Romanists and
seminary priests, pledged to the dethronement or
death of the Queen, were imprisoned on political
grounds in the dungeons ; notably the famous
Jesuit Fathers, Campion and Persons. Lord
Stourton was executed for the murder of the
Hartgills, private enemies. " Henry Percy, Earl
of Northumberland, shot himself in his chamber,
declaring that the jade Elizabeth should not have
his estate."^ The last victim of Elizabeth's rule
was her favourite, the Earl of Essex.
In the more pacific time of King James the
First, the incomparable Sir Walter Raleigh was
beheaded ; Sir Thomas Overbury was poisoned.
In the days of the Long Parliament, the
principal advisers of King Charles the First,
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, and
William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, were
beheaded. In 1656, in the later years of Oliver
Warwick, Northumberland's eldest son, and Sir John Gates
(Chronicle of Queen Jane and Two Years of Queen Mary, by a
Resident in the Tower. Camden Society, 1850, p. 18).
1 W. Harrison Ainsworth, Book ii. chap. 4.

The Chapels Royal
Cromwell, " Miles Sunderland, condemned for
high treason, poisoned himself, and his body,
stripped of clothing, was dragged at the horse's
tail to Tower Hill, where a hole had been digged
under the scaff"old, into which it was thrust, and
a stake driven through it."^
In the reign of Charles the Second the chief
victims were Lord Monson and Sir Henry Mild-
may, Sir Henry Vane, Algernon Percy, and
William, Lord Russell. Under his brother, James
the Second, the handsome, popular, foolish, and
unfortunate Duke of Monmouth perished, who
had some slight pretext for believing himself to
be the legitimate son of Charles the Second.
In George the First's time came the Highland
rising of 17 15 for James, son of James the Second,
when the principal sufferers were Lords Derwent-
water and Kenmure. In that of George the Second,
there was the more successful effort of Prince
Charles Edward in 1745, which brought to the
block Lords Kilmarnock, Balmerino, and Lovat.
In 1760, the year of the accession of George the
Third, Lord Ferrers was imprisoned in the Tower
for the murder of his steward : but the execution
took place at Tyburn, near where the Marble Arch
now stands. In 1762 the popular demagogue
Wilkes was imprisoned for libel ; in 1780 Lord
^ Ainsworth's Tower of London.
ID

The Tower of London
George Gordon for instigating the anti-papal riots.
In 1810 Sir Francis Burdett, father of the famous
philanthropist Baroness Burdett Coutts, was in
carcerated for defying the House of Commons ;
followed in 1820 by the Cato Street conspirators,
Thistlewood, Ings, and the rest.
Through all these varied scenes the Chapels
of St John and St. Peter continued their quiet
worship, under varied religious auspices.
The little Chapel of St. John, in the White
Tower, the work of the genius of Bishop Gundulph,
is one of the most perfect specimens of Norman
ecclesiastical architecture in this country, and from
its position in the Keep, as well as from the
massiveness of its style, preserves, as few other
churches have, its original freshness and beauty.
It consists of a nave with broad aisles, from which
it is separated by twelve circular pillars of the
simplest and most solid construction, which support
a stone gallery, or triforium, of equal width with
the aisles, fronted by an arcade corresponding with
the loftier one beneath. The floor was formerly
covered with a hard polished cement, resembling
granite. The roof is coved, and beautifully pro
portioned ; the Chapel is completed by a semi
circular apse towards the east.
The following is the order for its decoration in
the reign of Henry the Third, recorded by Stow :
II

The Chapels Royal
" And that ye cause the whole chapel of St. John
the Evangelist to be whited. And that ye cause
three glass windows in the same chapel to be made ;
to wit, one on the north side, with a certain little
Mary holding her Child; the other on the south
part, with the image of the Trinity ; and the third,
of St. John the Apostle and Evangelist in the south
part. And that ye cause the cross and the beam
beyond the altar of the said chapel to be painted
well, and with good colours. And that ye cause to
be made and painted two fair images where more
conveniently and decently they may be done in the
said chapel ; one of St. Edward, holding a ring, and
reaching it out to St. John the Evangelist." ^
The Chapel of St. Peter-ad-vincula (St. Peter-
in-prison) was also a small structure, not far from
the White Tower. It was, and its successor is
still, the parish church of the whole precincts of
the fortress, but a special portion was reserved
for the Sovereign and the Court. The second
building, erected by Edward I., occupied the site
of an earlier Chapel, having the same dedication ;
this was much more spacious, and possessed two
chancels, one of which contained the stalls of the
King and Queen. Stow records the following
order for its repair issued by Henry the Third :
"The King to the keepers of the Tower work
^ Quoted by W. H. Ainsworth, Book i. chap. 5.
12

The Tower of London
sendeth greeting: We command you to brush or
plaster with lime well and decently the chancel
of St. Mary in the Church of St. Peter within the
bailiwick of our Tower of London, and the chancel
of St. Peter in the same church ; and from the
entrance of the chancel of St. Peter to the space
of four feet beyond the stalls made for our own
and our Queen's use in the same church ; and the
same stalls to be painted. And the little Mary
with her shrine and images of St. Peter, St.
Nicholas and Katherine, and the beam beyond the
altar of St. Peter, and the little cross with its
images, to be coloured anew, and to be refreshed
with good colours. And that ye cause to be made
a certain image of St. Christopher holding and
carrying Jesus where it may best and most con
veniently be done, and painted in the foresaid
church. And that ye cause two fair tables to be
made and painted of the best colours concerning
the stories of the blessed Nicholas and Katherine,
before the altars of the said saints in the same
church. And that ye cause to be made two fair
cherubims with a cheerful and joyful countenance
standing on the right and the left of the great
cross in the said church. And moreover one
marble font with marble pillars well and hand
somely wrought."
Edward the First's Chapel, which succeeded the 13

The Chapels Royal
older building, was burnt in 151 2, when it was
replaced by the present church, which is a small
stone structure, consisting of a nave with a north
aisle, separated by an arcade of low Tudor arches
resting on clustered columns. In addition to the
executions already mentioned, Ainsworth enu
merates the principal burials which took place
within the walls of St. Peter's.^ The body of John
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, beheaded in 1535
for denying the Pope's supremacy, was interred
here for a time. Holinshed sums him up tersely :
" He was a prelate of great learning, and very good
life. The Pope had elected him a cardinal, and
sent his hat as far as Calais. But his head was
off before his hat was on, so that they met not."
Next to Fisher lay the body of his friend Sir
Thomas More, Henry VIII.'s wise, witty, and
eloquent Chancellor. Hall the Chro'nicler hesitates
whether he should describe him as "a foolish wise
man, or a wise foolish man " ; — he jested even on
the scaffold. At the intercession of his daughter,
Margaret Roper, his body was afterwards removed
to Chelsea. " Here also was interred the last
(except her son) of the right line of the Plan
tagenets, Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the
mother of Cardinal Pole. The venerable lady
refused to lay her head upon the block, saying
^ Compare the list of executions, pp. 7-10.
14

The Tower of London
(as Lord Herbert of Cherbury reports) — ' So should
traitors die, and I am none.' Neither did it serve
that the executioner told her it was the fashion : —
so turning her grey head every way, she bid him,
if he would have it, to get it as he could : so he
was constrained to fetch it off" slovenly." The
bodies of Queen Anne Boleyn, Queen Katherine
Howard, Lady Jane Grey, and Lord Guildford
Dudley lay near the High Altar, the first three
side by side. Here was buried the decapitated
body of Thomas, Lord Cromwell, "the son of
a blacksmith, who having served as a common
soldier under Bourbon at the sack of Rome, en
tered Wolsey's service, and rose to be Grand
Chamberlain of the realm " (and Henry the Eighth's
chief minister). In Elizabeth's reign an eminent
victim whose body received the sombre shelter
of the Chapel was Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, the
head of the papal interest in England, who aspired
to the hand of Mary Queen of Scots, and was the
chief conspirator on her behalf. Melancholy and
romantic memories cling to the grave of Robert
Devereux, the rash and ill-fated Earl of Essex.
At a later date, under the Communion-table, were
the remains of the handsome young Duke of
Monmouth, the idol of his father, Charles the
Second, executed for heading the rising of the
Protestants against his uncle, James the Second. 15

The Chapels Royal
Beneath the little gallery at the west end of the
Chapel were buried William, Marquis of Tulli-
bardine (son of John, first Duke of Atholl),
a Jacobite leader in 17 15 and 1745,— he died of
ill-health, 9th July 1746; William Boyd, fourth
Earl of Kilmarnock ; Arthur, Lord Balmerino (exe
cuted in 1746); and Simon, Lord Lovat (executed
1747). The whole list of burials is as follows : —
1534. Gerald Fitzgerald, Earl of Kildare (died
a prisoner).
1535. Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.
1535. Sir Thomas More.
1536. George Boleyn, Earl of Rochford.
,, Queen Anne Boleyn.
1540. Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex.
1 54 1. Margaret de la Pole, of Clarence,
Countess of Salisbury.
1542. Queen Katherine Howard.
1549. Thomas, Lord Seymour of Sudeley.
1 53 1. Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset,
the Protector.
1552. Sir Ralph Vane (he was hanged).
1553. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland.
1554. Lord Guildford Dudley.
,, Lady Jane Dudley (Grey).
„ Henry, Duke of Suffolk, her father.
1572. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk,
16

The Tower of London
1592. Sir John Perrott, natural son of Henry
VIII., Lord Deputy of Ireland, dis-
, graced in 1 588. Died in the Tower.
1595. Philip, Earl of Arundel; the body was
removed in 1624.
1 60 1. Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex.
161 3. Sir Thomas Overbury : poisoned.
1 61 4. Thomas, fifteenth Lord Grey of Wilton,
involved in the Rye House Plot
against James the First; reprieved
on the scaffold ; died in the Tower.
1632. Sir John Eliot, the patriot; imprisoned
for resisting Charles the First's at
tempt to dissolve Parliament ; died
in the Tower.
1680. William Howard, first Viscount
Stafford ; imprisoned and beheaded
on the accusation of the infamous
Titus Oates. His attainder was re
versed in 1824.
1683. Arthur Capel, Earl of Essex, Viceroy of
Ireland, accused, with Lord Russell, of
the Fanatic Plot ; committed suicide.
1685. James, Duke of Monmouth.
1689. George, Lord Jeffreys, the notorious
judge. Died in the Tower of de
lirium tremens. His body was re
moved in 1692. B 17

The Chapels Royal
1703. John Rotier, or Roettiers, medallist;
removed from office in 1697 owing
to theft by labourers of dies for
coins.
1 7 10. Edward, Lord Griffin.
1746. William, Marquis of Tullibardine.
„ William, Earl of Kilmarnock.
,, Arthur, Lord Balmerino.
1747. Simon, Lord Lovat.
The death of Lord Hastings, who was be
headed by order of Richard, Duke of Gloucester
in 1483, is not particularly connected with St.
Peter's ; nor, in the same year, that of Edward V.,
and his brother Richard, Duke of York. Henry
the Sixth was imprisoned in the Tower for five
years, between 1465-70: restored by Warwick in
1470, he was recommitted to the Tower after the
battle of Barnet in 1471, and murdered on the
night of the return of Edward the Fourth, Richard
of Gloucester being held responsible. He was
worshipped as a martyr by the north-countrymen,
and his canonization was formally proposed by
Henry the Seventh. While he no doubt made
frequent use of St. Peter's Chapel during his long
imprisonment, a deep window recess is shown in
the Wakefield Tower which was fitted up as a
small Chapel with aumbry, piscina, and sedilia,
18

The Tower of London
and is said by tradition to have been used by
Henry for his devotions.
Since 1820, no human being has entered the
Tower as a captive. The old custom of the Proces
sional Ride from the Tower to Westminster Abbey
at the coronation of a new sovereign was abandoned
by James the Second on account of the enormous
expense. The Tower has become a barrack, an
armoury, a museum, and the place where the
Crown Jewels can be exhibited in perfect safety.
Services are rare in the Norman Chapel of St.
John : the Chapel of St. Peter is used by the
regiment quartered in the Tower, and by the
other residents. The Tower is considered the
central Headquarters of the Garrison of London,
and St. Peter's is the official church of the Chaplain-
General.

19

II
ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, WINDSOR

ST. GEORGE'S CHAPEL, WINDSOR
[NE of the glories of the later
English Gothic architecture is
the royal chapel of the noblest
and most historic palace in the
world, the shrine of the Order
of the Garter, the collegiate
church of the Dean and Canons of St. George's,
Windsor. We are told by Tanner,^ in his Notitia
Monastica of Berkshire,^ that in the Castle was
an old Free Chapel, dedicated to the memory of
King Edward the Confessor, in which Henry
the First (son of William the Conqueror) placed
eight secular priests, who seem never to have
1 The historical sketch is abbreviated from Dugdale's Monasticon ;
with incidents from Strickland's Queens of England.
2 P. 24.
23

The Chapels Royal
been incorporated nor endowed with lands, but
to have been maintained by pensions yearly paid
out of the King's Exchequer. If the dedication
is owing to Henry the First, the reason may
have been because his wife, Edith (or Matilda),
was great-niece of the Confessor. Among the
Norman Kings and their successors there was
a marked desire to connect themselves with the
royal saint.
A little later on there was in Windsor Park,
at the beginning of the reign of King Edward
the Second, a Royal Chapel for thirteen chaplains
and four clerks, who had yearly salaries out of
the Manors of Langley Marsh and Sippenham,
both in Buckinghamshire.
Lysons, in his Magna Britannia,'^ says that
the old chapel in the Castle seems to have been
either, rebuilt or considerably enlarged and
decorated by King Henry the Third, famed for
his Churchmanship and love of architecture. In
the year 1243 hejssued a commission to Walter
Gray, Archbishop of York, to expedite the works
at the King's Chapel at Windsor, directing that
the workmen should proceed as well in winter
as in summer till the whole was completed ; that
a lofty wooden roof, like the roof of the new
work at Lichfield, should be made to appear
^ Berks, p. 423.
24

St George's Chapel, Windsor
like stonework, with good ceiling and painting ;
that the Chapel should be covered with lead,
and four gilded images be put up in it, where
the King had before directed that such images
should be placed ; that a stone turret should be
made in front of the Chapel, of sufficient size
to hold three or four bells.^ Some remains of
Henry the Third's building, as may be presumed
by the style of the arches and architectural
decorations, may be seen on the north side of
the Dean's Cloisters, and at the east end of the
Chapel behind the altar.
King Edward the Third, in the fourth year
of his reign, removed the chaplains and clerks
out of the Park into the Castle, and shortly
after added four more chaplains and two clerks.
After his victories, being desirous of raising the
place of his birth to much greater splendour, he
refounded this ancient free Chapel Royal. •;
In 1349 he augmented the number of Canons
to twenty-three, besides a Warden ; and appointed
twenty-four poor Knights, for all of whom he built
habitations, and granted land for their support.
In 1 35 1 the College was settled on a new
establishment by the Bishop of Winchester, acting
as delegate for the Pope, Clement the Sixth, and
was made to consist of Warden, twelve Secular
1 Claus. Ret. 27 Henry HI. p. i, m. 5.
25

The Chapels Royal
Canons, thirteen Priests or Vicars, four Clerks,
six Choristers, twenty-six poor or alms Knights,
besides other officers. The title of Warden was
changed to that of Dean in the reign of Henry the
Fourth ; and the change was recognized by a
charter of Henry the Sixth. In the reign of
Edward the Fourth the College was incorporated.
In 1830 it consisted of Dean, twelve Canons, seven
Minor Canons, twelve Lay Clerks, one of whom
was usually Organist, and ten Choristers.
The Chapel was dedicated to the honour of
the Virgin Mary, St. George, and St. Edward,
King and Confessor, but was popularly known
as St. George's. Its revenues were _;^i6o2. It
was particularly excepted from the Act for Sup
pressing Colleges (i Ed. VI. 14).
From the foundation of the Order of the Garter
in 1349 the Chapel of St. George at Windsor has
been the place for the celebration of its solemnities.
It has stalls for the Knights Companions, very
richly carved in wood, exhibiting the names and
arms of the several illustrious and noble persons
by whom they have been filled. St. George's
has also been the place of the burial of several
of the Kings and Queens.
The present magnificent fabric, which exhibits
some of the most beautiful specimens in this or
any other kingdom of that richly ornamented
26

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
species of architecture which prevailed towards
the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the
sixteenth centuries, was begun by King Edward
the Fourth,^ who, having found it necessary to
take down the old Chapel on account of its decayed
state, resolved to build another on the same site,
on a larger scale, and committed the superintend
ence of the building to Richard Beauchamp, Bishop
of Salisbury. The work was not completed till
the reign of Henry the Eighth ; the beautiful
roof of the choir was put up in the year 1538.
Sir Reginald Bray, Prime Minister to Henry the
Seventh and one of the Knights Companions of
the Garter, who died in 1502, succeeded Bishop
Beauchamp in the superintendence of this great
work, and was a liberal contributor to the building
of the Choir and other parts of the fabric. He was
steward to the second husband of Margaret,
Countess of Richmond, Henry's mother, and pro
moted the marriage between Henry and Princess
Elizabeth. He was also High Steward of the
University of Oxford. The Organ Gallery and
Screen at west end of Choir have been erected in
later times ; the Screen was of Coade's artificial
stone. King George the Third spent large sums
of money in repairing and altering the Chapel
according to the incongruous taste of his age.
^ Compare p. 39, in the architectural account of the Chapel.
27

The Chapels Royal
The lodgings of the Dean and Canons are
situated in the lower ward of Windsor Castle,
behind St. George's. The old part of the Deanery
was built in 1500 by Dean Urswick. The apart
ments of the Minor Canons, Clerks, and other
officers are situated at the west end of St. George's
Chapel ; the buildings are in a semi-circular form,
supposed to be in allusion to the fetlock, a device
of the founder. King Edward the Fourth.
One of the early scenes connected with the
Chapel is the public wedding of Henry I. with
his second wife, the Fair Maid of Brabant, Adelicia,
eldest daughter of Godfrey of Louvaine, Duke of
Brabant and Lower Louvaine, great-grandson of
Charles, brother to Lothaire of France, and repre
sentative of Charlemagne.^ The Princess was about
eighteen ; she is sometimes called Alix la Belle,
Adelais, Alise, or Adeliza. The wedding took
place on the 24th January 1121, and was delayed
on account of a curious dispute between Ralph,
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Roger le Poer,
Bishop of Salisbury, known as a preacher of
short sermons, as to which had the right of
performing the ceremony. The Bishop claimed
because Windsor was in his Diocese; the Arch
bishop on the ground of his supreme office. It
became necessary to summon an ecclesiastical
^ Strickland's Queens of England.
28

^^.'&cpia^ laA<j/m'.

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
Council, which decided that wherever the King
and. Queen might be within the realm of England,
they were the parishioners of the Archbishop
of Canterbury. The Archbishop accordingly
triumphed ; but he was bowed down by so many
infirmities that he seemed like one tottering on
the verge of the grave.
Five years later (1127) there was a historic
scene in the Chapel, when, in presence of King
Malcolm II. of Scotland, whom he was enter
taining at Windsor, Henry I. made all the great
ecclesiastical and military vassals of the Crown
swear allegiance to his daughter, the haughty
Princess Maud, whom he nominated his successor,
and whose husband, the Emperor of Germany,
had lately died. On the solemn occasion of
nominating an heir, the King himself was crowned
again. The Archbishop of York seems to have
thought that as his brother of Canterbury had
officiated before, it was now his turn ; but he
was prevented "by unanimous consent" from this
ambitious usurpation, and his cross-bearer, who had
no business to attend him officially in the province
of another primate, was turned out of the Chapel.^
Doubtless the regular services proceeded as
usual during the troubled reign of Stephen, though
the Castle itself was neglected, and its walls
1 Strickland's Queens of England.
29

The Chapels Royal
falling into ruin. It was repaired by Henry the
Second, was a subject of capture and recapture
during the absence of Richard I., and became
the favourite fortress of John, whose celebrations
of Christmas there are recorded in 1207 and 1209.
When John died in 12 16 his little son, Henry
III., was only nine months old ; but repairs and
reconstruction were begun in 1220, the great hall
was built in 1225, various apartments were added
to the fortress in 1239 for the convenience of the
Royal Family, and, as we have seen, Henry the
Third either rebuilt the old Norman Chapel, or
more probably constructed a new one about 1243.
This building was where the Wolsey Chapel now
stands. He was an enthusiastic builder, and lived
in an architectural period of consummate beauty.
His eldest son, Edward I., was born and
baptized at Windsor. In 1242 occurs a significant
order, issued to the keeper of the King's apart
ments, and showing the difficulty Henry the Third
had in raising money for his numerous and varied
artistic schemes, ordering him to pawn "the most
valuable image" of the Virgin Mary, one of four
gilt statues recently placed in the Chapel Royal
at Windsor, for payments due to collegiate staff,
with the condition that it was to be deposited "in
a decent place."
In 1256, while Henry the Third was absent in
30

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
Germany, the Queen, Eleanor of Provence, enter
tained at Windsor her daughter, Margaret, Queen
of Scotland, with her husband, Alexander III. A
daughter was born to the Scottish Queen there,
and baptized.
During the Wars of the Barons in this reign
the Castle frequently changed hands ; but in spite
of the risks of storm and siege Matthew of West
minster, the Chronicler, describes it as "the most
magnificent palace then existing in Europe."
In 1309 Edward the Second kept Christmas
with great solemnity at Windsor. On 23rd Nov
ember 1 31 2, Edward the Third was born there, and
christened with high ceremonial in the Chapel
four days later, his mother. Queen Isabella, being
only eighteen. His godfathers were Richard,
Bishop of Poictiers ; John, Bishop of Bath and
Wells ; William, Bishop of Worcester ; Louis,
Count d'Evreux ; the Queen's brother, John, Duke
of Brittany and Earl of Richmond ; Aymer de
Valence, Earl of Pembroke ; and Hugh le
Despenser. The French party wished, without
eff"ect, that the boy should receive the name of
Louis. In 131 2 Edward the Second was at
Windsor for Christmas "with many prelates of
the land."
The writer on Windsor Castle in Royal Palaces
of England (Edith M. Keate) considers that 31

The Chapels Royal
Edward the Third's new Chapel and the Order
of the Garter were founded at the same time. On
his return to Windsor after his great French
victories, Edward had, in 1343, instituted a Table
Round in imitation of the Legend of King Arthur.
This was accompanied by a Knightly Society of
Lincoln. It was in the summer of 1348 (or 1349)
that the Order of the Garter was founded, and
the letters patent for the reconstitution of the
Chapel were issued in August of the same year.
Whatever was the origin of the name, the Queen
and her ladies were originally members of the
Society; the wives of the early Knights were
termed " ' Dames de la Fraternity de St. George,'
and were even said to have been 'received into
the Order.' They wore robes like the Knights,
'powdered with (sprinkled with repetitions of)
blue garters,' bound the symbol itself on their
arms, and were always present at the great
festivals." ^ No light is thrown on the origin of
the name by the annals of the Order, the con
temporary chroniclers, or the public records.
Some think the Order was actually originated
by Richard Coeur-de-Lion in Palestine, who is
said to have bound a leathern band round the
legs of his bravest knights. Others allege that
the cry "Garter" was a watchword used by
^ Royal Palaces of England, p. 94.
32

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
Edward the Third at the Battle of Cr^cy. A
third opinion is that the Order has a mysterious
reference to King Arthur's Round Table. Lastly,
there is the popular legend, which has no his
torical warrant, about a garter being dropped by
Joan, Countess of Salisbury, during a dance, and
picked up by Edward the Third, who, in reply
to sneers, said Honi soil qui mal y pense, " Evil
be to him that thinks evil of this action." Any
how, it was a plan of Edward's to attract the
best knights to his standard, at a time when
the fighting of knights was a large part of every
battle. Edward is said to have constructed a circular
building, two hundred feet in diameter, to restore
the Round Table. He then issued proclamations
through England, Scotland, France, Burgundy,
Flanders, Brabant, and the Empire, inviting all
knights who were desirous of proving their valour
to come to solemn feasts and jousts which were to
be held at Windsor on St. George's Day in 1345.
The scheme was completely successful. The flower
of the chivalry of Europe were present, except that
of Philip the Sixth, King of France, who saw
what strength would accrue by this move to his
enemy the English King, and forbade his knights
to attend. The assembling knights were welcomed
by Edward and his chief nobles, with the Queen
c 33

The Chapels Royal
and three hundred of her fairest ladies, adorned
with all imaginable gallantry.
It was at this assembly that the Order
of the Garter was arranged. Before its final
establishment, Edward called together the prin
cipal barons and knights to determine on the
necessary regulations. The number of Knights
Companions, as they were called, was to be limited
to twenty-six. The first installation was on the festival of
the Patron Saint, in 1349. The King, with
twenty-six Knights Companions in gowns of
russet, mantles of fair blue woollen cloth pow
dered (or sprinkled) with garters, and bearing
other insignia of the Order, marched bareheaded
in procession along the courtyard of the Castle to
the Chapel of St. George. Mass was celebrated
by William Edington, Bishop of Winchester;
and a magnificent banquet followed. There were
present David, King of Scotland ; Charles of Blois ;
Ralph, Count of Eu ; and Guisnes, Constable of
France, and other prisoners.
The original insignia were the Garter, Mantle,
Surcoat, and Hood. The "George" (representa
tion of St. George and the Dragon, within a circle)
and the Collar were added by Henry the Eighth.
Henry the Sixth substituted velvet for wool
in the mantle, on which the left shoulder was
34

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
adorned with the red cross of St. George on the
white ground within the Garter.
The most magnificent Garter ever worn is said
to have been that given to Charles the First by
Gustavus Adolphus, King of Sweden; each letter
was composed of diamonds.
The Collar is composed of links of gold like
garters, with letters in gold on a blue enamelled
ground. The Rose, enamelled red, is in the
centre of each of these garters. From the Collar
hangs the "George," enriched with precious
stones, displaying the Saint encountering the
Dragon. The officers of the Order are : The Prelate, the
Bishop of Winchester ; the Chancellor, the Bishop
of Oxford ; the Registrar, the Dean of Windsor ;
the Herald, Garter- King; and the Usher of the
Black Rod.
Dugdale, who was Garter-King, and died in
1686, enumerates amongst those admitted, eight
Emperors of Germany, two of Russia, five Kings
of France, three of Spain, one of Aragon, seven of
Portugal, one of Poland, two of Sweden, six of
Denmark, two of Naples, one of Sicily and
Jerusalem, one of Bohemia, two of Scotland, and
seven Princes of Scotland. As it is usual for our
Sovereigns to offer the Order to all the chief
Crowned Heads of Europe, the number must have 35

The Chapels Royal
been greatly increased during the 226 years that
have passed since Dugdale's death.
The judicious Selden says that "the Order of
the Garter hath not only precedency of antiquity
before the oldest rank of honour of that kind any
where established, but it exceeds in majesty, honour
and fame all chivalries and orders in the world."
The great Tournament of 1358 stands out from
all others. In the previous year, John, King of
France, was defeated at the Battle of Poitiers by
Edward the Black Prince, and brought captive
to Windsor. On the Festival of St. George in
1538, Edward the Third outshone all his former
splendid doings of that kind. Safe-conduct was
proclaimed to the Knights of Germany, Gascony,
Scotland, and other countries. The Knights came
in great numbers; this scene in the bright April
weather was incomparably brilliant. A rare
visitor, a Queen of Scotland, Edward's sister,
was present.
The method of building in those days is illus
trated by an order issued in the twenty-fourth
year of Edward the Third's reign. Powers were
given to John de Sponlee, Master of the Stone-
hewers, to take and keep as many stonemasons
and other artificers as were necessary to the works
at Windsor. He was to convey them to the
Castle, and arrest or imprison all who should
36

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
disobey or refuse. Commands were issued to all
Sheriffs, Mayors, and Bailiff's to assist. Later on,
under these powers, some workmen who had left
were thrown into Newgate ; and when others
were carried off by a pestilence at the Castle,
their places were supplied by impressment.
Although William of Wykeham's work on the
Chapel was afterwards replaced by Edward the
Fourth, and Wykeham was only six years in
office at Windsor, no account of the Chapel could
very well omit so famous a name. About 1347 he
entered the King's service, and became his chaplain
and secretary. About 1356, eleven years before
he became Bishop of Winchester and Prelate of
the Order, he was appointed to succeed John de
Sponlee as Surveyor of the Castle. He was a
pluralist on a heroic scale, for he held prebendal
stalls at St. Paul's, Hereford, Salisbury, St.
David's, Beverley, Bromyard, Wherwell, Aber-
gwili, Llanddewi, Lincoln, York, Wells, and
Hastings. When he asked Edward for the
Bishopric of Winchester, the King objected that
he was neither a priest nor a scholar. He replied
that he would soon be the one, and, as to the other,
he would make more scholars than all the Bishops
of England ever did. He got his Bishopric in
1367, and carried out his intention of founding a
school at Winchester by obtaining a Papal Bull 37

The Chapels Royal
for the purpose in 1378, and issued his Charter of
foundation for New College, Oxford, in 1379.
Edward, surveying the progress of his work at
Windsor, noticed one day the letters carved on a
conspicuous stone, " Hoe fecit Wykeham," and
called him to task for self-assertion, taking the
obvious translation, "Wykeham made this build
ing." The Surveyor, nothing abashed, declared
that it meant just the reverse : " This building was
the making of Wykeham " ; and the King, like a
good knight, or perhaps pleased by an easy joke,
pretended to be satisfied.
In 1362 William of Wykeham retired, and
was succeeded in the Surveyorship by William de
Mulso ; in whose time were built the Royal
Lodgings, St. George's Hall, the buildings on the
East and West sides of the Upper Ward, the
Round Tower, the Canons' Houses in the Lower
Ward, and the whole circumference of the Castle,
exclusive of the towers erected in the reign of
Henry the Third. Among the earlier works of
Edward the Third is the Dean's Cloister.
In Richard the Second's reign, Geoffrey Chaucer
the poet was appointed Clerk of the Works to St.
George's Chapel, at a salary of two shillings a day,
which would be equal to about £6$"] a year in
modern money.
A touching recollection of Windsor is the cap-
38

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
tivity of James the First, King of Scotland, son
of King Robert the Third, by Queen Annabella
Drummond. He was being conveyed to France
in 1406, and was captured by an English ship, and
detained in England nineteen years. Henry the
Fourth confined him in the Tower, and afterwards
at Nottingham and Evesham, but had him well edu
cated. On the accession of the chivalrous Henry
the Fifth in 141 3, he was brought to Windsor, and
actually accompanied that King to France in 1420.
In 1423 he was released. While at Windsor, he
fell in love with Joan Beaufort, daughter of John
Beaufort, Earl of Somerset, the legitimated son of
John of Gaunt and Katherine Swynford. James
composed some well-known poetry about her, and
they were afterwards married.
The unfortunate name of Henry the Sixth,
gentle, pious, and incapable, is much connected
with Windsor and St. George's. In 142 1 he was
born there, and in 1484 buried in the Chapel.
When Edward the Fourth,^ in spite of all that
had been done by Edward the Third, found the
Chapel much decayed and dilapidated, and resolved
to pull it down in order to build something larger
and statelier, his Surveyor of the Works was
Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury; and it
was from his designs that the present exquisite
1 Compare p. 27, in the historical account of the Chapel.
39

The Chapels Royal
building grew into form. He was empowered to
demolish three important Towers that stood in
the way of the extended Chapel : Cluer's, Berners',
and the Almoner's. When he was made Chan
cellor of the Garter, the preamble of the patent
recites : " Out of mere love towards order, he had
given himself the leisure daily to attend to the
advancement and progress of this goodly fabric."
He was succeeded by Sir Reginald Bray, Prime
Minister to Henry the Seventh, as Surveyor of
the Works. By him the matchless traceried roofs
of the Choir and other parts were devised and
carried out. His arms, sometimes single, some
times with kindred shields, are in many parts of
the ceiling and windows. It was not till the
twenty-seventh year of the reign of Henry the
Seventh that this glorious groined roof was
begun. It was probably he also who designed
Henry the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster. The
exterior of the Chapel has lost something since its
first erection, for the pinnacles of the roof were
decorated with vanes, supported by gilt figures of
lions, antelopes, greyhounds, and dragons.
" Perhaps without exception this is the most
beautiful specimen of the Gothic roof in existence :
superior in structure to King's Chapel, Cambridge,
and Henry the Seventh's at Westminster."
Among the arms in the roof of the Choir are
40

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
those of Edward the Confessor, Edward the Third,
Edward the Black Prince, Henry the Sixth,
Edward the Fourth, Henry the Seventh, Henry
the Eighth, those of England and France
quartered. Among the emblems are the Holy
Cross, the Shield and Cross of St. George, the
Rose, the Portcullis, the Lion Rampant of Scot
land, the Unicorn, the Fleur-de-Lis, the Dragon,
the Prince's Feathers, and those of a multitude
of noble families. In the Nave are found the
arms of Henry the Eighth, and several Knights
Companions, Charles the Fifth, Francis the First,
and Ferdinand, Infante of Spain.
The chief decoration of the Choir is formed by
the superb stalls of the Knights. These, at first
twenty-six, are now thirty-two, and are elaborately
carved, with canopies of the richest tabernacle
work, supported by slender pillars. The pedestals
represent the Life of Christ. On the front of the
stalls at the west end of the Choir is carved the
Legend of St. George. Outside the upper seat, is
the twentieth psalm in Latin. On the canopy of
each stall is the mantle, helmet, coat, and sword
of the Knight Companion to whom it has been
allotted. Above, hangs his banner. On the panel
of the stalls are the small enamelled plates of the
arms and titles of former occupants, some of great
antiquity and interest. They ought to be complete, 41

The Chapels Royal
but some have been removed, stolen, or lost. The
ancient stall of the Sovereign was removed in 1 788,
and a new one erected.
In 1642 the Parliamentarians fell upon St.
George's. The altar-hangings, plate, and other
possessions were seized by order.^
At the entrance of the Choir, the Sovereign's
Stall is on the right, the Prince of Wales's on the left.
Below the Royal closet, on the north side of the
Sacrarium, is a beautiful framework of iron, consist
ing of gates between two Gothic towers, designed
as a screen for the tomb of Edward the Fourth.
This was popularly attributed to Quentin Matsys,
but it is most likely the work of John Tressilian.
The Choir suffered a severe shock during the
earnest and conscientious repairs of George the
Third. The whole of the tracery of the great east
window was removed, in order that Benjamin
West, President of the Royal Academy, might
paint a vast Scriptural transparency. This was
removed by Queen Victoria, the tracery restored,
and the whole filled with excellent stained glass,
in perfect taste. The corresponding great window
at the west, rich with the figures of kings,
patriarchs, and bishops, was only saved by the
death of West in 1820.
It remains to speak of St. George's as a place
^ For details, see p. 54.
42

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
of burial. On a plain slab at the east end of the
North Aisle of the Choir, is an inscription of the
sepulture of Edward the Fourth and his Queen,
Elizabeth Widville. There was a clause in Henry
the Eighth's will to the following effect: "Also
we will, that the tombs and altars of King Henry
the Sixth and also of King Edward the Fourth,
our great-uncle and grandfather, be made more
princely, in the same place where they now be,
at our charge." It is often the case that the
wills of kings are not carried out, and as regards
Edward the Fourth this was no exception. Not
only so, but Edward's coat of mail, his surcoat
decorated with rubies and other precious stones,
and other trophies which once decorated the
sleeping-place of the Founder, were carried off"
by the Parliamentary plunderers. In 1787 George
the Fourth, then Prince of Wales, took an oppor
tunity of inspecting this vault, and found that
the coffin of Edward the Fourth was seven feet
long, and contained a perfect skeleton ; the coffin
of Elizabeth Widville lay at some distance.
The body of King Henry the Sixth lies in
the opposite aisle, near the Choir door, beneath
an arch sumptuously decorated by the orders of
Henry the Eighth, Henry the Sixth's arms are
on the keystone, supported by two antelopes, con
nected with a golden chain. The body was re- 43

The Chapels Royal
moved from Chertsey, where it was first interred,
and re-buried here in 1484 with much solemnity.
In course of time, miracles were supposed to be
wrought at it. Henry the Seventh applied to
the Pope to have the pious King canonized ; but
the demands of the Pope were too exorbitant.
The bodies of Henry the Eighth and Queen
Jane Seymour lie in the royal vault in the Choir.
There also repose those of the unfortunate Charles
the First, buried at night, after a snowstorm, by
a few followers, under circumstances of difficulty.^
A slab near the South Door records the name
of "Charles Brandon." He was Duke of Suffolk,
brother-in-law of Henry the Eighth, husband of
Mary, Queen of France, and grandfather of Lady
Jane Grey.
The Beaufort, or Lady Chapel, is on the left
of the great West Window, and contains two
Beaufort monuments : one, an altar-tomb, to the
founder, Charles Somerset, first Earl of Worcester,
who died in 1526. He was the founder of the
Beaufort family, being illegitimate son of Henry,
second Duke of Somerset, fourth in descent from
John of Gaunt, and cousin of Henry the Seventh.
He made a great marriage by obtaining the hand
of Elizabeth, only daughter and heiress of William
^ For further details, see p. 55. It is briefly mentioned here in
the list of burials.
44

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
Herbert, Earl of Huntingdon, and was made
Lord Chamberlain for life. The other, supported
by Corinthian columns, is to his descendant Henry,
seventh Earl and third Marquis of Worcester,
and first Duke of Beaufort, who refused to take
the oaths to William the Third, and died in 1699.
The second Marquis of Worcester, the faithful
friend of Charles the First, the defender of Raglan
Castle, and author of the Century of Inventions,
is buried here without a monument.
Opposite on the right is the Urswick Chapel,
so called after Dean Christopher Urswick, who
died in 1505. Here is the monument of Princess
Charlotte of Wales, who died in childbirth in
181 7. It was executed by C. Wyatt, in classical
style, from public subscriptions. Her spirit is
represented rising from the couch on which her
body is lying, while an angel carries the dead
babe. The monument is lighted by yellow glass,
which has an unpleasant artificial effect ; and a
stone screen was removed to make room for it.
Two^ of Boehm's beautiful historical monu
ments were erected in the Chapel by Queen
Victoria. One is to her father, Edward, Duke
of Kent, between two of the pillars of the Nave ;
1 Many of the details of the more modern items of St. George's
are from the excellent account of Windsor in Murray's Handbook
to Berkshire.
45

The Chapels Royal
a white marble recumbent figure, on an alabaster
sarcophagus designed by Sir Gilbert Scott. The
other is a statue, in the south-east corner of the
Nave, to her uncle, Leopold the First, King of
the Belgians, husband of Princess Charlotte.
In a vault near the Sovereign's Stall lie the
remains of William Henry, first Duke of Gloucester,
son of Frederick, Prince of Wales, and brother
of George the Third (he died 1805) ; and his wife,
Maria, widow of James, second Earl Waldegrave,
K.G., the beautiful illegitimate daughter of the
Hon. Sir Edward Walpole, K.B., son of the
Prime Minister, and brother of the antiquary.
The lovely Chapel eastwards from St. George's,
commonly called Wolsey's, should really be
known as The Royal Tomb-house or Mausoleum.
It was begun for that purpose by Henry the
Seventh, but abandoned for the grander and
more magnificent Chapel which he placed in
the same position at Westminster Abbey. The
Pope's Bull, in response to the application of
Henry the Seventh for the Burial Chapel at
Windsor, is still extant : " Let him carry out
his intention of founding and constructing from
his own goods a Chapel in the Church of St.
George."^ Ashmole, Kennet, and others have
made the mistake of thinking the Chapel was
^ Rymer, Fcedera, vol. xii. p. 565.
46

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
built by Wolsey. Wolsey, on taking possession
of it, intended to use it for his own burial, and
erected a sumptuous monument of black and
white marble, the work of Benedetto, the Florentine
sculptor. Round it were eight large carved
brazen columns, and four others in the form
of candelabra. Benedetto had been paid 4280
ducats by Wolsey for his work, and nearly ;^40o
were spent on gilding. After his fall he gave
instructions to his servant, Ralph Sadler, in a
commission to Cromwell, " to procure the sending
hither (to York) of mine Image, with such part
of the Tomb as it shall please the King that I
shall have, to the intent that now being at my
Church at York, I may order and dispose the
same for my burial."^ Whether the effigy was
sent, does not appear. The Tomb itself remained,
and was utilized by the Council of Edward the
Sixth as a monument for Henry the Eighth, by
placing a brass figure of the dead King recumbent
on the top of Benedetto's black marble sarcophagus.
In 1646, one hundred years after the death of
Henry the Eighth, this monument was despoiled,
with the rest of the Chapel, by the pillaging
Parliamentarians, and the brass figure of the King
melted down to make pay for the soldiers. On
the death of Nelson in 1805, Wyatt, who was
1 Fiddes's Life of Wolsey, p. 257.
47

The Chapels Royal
preparing the Chapel for George the Third as a
Royal Tomb-house, as Westminster Abbey and
Henry the Seventh's Chapel were already full,
suggested that Benedetto's sarcophagus, so long
associated with the memories of Wolsey and his
despotic master, should be sent to St. Paul's
Cathedral to serve as torrib for the illustrious
Admiral. It stands over the grave in the crypt,
under the middle of the dome, and bears on the top,
instead of the brass figure of Henry the Eighth,
a large Viscount's Coronet of marble, painted.
The entrance to this Royal Tomb-house of the
House of Hanover is at the east end of St. George's
Chapel, below the first step leading to the Altar.
Here lie the remains of :
„ . ^ , - ( children of George the
Prince Octavius ^, . . f ^
Prince Alfred j ^^'^^' ^^"^^^^^ ^^0"^
I Westminster Abbey.
Augusta, Duchess of Brunswick, sister of
George the Third, and mother of Queen
Caroline, died 1813.
T3 . r-u 1 i.^ ( children of the Duke of
Princess Charlotte I ^,
Princess Elizabeth ^,^,^,',""'"' , afterwards
I William the Fourth.
Princess Amelia, died Nov. 2, 1810.
Princess Charlotte of Wales, died Nov. 6, 181 7.
Queen Charlotte, died Nov. 17, 1818.
48

t.Me^ ^Ju^ct/^a//e4^. ^.^ZHz/e- l^A/:i^e/.

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
George the Third, died Jan. 29, 1820.
Frederick, Duke of York, died Jan. 5, 1827.
Edward, Duke of Kent, died Jan. 23, 1827.
George the Fourth, died June 26, 1830.
William the Fourth, died June 20, 1837.
Princess Augusta, second daughter of George
the Fourth, died Sept. 22, 1840.
Queen Adelaide, died Dec. 2, 1849.
George the Fifth, King of Hanover, grandson
of George the Third, died June 12, 1878.
Leopold, Duke of Albany, youngest son of
Queen Victoria, died March 21, 1884.
Edward, Duke of Clarence, eldest son of King
Edward the Seventh, died Jan. 14, 1892.
Edward the Seventh, died May 6, 19 10.
The funeral of the Duchess of Kent, Queen
Victoria's mother, took place in St. George's Chapel
on 25th March 1861, but the remains were after
wards removed to Frogmore. The Prince Consort
was also buried here, 23rd December 1861, but the
body was re-interred in the beautiful mausoleum
constructed by Queen Victoria at Frogmore.
In the reign of James the Second, this Burial
Chapel (Wolsey's Chapel) was appropriated to the
public celebration of the worship of the Roman
Church. The Italian decorative painter Verrio was
employed to cover the roof with his Renaissance
D 49

The Chapels Royal
canvases. It was a very curious performance.
James the Second, in the robes of the Garter,
holding a sceptre in his hand, was seated
triumphant on an Arch, treading down a Hydra;
near him was represented Mars destroying and
beating down Faction, Fury, Rebellion, and other
disloyal forces. Over his head was held an Im
perial Crown by the figures of Time and Peace ;
and above this was the representation of Plenty,
holding a scroll with this inscription, "The Unity
of Brethren." On the right hand was Jupiter,
attended by a group of figures, one of whom held
a Crosier to represent the Church ; also a Mercury,
relating the glory of the Monarch. At the east end
was Fame, holding in her right hand an oval of
King Charles the First, and in her left, the same of
King Charles the Second. Over the head of the first
is a scroll inscribed "The Collapse of the State."
After the reign of James the Second, this
beautiful chapel was suffiered to fall into decay,
partly because of its unpopularity through having
been utilized for Roman worship ; partly because
its upkeep depended entirely on the Sovereign's
Privy Purse, and hot on the Dean and Chapter.
William the Third was thrifty towards every object
except his Continental wars. The pious Anne was
also involved in expensive wars, and gave vast
sums to her favourites the Marlboroughs ; she was
50

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
only on the throne twelve years. Her Hanoverian
successors were not likely to do anything for a
building for which there was no ostensible use.
It underwent a partial restoration in the reign of
George the Third, when the vaults below were being
prepared for the royal burials ; but on the death of
the Prince Consort, Queen Victoria converted it
into a sumptuous and costly Memorial dedicated
to his memory by herself and her children. The
architect was Sir Gilbert Scott; the walls were
panelled with pictures on marble by Baron
Triqueti ; medallion portraits of the Royal Family
were executed by Miss Durant ; the roof was
covered with mosaics by Salviati, and the floor
inlaid with rare marbles. The altar is a slab of
Levant marble, and the reredos is inlaid with lapis
lazuli, malachite, alabaster, and porphyry. The
windows are by Clayton and Bell. Three splendid
altar-tombs occupy the floor : that to the Prince
Consort is by Baron Triqueti ; to Leopold, Duke
of Albany, by Boehm ; and to Edward, Duke of
Clarence, by Gilbert.
To revert to St. George's Chapel, four notable
marriages have taken place there in modern times :
on I oth March 1863, the late King Edward the
Seventh was married to Princess Alexandra of
Denmark ; on 21st March 1871, Princess Louise
was married to John Douglas Sutherland, Marquis 51

The Chapels Royal
of Lome, now ninth Duke of Argyll ; on 13th
March 1879, Arthur, Duke of Connaught, was
married to Princess Louisa Margaret of Prussia;
and on 27th April 1882, Leopold, Duke of Albany,
was married to Princess Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont.
Besides the notable things in the main part of
the Chapel, there is much of great interest in the
Aisles. The first recess in the North Aisle is the
Rutland Chapel, with an altar-tomb of Sir George
Manners (died 1513), ancestor of the Rutlands, and
his wife Anne, niece of Edward the Fourth. The
Chapel was founded by her father. Sir Thomas
St. Leger, in memory of his wife, Anne, Duchess
of Exeter, sister of Edward the Fourth, the
builder of the existing St. George's. He was one
of the victims of Richard the Third, but was
allowed to be buried here ; effigies of himself and
his wife appear in a brass on the wall.
Eastwards there is the Hastings Chantry, built
by the widow of William, Lord Hastings,
Chamberlain to Edward the Fourth, to contain
his tomb. He was another victim of Richard the
Third, but was also allowed to be buried here.
Near this is the statue of Field-Marshal William,
Earl Harcourt (1830), by Sevier.
Farther on is the monument of Princess Louisa
of Saxe-Weimar, niece of Queen Adelaide, who
died at Windsor.
52

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
At the east end of the North Aisle is the
Chapter Room, where the sword of Edward the
Third is preserved, and a full-length portrait.
At the east end of the South Aisle is a
magnificent altar-tomb to Edward Fiennes de
Clinton, ninth Lord Clinton and Saye, and first
Earl of Lincoln, who was in public life in the
reigns of Henry the Eighth, Edward the Sixth,
and Elizabeth (1512-85). He was a royal ward;
was in attendance on Henry the Eighth in 1532 ;
in 1534 he married Elizabeth Blount, Henry the
Eighth's mistress ; he served in the fleet against
the Scots and the French ; was Governor of
Boulogne, 1547; Lord High Admiral, 1550-4 and
1558-65; Governor of the Tower, 1553-^4. In 1554
he abandoned the cause of Lady Jane Grey, and
made his peace with Mary. In 1558 he com
manded the fleet against France; in 1564 he was
in attendance oh Elizabeth. He commanded
against the Northern rebels, and in the North Sea,
and was made Earl of Lincoln in 1572, in which
year he was also Envoy to France.
Near this is the memorial niche of Richard Beau
champ, Bishop of Salisbury (died 1481), the prin
cipal architect of the Chapel.^ He is represented
kneeling with Edward the Fourth before a cross.
The beautiful little King or Aldworth Chapel
^ See p. 39.
53

The Chapels Royal
is said to have been built by Oliver King, Bishop
of Exeter (1492), translated to Bath and Wells
(1495), ^iid builder of Bath Abbey. Tombs of two
little King children are here, with pathetic inscrip
tions. Near are panels with portraits of Edward
the Fourth, Edward the P'ifth, and Henry the
Seventh, with an inscription asking prayers for
the soul of their secretary. Bishop Oliver King.
Beyond is a monument by Sir Gilbert Scott,
erected by Queen Victoria as a tribute of respect
and affection to her beloved aunt, Mary, Duchess of
Gloucester. Princess Mary was George the Third's
fourth daughter, and married her cousin, William
Frederick, second Duke of Gloucester. The tomb
commemorates other members of that branch of the
Royal Family: William Henry, Duke of Gloucester,
1805; Maria, Duchess of Gloucester, 1807; Prin
cess Maria Matilda of Gloucester, 1775 ; William
Frederick, second Duke of Gloucester, 1834; Prin
cess Sophia Matilda of Gloucester, 1844.
We must revert to the history of St. George's,
which has been interrupted by this sketch of the
burials and monuments.^ In 1642 Colonel Newn,
afterwards one of the Regicides, was sent with
twelve companies of foot to take possession of
the Castle as Governor for the Parliament.
Previously, one Captain Fogg came to the
^ See p. 42.
54

St. George's Chapel, Windsor «
College of St. George, and demanded the keys of
the Treasury. Not finding the three keepers of
the keys, "he caused the two doors to be broken
open, and carried thence all the rich chased and
other plate made sacred and set apart for the
service of God." The altar had only lately been
furnished with new plate, the work of Christian
van Vianen of Nuremberg ; great part of the older
service had been sold by the Council of Edward
the Sixth. In May 1643 Newn completed the
plunder. The plate was sent to the Guildhall and
melted down for pay for the soldiers of Fairfax.
Three important items were saved by Dr. Chris
topher Wren (then Dean of Windsor) : the three
registers of the Order of the Garter, known as
the Black, Blue, and Red Books. , Some valuables
that he buried under the floor of the Treasury
were afterwards found and sold by the Parliament.^
The burial of Charles the First has been briefly
mentioned ; some historical details may here be
added.^ "After the death of Charles the First, the
body was placed in a coffin, and, followed by Bishop
Juxon and Herbert, the King's personal attendant,
was carried into the palace of Whitehall. Subse
quently it was conveyed to St. James's Palace to
be embalmed ; here it remained till 7th February,
when it was conveyed for interment to Windsor,
1 Royal Palaces of England, p. 141. . ^ See p. 44.
55

The Chapels Royal
followed by Juxon and four of the late King's
servants. Four faithful Lords of the Bed-chamber,
the Duke of Richmond, and Lords Hertford,
Southampton, and Lindsey, asked permission to
perform their last duty to their dead master, and
to wait upon him in his grave." Leave was given
to be present at Windsor, but not to follow the
remains from London. The Parliamentary order
was that the King should be buried at Windsor,
"in a decent manner, provided that the expenses
should not exceed ^^500." Charles had expressed
a wish to be laid by the remains of his father, in
Henry the Seventh's Chapel at W^estminster
Abbey, but Cromwell forbade it, having reserved
that place for himself. He answered "that open
ing the vaults at Westminster Abbey would prove
an encouragement to superstition."^
When the hearse, with four mourning coaches,
arrived at Windsor Castle, the coffin was placed
for the night in the late King's bed-chamber. The
next day it was brought down into St. George's
Hall ; four gentlemen carried it on their shoulders ;
the pall was borne by the four Lords of the Bed
chamber. The afternoon had been clear and
bright till the corpse was carried out of the Hall,
when snow began to fall so fast and thick that
by the time it entered the west end of the Royal
^ Strickland's Queens, iv. 283.
56

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
Chapel the black velvet pall was entirely white.
"So went our white king to his grave!" said the
sorrowing attendants. About three o'clock, the
four Lords, with Juxon (Bishop of London), went
to Colonel Whichcott, governor of the Castle, to
ask that His Majesty might be buried according
to the form of the Common Prayer Book, the
Bishop being present to officiate. Whichcott
refused, saying that it was not lawful, the Prayer
Book had been put down, and he would not suffer
it to be used in that garrison where he commanded.
The task was rendered more difficult from the utter
ruin of the interior of the Chapel ; not even one
old officer was present who could have told where
royal persons used to be buried. A grave had
been dug on the south side of the altar, but the
Duke of Richmond thought he should be laid in a
vault. They searched in vain in Wolsey's Chapel,
then used as a magazine of arms, and then tried
the choir. One of the aged poor Knights was able
to direct them to a vault in the middle of it, where
they found the coffins of Henry the Eighth and
Jane Seymour. In their distraction and in
experience, they found that no inscription had
been placed on the coffin of their master ; one of
the attendant gentlemen procured a band of sheet
lead, on which, with their penknives, they carved
"Charles Rex, 1648," and soldered it on to the 57

The Chapels Royal
coffin.^ The coffin was borne from the hall to the
Chapel on the shoulders of soldiers from the Castle
garrison. The coffin was lowered to its resting-
place "without either singing or saying"; Bishop
Juxon standing weeping by. So hasty and
amateur were all the arrangements, that at the time
of the Restoration it was difficult to identify the
site. In the reign of Charles the Second (1677-8)
a new House of Commons granted ;^70,ooo for a
solemn interment and a suitable monument : but
the money did not get beyond the hands of Charles
himself, and Wren's plan was never carried out.^
During the Commonwealth, Windsor was con
verted into a garrison of Parliamentary troops.
Cromwell made arrangements for using the Chapel
for the Independent form of worship, and revived
the connection with the poor Knights. After the
Restoration, the Knights of the Garter raised
money for refitting the Chapel ; twelve new Com
panions were appointed, and a great Service and
Feast of St. George were once more held in 1662.
Jesse, the writer of the Memoirs of George the
Third, gives an account of his funeral in the Chapel
which, in the days when he was able, he attended
with exemplary regularity. " No pomp nor
pageantry, which could do honour to the dead,
were omitted. The ceremony of lying-in-state
^ Strickland's Queens, iv. 283. 2 Royal Palaces of England, 147.
58

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
took place on Tuesday, the 15th of February.
The night of the i6th was appointed for the
funeral. As the long array, consisting of the
mourners in their sable costumes, the heralds in
their glowing tabards, the Princes of the Blood
in their sad-coloured mantles, moved by torchlight
from the principal porch of the Castle to St.
George's Chapel, it presented a grand and imposing
spectacle. The platformed route along which the
procession passed was covered with black cloth,
and lined on each side by soldiers. The flourish
of trumpets and the sound of the muffled drums,
mingling with the peal of the minute-guns and
the tolling of the death-bell, added to the solemnity
of the scene. Shortly after nine o'clock, the
mournful procession began to move through the
southern portal of St. George's Chapel. The body
was received by the Dean, the Canons, and the
choristers in their robes. Immediately the organ
struck up, and the voices of the Choir sang the
solemn anthem, 'I know that my Redeemer
liveth.' (The late King had been a great admirer
of Handel's music.) Slowly the procession passed
into the beautiful Choir of the Chapel, where the
Duke of York, as chief mourner, took his seat at
the head of the coffin. The funeral service was
read by the Dean of Windsor, assisted by the
Archbishop of Canterbury. The coffin having 59

The Chapels Royal
been lowered into the grave, and the dust thrown
upon it. Garter King-at-Arms proclaimed the titles
of the deceased. Once more the volumed tones
of the organ pealed along the vaulted roof and
through the fretted aisles. The mourners re
arranged themselves, and departed nearly in the
order in which they came."
The remains of George the Fourth were also
buried in St. George's Chapel at night, with the
same ceremonial, but without the demonstrations
of goodwill called forth by the death of his father.'
The funeral of William the Fourth took place at
nine o'clock at night, with similar ceremonial.
The remains of Queen Victoria and of the
Prince Consort were buried in the beautiful
mausoleum at Frogmore, a short distance from the
Castle, which she constructed for herself on the
death of the Prince. It contains three full-length
recumbent effigies of great beauty and mag
nificence: Queen Victoria, Albert the Prince Con
sort, and Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse.
Seldom has a more genuinely majestic funeral
taken place amidst such profound and sincere
sorrow as that of Queen Victoria. The procession
of the Royal yacht from Osborne through the long
lines of the great monsters of the fleet, which had
been entirely created in her time ; the booming of
^ Royal Palaces of England, p. 164.
60

St. George's Chapel, Windsor
the salute fired from each as the revered burden
was borne on its stately way; the incalculable
throngs which, in spite of a bitter wintry day,
lined the London streets ; the pervading atmo
sphere of loyal affection for great character and
great achievement ; the memorable procession, and
convoy of Princes ; the pathetic incident of her
sailors drawing the gun-carriage which served as
bier from the station up the hill, on account of
the nervousness of the artillery horses ; the
assemblage in the Chapel of St. George, "which
included every one of note in the Empire, and
representatives of every civilized country in the
world ; gave a combination of impressions which
were without a parallel."
The funeral of King Edward the Seventh was
also at Windsor, in very different weather on the
brightest day of May 1910. The presence of so
many crowned heads gave it extraordinary dis
tinction. His body rests in the vault of the Kings
under the Albert Memorial Chapel.

61

Ill
HENRY THE SEVENTH'S CHAPEL,
WESTMINSTER ABBEY

HENRY THE SEVENTH'S CHAPEL,
WESTMINSTER ABBEY
ESTMINSTER ABBEY is
a Royal Peculiar ; that is to
say, an ecclesiastical estab
lishment belonging to the
Crown. The King is its
Ordinary, and no Bishop or
Archbishop has any authority within its walls.
Closely united to the Royal Palace of Westminster,
it was destined to have an intimacy of the closest
kind with the Royal House, the Constitution, and
the institutions of England. Since the time of its
founder, Edward the Confessor, the Coronation of
the Sovereign has taken place within its walls ;
and its long line of Abbots and Deans have had
a conspicuous share in that august ceremony. But
E 65

The Chapels Royal
having an important existence of its own as a great
Abbey and afterwards a Collegiate Church, it is
not appropriate to describe it as a Royal Chapel.
That designation properly belongs to the glorious
annexe added to the Abbey by Henry the Seventh,
originally to be the burial-place of Henry the Sixth,
but afterwards for himself and his family.
At the close of the wars of York and Lancaster,
when Henry the Seventh, grandson of the widow
of Henry the Fifth, son of Margaret Beaufort, and
husband of Elizabeth of York, was firmly seated on
the throne, a contest arose between three great
churches for the ultimate possession of the body
of Henry the Sixth, who had already begun to
be worshipped as though formally canonized :
Chertsey Abbey, where the body had rested for
some time ; St. George's, Windsor, whither it had
been conveyed by Richard the Third ; and West
minster Abbey, where the murdered King had
himself expressed the wish that his remains should
rest. Henry the Seventh had already begun to
reconstruct the Chapel at the east end of St.
George's, which was founded by Henry the Third
and rebuilt by Edward the Third, and was after
wards known as Wolsey's, and the Albert Mem
orial Chapel. He intended it for his uncle Henry
the Sixth, and for his own burial. But the contest
between the three rival churches grew so serious
66

Henry VIL's Chapel
that a Council was held at Greenwich to decide
the competing claims, and concluded in favour of
Westminster. The Chapel at Windsor was left
unfinished till the next reign, and the King
determined to build at Westminster a shrine for
his uncle "of blissful memory" more splendid
than that of the Confessor himself. The licence
of Pope Julius the Second was obtained for the
translation of the body, which would doubtless
have taken place had not the Pope's demands for
the price of canonization been too exorbitant for
the frugal, if generous, piety of Henry. The
remains of the saintly founder of Eton were not
removed from Windsor, and Henry the Seventh
proceeded to complete the new sanctuary for royal
sepulture at Westminster.
Smaller than St. George's Chapel, Windsor,
but intended to be even more sumptuous in its
architectural richness, it is not necessary to
compare Henry the Seventh's Chapel with the
sister building. Both are consummate triumphs
of the Tudor development of the English Perpen
dicular style. Its internal dimensions are, in
length, 104 feet 6 inches; breadth, 69.10; height,
61.5. The extraordinary wealth of the roof with
its panelled pendentives, and fan tracery, its cinque
foiled arches and supports ; the noble row of
great clerestory windows, ending in an exquisite 67

The Chapels Royal
apse and chapels ; the orderly and restrained stone
panelling over all plane surfaces ; the lofty dignity
of the stalls, and the exquisite beauty of the carved
wooden figures of kings, bishops, and saints, which
encircle the whole chapel under the canopies ; the
solemn tints of the old stained glass, the faded
glories of the banners of the Knights of the
Bath, and the splendours of the Royal Tombs,
unite altogether so many elements of sublimity
and loveliness, that the Chapel of Henry the
Seventh stands unrivalled in the world. One
might wish that the dismal climate of London
had been less prodigal in its deposits of dust,
damp, and discoloration over stone and wood,
and that the banners of the Knights were renewed
from time to time to the extent permitted by the
number of the stalls, for there is no essential
beauty in decay and disfigurement ; but the count
less fogs of four centuries do not interfere with the
beautiful lines of that consummate shrine.
The architect was Sir Reginald Bray, to whom
St. George's, Windsor, also owes an inextinguish
able debt of gratitude. To link the chapel on to the
Abbey, the central eastern bay of Henry the
Third's semi-circle of Chapels round the apse had
to be destroyed, involving two altars, those of St.
Mary and St. Erasmus. The body of Katherine of
France, widow of Henry the Fifth, and grand-
68

Henry VH.'s Chapel
mother of Henry the Seventh, had been laid at the
east end of the apse, and on the alterations
necessary to the erection of the new chapel were
placed on the right of the grave of her husband.'
Henry the Seventh's own tomb lies, with that of
his Queen, Elizabeth of York, within the splendid
bronze chantry which protects it, behind the
altar of the Chapel. It seems that the wonderful
series of carved figures of patron saints and in
tercessors which, starting on each side from the
image of the Virgin, the object of Henry's special
devotion, at the east end, nearly encircle the Chapel,
have never been completely reproduced either by
engraving or photograph ; such a publication
would be a rich addition to the wealth of this
country in its records of sculpture. There are
St. Peter and St. Paul, usually associated in
mediaeval days, from the first of whom the Abbey
took its designation, with the holy company of
heaven, angels, archangels, patriarchs, prophets,
apostles, evangelists, martyrs, confessors and
virgins, with the royal saints of Britain, St.
Edward, St. Edmund, St. Oswald, St. Margaret
of Scotland. Round Henry the Seventh's tomb
^ For the information in this chapter I am of course throughout
indebted to Dean Stanley's Memorials of Westminster Abbey,
to the Dictionary of National Biography, and to Anderson's Royal
Genealogies.
69

The Chapels Royal
stand his own guardian saints, St. Michael, St.
John Baptist, St. John the Evangelist, St. George,
St. Anthony, St. Edward, St. Vincent, St. Anne,
St. Mary Magdalene, and St. Barbara.' The angels
at the four corners of his tomb were to hold the
Crown that he won at Bosworth. In the painted
glass again occurs the Crown on the Bush ; the Red
Rose of Lancaster (on every panel) ; the Portcullis
of the Beauforts ; the Greyhound of Cecilia Neville,
wife of Richard, Duke of York, the Rose in the
Sun typifying the scattering of the mists on behalf
of Lancaster at the Battle of Barnet, and the Falcon
on the Fetterlock, emblem of the exclusion of the
House of York from their inheritance, and their
undefeated hopes. The Red Dragon of the British
Kings has many a representation on the walls of
the family shrine of the first Tudor sovereign.
The first to be buried in the new chapel was
Elizabeth of York, who died in childbirth, in her
twenty-seventh year, in 1503; one feature of the
funeral, which was specially sumptuous and mag
nificent, was that the hearse was met on the border
of the city by twenty-seven maidens, robed in
white, and bearing tapers. Six years afterwards,
in 1509, Henry died in his fifty-fifth year at the
Palace of Richmond which he had named after
^ Will of Henry the Seventh, Neale ii. 6, 7, quoted in Stanley's
Memorials of Westminster Abbey.
70

Henry VH.'s Chapel
himself, and which was previously known as Sheen.
The funeral was royally magnificent. There was
a procession from Richmond to St. Paul's, a grand
service, and a sermon from Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester. The final service was at Westminster,
with a sermon from Fitz-James, the good Bishop
of London. The coffin was placed in the
new vault in the new Chapel, beside that of
Queen Elizabeth of York. The Archbishops,
Bishops, and Abbots present struck their croziers
on the coffin, with the word " Absolvimus."
Archbishop Warham himself threw the earth.'
The lifelike effigy on his tomb was completed
within twenty years of his death by the Florentine
sculptor Torrigiano, the rival of Michael Angelo.
A few weeks afterwards, in the midst of the
rejoicings for the wedding and coronation of her
grandson, Henry the Eighth, died a truly beloved
and venerable princess, Margaret Beaufort, mother
of ' Henry the Seventh, wife of Edmund Tudor,
Earl of Richmond, daughter of John Beaufort,
Duke of Somerset, and great-granddaughter of
John of Gaunt. This admirable lady founded on
the advice of Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, the
first divinity professorships in the Universities of
Oxford and Cambridge, as well as Christ's and
St. John's College at Cambridge. She was a
1 Leland, quoted by Stanley. 71

The Chapels Royal
patron of Caxton and Wynkyn de Worde, and
a conspicuous example of mediaeval piety and
virtue. In her funeral sermon Bishop Fisher said
that every one that knew her loved her, and every
thing that she said or did became her. Her tomb
and effigy, one of the most beautiful in the whole
Abbey, is in the south aisle of the Chapel, eastward
of that of her great -great -granddaughter, Mary
Queen of Scots.
Henry the Eighth, who at one time thought of
building another annexe to the Abbey, for his own
burial-place, even more magnificent than that of
his father, abandoned the project, and was buried
beside Queen Jane Seymour at Windsor. Edward
the Sixth died 6th July 1553, and as his successor
Queen Mary and her Council could not at first
agree about the form of service, the body remained
unburied till the 8th of August. It was laid in the
passage leading to the vault of Henry the Seventh,
underneath the splendid touchstone altar which
stood in front of the great monument of that King
and Elizabeth of York. The chronicler says that
the greatest moan was made for him as ever was
seen or heard. The compromise with Queen
Mary was that she should have her Requiem Mass
with Bishop Gardiner at the Tower, and the
funeral service itself should be that of the new
English Book of Common Prayer: so the body
72

Henry VH.'s Chapel
was brought overnight from Whitehall "without
Cross or light," as the Greyfriars chronicler writes,
with his keen eye for significant detail. The
sermon was preached by Day, Bishop of Chichester,
the Communion celebrated by Archbishop Cranmer,
so soon after to be arrested and deprived. On the
coffin was a plate describing the young King as
"on earth, under Christ, of the Church of England
and Ireland the supreme head."
On 13th December 1558 was buried Queen
Mary, the stubborn, conscientious, bigoted, and
unlamented daughter of Henry the Eighth and
Katherine of Aragon. Her body was laid under
the North Aisle of Henry the Seventh's Chapel.
Machyn the chronicler tells us that the black cloth
with which the Abbey was draped was torn down
by the people before the ceremony was well over.
Bishop White preached on an extraordinary text :
"A living dog is better than a dead lion."
Queen Elizabeth died on 24th March 1603, and
was buried on 28th April. Her body was borne
by water from the Palace of Richmond to that of
Whitehall, and from Whitehall to the Abbey.
Unprecedented crowds gathered to see the funeral
procession of the great Queen, who for forty-five
years had filled so large a place in the national
life, and upheld the honour of England. Her
effigy in wax, as usual, lay above the coffin, in
73

The Chapels Royal
royal robes, with crown, orb, and sceptre. The
coffin was laid above that of her sister Mary,
under the North Aisle of Henry the Seventh's
Chapel. James the First, aided no doubt by the
strength of national enthusiasm, erected the splendid
tomb which stands above her grave ; engravings of
which, we are told by Fuller, were to be found in
every church in London, and most in the country.
The first of the Stewarts to be buried in the
Tudor Chapel was the grandmother of James the
First, Margaret Douglas, daughter of the Princess
Margaret of England (Queen Dowager of James
the Fourth) and Archibald, sixth Earl of Angus.
She married Matthew Stewart, fourth Earl of
Lennox, and was mother of Henry, Lord Darnley,
consort of Mary Queen of Scots. She was also
mother of Charles Stewart (or Stuart), the father
of the unfortunate Lady Arabella (generally called
in her lifetime Lady Arbell), the first cousin of
James the First ; the remains of Charles, who had
died before her, were reinterred in his mother's
tomb. Margaret, Countess of Lennox, died in
poverty at Hackney; her tomb, which contains
figures of her sons, was erected by her grandson,
James the First.
In 1 612 James the First caused the remains
of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, to be removed
from their second resting-place at Peterborough
74

Henry VH.'s Chapel
Cathedral to Henry the Seventh's Chapel ; the
vault was made in the South Aisle, close to that
of her mother-in-law, the Countess of Lennox.
Her monument, on a grander scale than that of
Queen Elizabeth, was also erected by her son. Her
grave was greatly revered by devotees, and there
was a rumour that it was productive of miracles.
In 1607 two little daughters of James the First,
Princess Mary and Princess Sophia, were buried
in the North Aisle, under the urn which Charles
the Second placed for the remains which were
believed to be those of the murdered princes from
the Tower.
In 161 2 the South Aisle was opened to receive
the body of the hope of the nation, the accom
plished and beloved Henry Frederick, Prince of
Wales, eldest son of James the First, elder brother
of his successor Charles. His funeral was attended
by two thousand mourners. Archbishop Abbot
chose a somewhat odd text for his sermon : "I
have said, Ye are gods ; and all of you are children
of the Most High : but ye shall die like men, and
fall like one of the princes" (Ps. Ixxxii. 6, 7).
Probably his father thought he had spent enough
on the monuments of Elizabeth and Mary Queen of
Scots, for none was erected to the deeply lamented
Prince Henry.
In 1 61 5 the body of the unhappy Lady Arabella 75

The Chapels Royal
Stuart was brought from the Tower and laid on
the coffin of her aunt, Mary Queen of Scots.
Though at one time a brilliant ornament of his
Court, she had offended King James by her secret
marriage with William Seymour, afterwards Earl
and Marquis of Hertford, and Duke of Somerset.
He was one of the six who attended the burial
of Charles the First at Windsor.'
In 1 619 came the remains of Queen Anne of
Denmark, who died at Hampton Court on 2nd
March. The coffin was brought by water to Somerset
House,' her allotted palace, where the lying-in
state took place. The funeral procession thence
to the Abbey "was but a drawling, tedious sight,
and though the number of lords and ladies was
very great (the ladies were said to be 250), yet
they made but a poor show, being all apparelled
alike in black ; they came lagging, tired with
the distance between Somerset House and West
minster Abbey."' Archbishop Abbot again chose
a very peculiar text: "Put not your trust in
princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there
is no help " (Ps. cxlvi. 3).
James the First died on 27th March 1625,
and was buried on 5th May. His body was
placed in the central vault of the Chapel, beside
^ Strickland's Tudor and Stuart Princesses.
" Strickland's Queens of England.
76

Henry VH.'s Chapel
those of his great-great-grandparents,' Henry the
Seventh and Elizabeth of York.
Two infant children of Charles the First were
buried in the vaults of their great-grandmother,^
Mary Queen of Scots — Prince Charles, 1629,
and Princess Anne, 1640.
The next interments indicated the startling
change that had passed over the country, and
the resolve of the military dictator to found a new
dynasty. Jane Cromwell, the sister of Oliver, who
married General Disbrowe, was buried in the
Chapel in 1656 ; Elizabeth Cromwell (born Stuart),
his mother, who died 1654, aged 96 ; and Elizabeth
Claypoole, his favourite daughter, who died and
was buried in August 1658. The next month,
3rd September, "at three o'clock in the afternoon,
a day of triumph and thanksgiving for the
memorable victories of Dunbar and Worcester,
his most serene and renowned highness Oliver
Lord Protector was taken to his rest." For
nearly a fortnight his body lay in state at Somer
set House, in a room hung with black, from
which daylight was excluded. At the end of
November "he was removed into the great hall
of the said house, and represented in effigy stand
ing on a bed of crimson velvet, covered with a
^ Dean Stanley calls them great-grandparents.
^ Dean Stanley calls her their grandmother.
77

The Chapels Royal
gown of the like coloured velvet, a sceptre in his
hand, and a crown on his head. . . . Four or five
hundred candles set in flat shining candlesticks,
so placed round near the roof of the hall, that
the light they gave seemed like the rays of the
sun, by all which he was represented to be in a
state of glory."' The burial-place was at the
extreme east end of Henry the Seventh's Chapel ;
the funeral cost ;^6o,ooo. After the Restoration,
on the eve of the 30th of January 1661, the vindic-
tiveness of the Royalists disinterred the remains
of Cromwell, Ireton, and Bradshaw, and dragged
them to Tyburn, where they were hanged, de
capitated, and buried ; the heads were set up
on the top of Westminster Hall.
It has already been related how ;^'jo,ooo were
granted by Parliament for the removal of the body
of Charles the First from Windsor to Henry the
Seventh's Chapel, and for the erection of a splendid
tomb, to be designed by Wren ; but the money was
appropriated by Charles the Second.^
Henry, Duke of Gloucester, third son of
Charles the First, and highly praised by the
historian Clarendon, died on the 13th of September
1660, in his 22nd year, and was buried on the
2 ist, in the vault of Mary Queen of Scots. He

1 Ludlow, pp. 259, 260, quoted in Stanley's Memorials.
^ P. 57.

78

Henry VH.'s Chapel
died of small-pox in the midst of the rejoicings
for the Restoration. His sister Mary, Princess
of Orange, mother of William the Third, who had
come over to congratulate Charles the Second on
the triumphant ending to his troubles, caught the
same disease, and was buried in the same vault,
29th December, the same year. Next year there
followed Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, eldest
daughter of James the First, and mother of the
Electress Sophia of Hanover. She was a witty
and clever woman, and her charm was immortal
ized by Sir Henry Wotton.
Charles, Earl of Doncaster (son of Charles the
Second's son, the Duke of Monmouth), Charles
Fitzroy, Duke of Cleveland (son of Charles the
Second by Barbara Villiers), and Charles Fitz-
Charles, Earl of Plymouth (son of Charles the
Second by Catherine Pegge), were buried in the
vault vacated by Oliver Cromwell. Charles the
Second was interred in a new vault at the east end
of the South Aisle, "very obscurely at night and
without any manner of pomp." Side by side with
his were placed the coffins of William the Third,
Mary the Second, Queen Anne, and Prince George
of Denmark. Stanley quotes the eloquent passage
from Macaulay which describes the deeply im
pressive funeral of the popular Queen Mary.' The
^Macaulay's Hist.,lv. 534, 535.
79

The Chapels Royal
mother of Mary and Anne, Anne Hyde, daughter
of Lord Clarendon, and wife of James, Duke of
York (afterwards James the Second), was buried
in the vault of Mary Queen of Scots, under the
the coffin of Elizabeth of Bohemia. In the same
vault are the small coffins of the six sons and
five daughters of James the Second who died
in infancy (including James Darnley, his son by
Catherine Sedley), and the eighteen children of
Queen Anne.
For George the Second and Caroline of
Anspach a new vault was made in front (west
wards) of that of Henry the Seventh and Elizabeth
of York. George survived his illustrious consort
twenty-three years ; and directed that his ashes
should be mingled with hers. The two coffins
accordingly were placed in one large black marble
sarcophagus, and one side of each withdrawn.
Stanley quotes a vivid description of the King's
funeral from the pen of Horace Walpole.'
William, Duke of Cumberland, third son of
George the Second, victor of the fields of Fontenoy
and Culloden, who showed his passion for horse-
racing by founding the Ascot meeting, was buried
in the same vault in 1765. His eldest brother,
Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, father of George
the Third, had preceded him in 1751. Augusta of
^Letters, iv. 361-362.
80

(buijU|.;rer

c^<;^i4y2A- ,^<(i^ .9^^^en.M<i '^/ia/i-e/<

Henry VH.'s Chapel
Saxe-Coburg, Frederick's widow, was buried in the
same vault in 1772. The remains' of two of his
sisters were laid there : also his younger children,
Edward Augustus, Duke of York and Albany;
Henry Frederick, Duke of Cumberland; and
Frederick William. It has been related how
George the Third prepared the vault under
Wolsey's Chapel at Windsor as the mausoleum
for himself and his family.
A member of a foreign royal family, Antony,
Duke of Montpensier, younger brother of Louis
Philippe, King of the French, dying in this country
in 1807, was buried in Henry the Seventh's Chapel
in the south-eastern Chapel of the Apse, and is
commemorated by a beautiful monument by
Westmacott. Other burials are George Villiers, first Duke
of Buckingham, the favourite of James the First
and Charles the First ; Mary, Duchess of Bucking
ham ; Charles Hamilton, Earl of Selkirk ; Catherine,
Countess Grandison ; General William Steuart,
second "husband of a Villiers widow, and some
children, — all in the Buckingham vault, on the
north side of the Sacrarium. The opposite Chapel
on the south side is devoted to Ludovic Stuart,
Duke of Richmond and Lennox, second cousin
to James the First, and his one companion in
the expedition to Gowrie House. He was Lord
F 81

The Chapels Royal
Chamberlain, and Lord High Admiral of Scotland.
The monument was raised by his widow, Frances,
daughter of Lord Bindon, widow of Edmond
Seymour, Earl of Hertford. She, and all the
other members of the Lennox family, except
Ludovic's brother Esme, who succeeded him in
the Dukedom, were buried in the Chapel. Duke
Esme was buried with great pomp in the vault
of his great-aunt, Margaret Douglas, wife of
Matthew, Earl of Lennox, and grandmother of
James the First. After the deaths of Duke James,
Duke Esme the Third, and Duke Charles, the
male ducal line became extinct, and the honours
reverted to the Crown ; whereupon Charles the
Second conferred the Dukedom on his son by
Louise de la Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth ;
and he was buried in the vault of the Lennox
Dukes. In 1 72 1 Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham (of
another family and creation than those of the
Villiers), was buried in the Chapel of Anne of
Denmark. Patron of Dryden, friend of Pope, a
distinguished commander, banished from Court for
his attentions to Princess Anne, afterwards Privy
Councillor and Lord Chamberlain, Lord Privy Seal
under Queen Anne, Commissioner for the Union
with Scotland, correspondent and supporter of
the Electress Sophia, author of an " Essay on
82

Henry VH.'s Chapel
Poetry," and of a volume of poems, husband of
the natural daughter of James the Second, and
creator of Buckingham House, now the Royal
Palace of the Metropolis, he occupied a great place
in the last half of the seventeenth century and the
first quarter of the eighteenth. His widow and
son were buried in the same vault. In his
epitaph, composed by himself, occur the striking
and pathetic words :
Doubtful, but not wicked have I lived;
Uncertain I die, but not perturbed.
It is human to be ignorant and to err.
I trust in God
The Omnipotent and Most Compassionate :
Being of Beings, have mercy on me.
In 1722 the great Duke of Marlborough's body
was brought to the Chapel, with a public funeral of
immense splendour : twenty-four years afterwards
the body was removed by the Duchess to the
magnificent new mausoleum at Blenheim.
In 1670, at the head of Queen Elizabeth's tomb,
was buried George Monk, Duke of Albemarle, the
engineer of the Restoration ; between his death
and funeral his wife died, and was buried in the
same vault. Close beside him in 1672 was laid
the body of Edward, first Earl of Sandwich, the
famous admiral and general at sea, who was
blown up in his ship at the Battle of Sole Bay. His
83

The Chapels Royal
body was found at Harwich. The other occupants
of the vault are George Fitzroy, Duke of Northum
berland, a son of Charles the Second, with his first
wife. Duchess Catherine ; Charles Montagu, first
Earl of Halifax, the famous financier and states
man of the reigns of William III., Anne, and
George the First ; close beside him, George Savile,
Marquis of Halifax, the promoter of the Revolution
of 1688; Elizabeth, Lady Stanhope (1708), probably
daughter of George, Marquis of Halifax ; John
Carteret, Earl Granville, the favourite minister of
George the First ; Grace, Countess Granville ;
Sophia, Countess Granville ; Frances, Lady
Carteret ; Mary, second Duchess of Northumber
land, and Elizabeth, second Duchess of Albemarle.
At the east end of Henry the Seventh's Chapel,
near the place where the body of Cromwell lay for
a time, was placed in 1688 that of James Butler,
first Duke of Ormonde — the statesman of the reigns
of Charles the First, Charles the Second, and James
the Second— his wife, his son, the second Duke, and
others of his family. In the same vault lie William
Bentinck, Earl of Portland, the favourite and friend
of William the Third, with his first descendants.
John, Duke of Argyll and Greenwich, statesman
and commander in the reigns of Anne, George the
First, and George the Second, a firm promoter of
the Union with Scotland, who makes so pleasant
84

Henry VH.'s Chapel
a figure in Scott's Heart of Midlothian, was
buried in Henry the Seventh's Chapel in 1743.
His family vault is next to that of Sheffield,
Duke of Buckingham. His monument is in
Poets' Corner.
The bodies of Joseph Addison, essayist, poet,
and statesman (17 19), and James Craggs (1721),
Secretary of State, friend of Pope and Addison,
beloved by King and people, who died in his 36th
year, lie near those of the Halifaxes. Craggs's
monument is in the nave, and was thought a
wonderful piece of work at the time of its
erection. Sir Robert Walpole, who was buried in his own
parish church at Houghton, Norfolk, is com
memorated in Henry the Seventh's Chapel by the
beautiful Roman statue of his wife, Catherine
Shorter, in the South Aisle, near the tomb of
Margaret, Countess of Richmond. It was erected
by her son, Horace Walpole, second Earl of Orford,
who describes it in his letters.
An interment not certainly identified was that
of General Charles W^orsley, the great and rising
favourite of Oliver Cromwell. He was colonel
of a regiment raised for Cromwell in Lancashire,
employed in the reduction of the Isle of Man,
commanded the detachment used in the expulsion
of the Long Parliament, took charge of the mace, 85

The Chapels Royal
was first member for Manchester, and was Lieut.-
General for Lancashire, Cheshire, and Staffordshire.
He died in 1656, and was the only Common
wealth man not disinterred from the Chapel at the
Restoration. He is thought to occupy the recess
on the south side of the Apse, where are also the
tomb and monument of the Duke of Montpensier.

86

IV
THE CHAPEL ROYAL, ST. JAMES'S PALACE

THE CHAPEL ROYAL, ST. JAMES'S PALACE ^
HIS small chamber, only sixty- two
feet long, has since the time of
Queen Mary Tudor been the
scene of some of the most solemn
and splendid incidents in the
history of the royal line of
England. The palace itself was originally a leper
hospital under the Abbey of Westminster ; it was
granted by Henry the Sixth to his College at
Eton ; and exchanged by Eton with Henry the
Eighth for two manors. The inmates of the
hospital were pensioned, and their house pulled
down, to be rebuilt as a royal residence for hunting
1 In this chapter I am indebted throughout to Sheppard's
Memorials of St. James s Palace, vol. ii. ; to Royal Palaces of Eng
land; to Strickland's Queens of England, etc. ; and to the Diction
ary of National Biography.
89

The Chapels Royal
by Thomas Cromwell, while the neighbouring
lands were formed into a deer-park. The parts
remaining from that date are the beautiful clock-
tower and gateway, the Chapel Royal, with the
initials of Henry and Anne of Cleves in the
ceiling, the tapestry-room, the chimney-piece in the
Presence Chamber, six turrets surrounding different
parts of the building, and much of the brick-work.
Henry lived rarely at St. James's, and his daughter
Mary was the first sovereign who occupied it for
a continuous period. During her visits to London
she resided here chiefly, only going to Whitehall
for State functions. Here on 17th November 1558
she died, and her body rested in the Chapel till
it was carried for burial to Westminster Abbey.
The design of the ceiling of the Chapel, which
is flat, after a slight rise from the cornice, is
attributed to Holbein ; it is covered with a kind
of raised diaper pattern, one of the earliest speci
mens of its kind in this country, and richly
coloured. Roses occur in red, leaves in dark green,
coats of arms in proper blazonry, mottoes in gold,
the initials of Henry and Anne of Cleves, and
frequently the date 1540. Besides the main body
of the building, there is an ante-chapel, and four
vestries on the ground-floor : (i) for the Dean and
Sub-dean; (2) for the Priests-in-waiting; (3) for
the Gentlemen ; (4) for the Children of the Chapel
90

St. James's Palace
Royal. On the upper floor are five galleries : (i)
the Royal Closet ; (2) the Peeresses' ; (3) the
Household's ; (4) the Strangers' ; (5) for the
Organ. The great wall of glass which forms the
east window is in three divisions : the central
contains the original shorter window, lengthened
to its present scale for the marriage of Queen
Victoria in 1840; and the two side divisions, of
the same pattern, added for the marriage of the
Princess Royal in 1858.
Machyn, in the Diary of a Resident in London,
describes one of the gorgeous and numerous
religious functions of the Court of Queen Mary
Tudor: "At the Court of St. James the Queen's
Grace went (on) a procession within St. James, with
heralds, and sergeants-of-arms, and four bishops
mitred, and all three days they went (with the
members of) her Chapel about the fields ; first day
to St. Giles, and there sang mass ; the next day,
Tuesday, to St. Martins-in-the-Fields, and there
heard a sermon and sang mass, and so they drank
there ; and the third day to Westminster, and
there a sermon, and then mass, and made good
cheer ; and after, about the Park, and so to St.
James's Court."
Nichols, the chronicler of Queen Elizabeth,
describes Queen Mary's funeral, which gives us a
graphic glimpse of the earlier ceremonies of which 91

The Chapels Royal
this pointed the close : " The corpse of Queen Mary
was honourably conveyed from her manor of St.
James unto the Abbey of Westminster. Her
image was laid on the coffin, apparelled in her
royal robes, with a crown of gold set on the head
thereof in a solemn manner." Miss Jamison, in
Royal Palaces of England, epitomizes the chronicle
of Nichols and Machyn : at the head of the pro
cession was a standard, followed by a great com
pany of mourners ; then came another standard,
with King Philip's servants, riding two and two.
Behind a third standard rode the Marquis of
Winchester (made Baron by Henry VIII., Earl
and Marquis by the Council of Edward VI.),
bearing the banner of England, accompanied by
ten different heralds with the insignia of the
Crown. The Somerset, Lancaster, Windsor, and
York Heralds carried banners depicting saints,
embossed with gold, and immediately preceding
the chariot in which the coffin was placed. The
members of the Chapel Royal, with the bishops
and a procession of monks, surrounded the
chariot, singing as they went; and finally came
the Queen's ladies, riding all in black, draped to
the ground.
Queen Elizabeth came little to St. James's,
preferring Whitehall, Greenwich, and progresses
about the country. The Stuarts revived its
92

St. James's Palace
character as a home. James the First came here
after his arrival, and remained till after his corona
tion, when he made Whitehall his permanent
residence, and assigned St. James's to his brilliant
and popular son Prince Henry. Prince Henry,
when only fourteen or fifteen years of age, had boxes
kept at his three several standing houses, St.
James's, Richmond (Ham House), and Nonsuch,
causing all those who did swear in his hearing to
pay moneys to the same, which were after duly
given to the poor.'
Prince Henry died in 1612, in his twentieth
year, and his funeral, which started from St.
James's, was attended by two thousand mourners.
He was succeeded as occupant of the palace by
his brother Prince Charles ; in whose time the
foundation-stone of a Roman Chapel for his in
tended wife was laid : " On May i6th, 1623, was the
first foundation of the new Chapel, at St. James's,
for the Lady Mary of Spain, in the afternoon.
The Spanish Ambassador made a cross on the
first stone, laid it in mortar, made a prayer in
French, that God would dispose of that foundation
to His glory, and the good of His Church, and the
universal good of all Christians, and gave ;^8o to
the workmen ; his son laid the second stone, and also
1 His Treasurer, CornwalHs, in Somers' Tracts, ii. 228, quoted
in Royal Palaces of England, p. 252.
93

The Chapels Royal
gave them p^8o."' The Roman Chapel was after
wards finished for Catherine of Braganza, a private
chapel being fitted up for Henrietta Maria of France,
who brought with her a bishop and twenty-nine
priests, with a large train of attendants, who cost
;;i^24o a day. In consequence of this expenditure,
and the unpopularity of so large a company of
foreign Roman Catholics, Charles dismissed the
whole French household. When he had one
afternoon taken the Queen to his own apartments,
and locked the door, " Lord Conway called forth
the French bishop and others of that clergy into
St. James's Park, where he told them, the King's
pleasure was, all Her Majesty's servants of that
nation, men and women, young and old, should
depart the kingdom. . . . The King's message
being thus delivered by my Lord Conway, his
lordship, accompanied with Mr. Treasurer and Mr.
Controller, went to the Queen's lodgings, and told
all the French likewise, that were there, that His
Majesty's pleasure was, they should all depart
thence to Somerset House, and remain there till
they knew further His Majesty's pleasure. The
women howled and lamented, as if they had been
going to execution, but all in vain ; for the Yeo
men of the Guard, by that Lord's appointment,
thrust them and all their country-folk out of the
^ Birch, Court and Times of James I., ii. 394.
94

St. James's Palace
Queen's lodgings, and locked the doors after
them." "They had so defiled the house," reported
the housekeeper at St. James's to the King, "as a
week's work would not make it clean ; " and they
carried off" everything of the Queen's wardrobe on
which they could lay hands, "the Queen having
left her but one gown and two smocks to her
back . . . entreated by some of the Lords of the
Council to send Her Majesty some apparel, they
sent her only one old satin gown, keeping all the
residue unto themselves."' For two years, from
1639, ths services of the Roman Catholic Chapel
were enjoyed by Henrietta Maria's mother, Marie
de Medicis, Queen Dowager of France, who came
with two hundred servants ; she was so unpopular
that Parliament voted her a large sum of money on
condition that she left England at once.^
St. James's was granted to Cromwell when he
became Lord Protector, but he did not live there ;
during the Commonwealth it was chiefly used as
barracks. Here also lived General Monk, and pre
pared his plans for the Restoration. Charles the
Second completed the Roman Chapel for Catherine of
Braganza. " The services and music of the Queen's
Chapel were a source of much curiosity to the
Englishmen of the Court. Pepys went there many
^ Birch, Court and Times of Charles /., i. 1 19-122.
2 Royal Palaces of England, p. 257.
95

The Chapels Royal
times, and also visited the Capucin Friary which
was established at St. James's."' James II. and
his family lived at St. James's when he was Duke
of York, and no doubt attended the Roman Chapel.
William and Mary lived chiefly at Kensington
and Hampton Court. Queen Anne was much at
St. James's, both as Princess and Queen. It was
to her as Princess that Bishop Burnet preferred his
complaint against the ogling and sighing of the
Court beaux and ladies in the Chapel, which pro
duced the amusing ballad composed either by
Mainwaring or Lord Peterborough, and persuaded
Anne to order the raising of the pews till they
became closets.
Caroline, wife of George the Second, asked
William Whiston, the translator of Josephus, what
fault people mostly found with her. Whiston
replied that it was talking in Chapel. The Queen
asked if there were other faults : " When your
Majesty has amended this, I'll tell you of the
next," answered Whiston.'
With regard to customs at St. James's Chapel
Royal, King Charles the First's "Orders" contains
prohibitions against wearing weapons in Chapel,
or boots and spurs. None are to put on hats
"^ Royal Palaces of England, p. 264.
2 Biographia Britannica, " Whiston '' ; quoted in Sheppard's St.
James's Palace.
96

St. James's Palace
during sermon except noblemen, councillors, or
the Dean, in the stalls. Any one entering Chapel
with spurs was subject to paying a fine to the
choristers : which he was excused, if on requiring
the youngest chorister to repeat his gamut, he
found him fail.
The rules of George the Second order deliberate-
ness and distinctness on the part of the minister,
and forbid excessive speed in passing from one
prayer to another. By the same orders the choir
were admonished- that they must all take their due
part in the singing, and must learn their anthems ;
also the anthem must be fixed before, and not
communicated to the choir by -messages during the
service. Measures were taken at the same time
against overcrowding, which illustrate the great
popularity of the service.
Paterson, quoted in Sheppard's St. fames's
Palace, says that prayers were offered three times
a day, if Queen Anne were in residence, and the
choir not removed to attend her at any other Royal
Palaces : Morning Prayer at eight and eleven.
Evening Prayer at five ; in the Queen's absence,
twice : at eleven and five. Holy Communion was
administered at eight o'clock on Sundays when the
Court was at Kensington, but when at Windsor
or at Hampton Court at eleven. In i860 an early
Sunday morning service at St. James's held at eight
G 97

The Chapels Royal
was changed to nine, and in 1863 to ten. This is
now held in the German Chapel adjoining Marl
borough House. Besides this, the regular Sunday
services are at twelve o'clock and five-thirty.
It was in St. James's Chapel Royal that William
the Third, as Prince of Orange, received Com
munion from the Bishop of London, thus professing
adherence to the Church of England. Queen
Victoria was confirmed in the Chapel Royal on
30th July 1835; Caroline Matilda, afterwards Queen
of Denmark, daughter of Frederick Prince of
Wales, on 28th August 1766 ; and Princess Victoria
Mary (our present Queen), with her brother Prince
Adolphus of Teck, on ist August 1885.
The Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials at the
Chapel Royal have been described with such
fulness by the present Sub-dean in his History
of St. famess Palace, that the reader will prefer
to consult that very interesting volume. It will
be best here only to note some of the scenes of
the more interesting historical importance.
First, perhaps, a list should be given of
baptisms. The arrangements for that of Charles
II., obtained by Sub-dean Sheppard from the
Books of Ceremonial at the Office of Arms, are
of the most elaborate description, comparable only
to those for a Coronation, and little in accordance
with modern taste,
98

St. James's Palace
Children of Charles the First.
Charles, Duke of Cornwall, afterwards Charles the
Second, 1630.
Mary Stuart, 1631.
James Stuart, afterwards Duke of York and King,
Oct. 14, 1633.
Elizabeth Stuart, Jan. 2, 1636.
Anne Stuart, March 30, 1637.
Children of fames the Second by Anne Hyde.
Mary Stuart of York, afterwards Princess of Orange
and Queen, 1662.
James Stuart of York, Duke of Cambridge, 1663;
died 1667.
Anne Stuart of York, afterwards Princess George
of Denmark and Queen, 1664.
Charles Stuart of York, Duke of Kendal, 1666;
died 1667.
Edgar Stuart of York, Duke of Cambridge, 1667 ;
died 1 67 1.
Children of fames the Second by Mary Beatrice
dEste.
Katharine Laura Stuart of York, 1674 ; died the
same year.
Isabella Stuart of York, 1676; died 1680.
Charles Stuart of York, Duke of Cambridge, Nov.
8, 1677 ; died the same year. 99

The Chapels Royal
Charlotte Maria of York, August 17, 1682; died
the same year.
James Francis Edward of York, Oct. 15, 1688. He
was afterwards known as the Chevalier de St.
George. The malignant falsehood that he was
introduced into the Queen's bed in a warming-
pan is disproved by the fact that besides the
King, Queen Catherine of Braganza (widow of
Charles 1 1.), most of the Lords of the Privy
Council, and divers ladies of quality were pre
sent. The lie was never seriously believed by
reasonable persons. Queen Anne's Son.
Queen Anne had eighteen children, all of whom
died in infancy, except William, Duke of
Gloucester, who lived to be eleven, and was
a great favourite with his godfather, William
the Third. He was baptized on July 27,
1689.
Son of Caroline, wife of George, Prince of Wales ^
afterwards George II.
Frederick, Prince of Wales, Nov. 28, 171 7
(christened in his mother's bedroom).' A
terrible quarrel occurred round the bed of
the poor lady at this ceremony between George
the First and his son. The King insisted
100

St. James's Palace
that Thomas, Duke of Newcastle, the Prime
Minister, should be godfather, and the Prince
was equally determined for the King's brother,
Duke of York and Bishop of Osnaburgh. The
Prince was obliged to give way, but after a
violent altercation shook his fist in the face of
the Duke of Newcastle, and called him a rascal.
For this the Prince and Princess were after
wards expelled from the Palace.
Daughter of Frederick and Augusta, Prince and
Princess of Wales.
Augusta of Hanover, afterwards Duchess of
Brunswick, August 29, 1737.
Children of King George III. and Queen Charlotte.
George Augustus Frederick, Prince of Wales,
afterwards George the Fourth, September 8,
1762 (in the Grand Council Chamber). When
the christenings were held in this State room,
the bed of the mother was placed where the
Throne and Canopy usually stood, and all
filed by as at a Drawing-room. Refreshments,
such as tea-cakes and caudle, were afterwards
served.
Frederick, afterwards Duke of York and Albany,
Septeinber 14, 1762.
William Henry, afterwards Duke of Clarence and lOI

The Chapels Royal
William the Fourth, September 1 8, 1765 (in
the Presence-Chamber).
Charlotte Augusta Matilda, Princess Royal, after
wards Queen of Wurtemberg, October 27, 1766
(in the Drawing-room).
Edward, afterwards Duke of Kent and Strathearn,
November 30, 1767 (the evening of his birth;
probably in his mother's room).
Augusta Sophia, December 6, 1768 (in the Great
Council Chamber).
Elizabeth, afterwards Landgravine of Hesse-Hom-
burg, June 17, 1770 (in the Great Council
Chamber).
Ernest Augustus, afterwards Duke of Cumberland
and King of Hanover, July i, 1771 (in the
Great Council Chamber).
Augustus Frederick, afterwards Duke of Sussex,
February 25, 1773 (in the Great Council
Chamber).
Adolphus Frederick, afterwards Duke of Cam
bridge, March 24, 1774 (in the Great Council
Chamber).
Mary, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester, April 25,
1 77 1 (in the Great Council Chamber).
Sophia, December i, 1771 (in the Great Council
Chamber).
Octavius, March 23, 1779 (in the Great Council
Chamber); died 1783.
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St. James's Palace
Alfred, October 21, 1780 (in the Great Council
Chamber) ; died 1782.
Amelia, September 18, 1783 (in the Great Council
Chamber).
Nephew of King George III, son of the Hereditary
Prince of Brunswick, and Augusta, eldest
daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales.
Charles George Augustus, Prince of Brunswick,
March 9, 1766.
Daughter of George, Prince of Wales, afterwards
George the Fourth.
Charlotte Augusta of Wales, afterwards wife of
Prince Leopold, of Saxe-Coburg (King of the
Belgians), February 11, 1796.
Daughter of William Henry, Duke of Clarence,
and his Duchess, Adelaide of Saxe-Weimar.
Elizabeth Georgiana Adelaide, December 10, 1820;
the same day as that of her birth.
After a gap of seventy years, the daughters of
Princess Louise of Wales, Duchess of Fife.
Alexandra Victoria Alberta Edwina Louise, June
29, 1 89 1 (in the Chapel).
Maud Alexandra Victoria Georgina Bertha, June
22, 1893 (in the German Chapel). 103

The Chapels Royal
Children of H.S.H. Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-
Langenburg, nephew of Queen Victoria.
Albert Edward Wilfrid, Count Gleichen, February
20, 1863.
Countess Victoria Gleichen (now Countess Valda
Machell).
Countess Helena Gleichen.
Marriages in the Chapel Royal, St. fames's.
The earliest recorded royal marriage at St.
James's was in 1677, O.S., between Mary of York,
whose father succeeded Charles the Second as
James the Second, and her first cousin, William,
Prince of Orange, afterwards William the Third.
The bride was very reluctanj;, for she had set her
heart on a handsome young Scots lord ; her father
had desired a marriage with the eldest son of
Louis the Fourteenth. She wept for two days
when her destiny was announced, but it turned
out an extremely happy marriage. Instead of in
the Chapel Royal, the wedding took place in her bed
chamber on Sunday, 4th November, at nine o'clock
p.m. There were present King Charles the Second,
Queen Catherine of Braganza, James, Duke of
York, and his young second wife, Mary, Beatrice
of Modena, Compton, Bishop of London, the bride's
tutor, who performed the ceremony, and the various
attendants. Charles covered the unwillingness of
104

St. James's Palace
the bride with sprightly remarks. " Come, bishop,"
he cried, as he hurried her to the altar, " make all
the haste you can, lest my sister, the Duchess of
Modena here, should bring us a boy, and then the
marriage will be disappointed." The Duchess of
York was hourly expecting her accouchement, and
two days later gave birth to a boy, Charles, Duke
of Cambridge, who died the same year. When
William endowed his bride with all his worldly
goods, he put a handful of gold and silver coins
on the book : when Charles told his niece " to
gather it up and put all in her pocket, for it was
all clear gain." At eleven the Prince and Princess
of Orange retired ; cakes were broken and possets
drunk by all present ; and Charles, after drawing
the curtains himself, departed, shouting, " St.
George for England ! " Next morning William,
by his favourite Bentinck, sent his princess a
magnificent gift of jewels to the amount of
;^40,000.^ The marriage of Anne of York, her sister, was
more ceremonious, and without repugnance. The
Prince of Hanover, afterwards George the First,
had come over to England to make his suit, but
had for some reason withdrawn ; perhaps through
the intrigues of his cousin William of Orange,
the husband of Anne's elder sister, Mary. The
'^ Miss Strickland's Queens of England, Mary the Second.
105

The Chapels Royal
handsome King of Sweden, Charles the Eleventh,
sent a fine portrait in token of his wishes ; this
match was also prevented by William. Anne her
self had a predilection for the handsome John
Sheffield, third Earl of Mulgrave, whom she after
wards created Duke of Buckingham and Normanby,
the poet and essayist, the patron of Dryden, and
friend of Pope, and who was buried in Westminster
Abbey ; but Charles the Second was unfavourable,
and banished him from Court. Charles chose
George of Denmark, a second cousin of his own
and of Anne's father, the Duke of York, fifteen
years older than the Princess, nephew of James the
First's wife, Anne of Denmark. Evelyn describes
him as having the Danish countenance, blonde,
speaking French ill, seeming somewhat heavy, but
reported to be valiant— George had rescued his
brother King Christiern when taken prisoner by
Swedish troops. Christiern, on a visit to Eng
land, had taken back with him to Denmark as his
page, George Churchill, brother of Anne's favourite,
John ; a connection which may have led to the
marriage. It took place at the Chapel Royal,
St. James's, on St. Anne's Day, 28th July, O.S.,
1683, at 10 p.m. Charles gave away the bride;
Queen Catherine of Braganza, and the Duke and
Duchess of York were present, as well as most of
the noble persons then in London. The Chapel
106

St. James's Palace
was brilliant with light. The marriage was popular
with the citizens of London, who burned bonfires
at their own doors. Wine-conduits, shows, and
diversions were provided, and the bells of every
church, in or near the capital, rang all night. The
following morning Anne sat in state with her
bridegroom to receive the congratulations of foreign
ambassadors, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, and
various public companies. George and Anne had,
as has been stated before, eighteen children, one
of whom, William, Duke of Gloucester, lived to
be eleven. Anne, Princess Royal, eldest daughter of George
the Second and Caroline of Anspach, was married
to William, Prince of Orange, at the German or
Lutheran Chapel, St. James's, on March 14, 1734.
The bridegroom had come over to be married the
previous year ; but Anne's health was unsatisfactory,
and the union was postponed. It had an import
ant effect on the history of Holland. The bride
groom, who was in his twenty-fourth year, was
descended from King William the Third's aunt,
Albertina, who had married William Frederick
of Nassau - Deitz, Stadtholder of Friesland.
England and Holland were holding aloof from
the war which disturbed Poland, Germany, France,
and Spain ; and this important marriage drew them
closer together. The United Provinces had fallen 107

The Chapels Royal
so low, that all men began to wish for a dictator.
Zealand proclaimed the young Prince of Orange
Stadtholder, Captain and Admiral-General, under
the title of William the Fourth; the movement
spread like wildfire ; William became Captain and
Admiral-General of the whole Union, and Stadt
holder of the Seven Provinces ; and a little later
these offices were declared hereditary in both male
and female lines. But in 1751 the Provinces were
plunged in universal grief by the death of their
youn^ Stadtholder. His son, William V., was only
three and a half; and Anne of England ruled the
state till her death in 1759. Walpole says that
her husband was considered a monster of ugliness,
and her father had warned her about his repulsive
appearance, saying that it was not too late to
recede; "I would marry him," she replied, "even
if he were a baboon." He had, however, many
great and good qualities, and Anne, who loved
power, found she had made a happy marriage.
In 1736 came the marriage' of her brother
Frederick, Prince of Wales. He is described as
weak, yet stubborn ; with generous impulses, and
not without accomplishments ; but vain, fond of
flattery, and easily led by sycophants. He pro
fessed a love of literature ; and his home wa§ a
resort for such men of talent as Pulteney, Chester
field, Wyndham, Carteret, Cobham, and Boling-
108

St. James's Palace
broke. George the Second had wished to m^rry
him to his cousin, Frederica Wilhelmina, daughter
of the martinet Frederick William the First of
Prussia, afterwards Margravine of Bayreuth ; but
the project failed through the quarrel of the two
Kings. The old Duchess Sarah of Marlborough
(who did not die till 1744) had secretly offered her
favourite granddaughter. Lady Diana Spencer
(afterwards Duchess of Bedford), with a fortune
of a hundred thousand pounds ; a welcome plan
to a man like Frederick in his thirtieth year, and
embarrassed by debt ; the day was fixed when
they were to be privately married at the Duchess's
Lodge in Windsor Park. Sir Robert Walpole,
hearing of this, united with Queen Caroline in
recommending to George the Second, then in
Hanover, Augusta, daughter of Frederick the
Second, Duke of Saxe-Gotha, then in her eighteenth
year, and described as a princess of beauty and
excellent judgment. The marriage was formally
proposed to the Prince, who replied that whoever
His Majesty thought a proper match for his son
would be agreeable to him. The bride was brought
over in the royal yacht William and Mary ; and
when, after a prosperous voyage. Lord Delawarr
handed her ashore at Greenwich, on Sunday the
25th of April, St. George's Day, she excited
general admiration by her fresh air, good humour, 109

The Chapels Royal
and tasteful dress. She was conducted to the
Queen's House in Greenwich Park, where she was
joined by her bridegroom. On Monday they both
dined in public, that is, with windows open ; after
which Frederick took her for a voyage up and
down the Thames in a gaily decorated barge.
After supping in public at Greenwich, the Prince
left her to make preparations for her reception next
day at St. James's. The bride drove in one of the
royal carriages to Lambeth, whence she crossed
in a boat to Whitehall. Here one of Queen
Caroline's state chairs awaited her, and she was
carried to St. James's. Here the bridegroom met
her, took her by the hand as she stepped from the
chair, checked the motion she made to kneel and
kiss his hand, and kissed her twice on the lips.
Leading her up the staircase, he presented her to
the Court, where she was warmly and affectionately
greeted by George and Caroline, William, Duke
of Cumberland (their favourite son), and the
princesses. The same evening she was married
in the Chapel Royal with much splendour ; her
fair hair, apparently worn long, was surmounted
by a crown of diamonds ; over the usual silvered
dress she had a mantle of crimson velvet, with
the number of ermine bars proper to a Princess
of Wales. Her four bridesmaids. Lady Caroline
Lennox, Lady Caroline Fitzroy, Lady Caroline
no

St. Jameses Palace
Cavendish, and Lady Sophia Fermor, each wore
diamonds from _;^20,ooo to ;^30,ooo in value.
The wedding was celebrated by Bishop Gibson
of London, the learned compiler of English Canon
Law. After a merry supper, the ceremony of
solemnly placing bride and bridegroom in the
nuptial couch was performed with the usual
magnificence. The happiness of the marriage was
marred by the folly of Frederick, who involved
his wife in disputes not only with his petulant
and irascible father, but with the wise and tolerant
* Caroline. "At last one of the most extraordinary
events in the private annals of royal houses
separated the King and his son for years. At
the time, the Prince and Princess of Wales were
residing with the King and Queen at Hampton
Court, the Princess being far advanced towards the
birth of her first child. On the evening of Sunday,
the 31st of July, the Princess was taken ill, but the
Prince, out of hostility to his father, resolved that
his wife should not be confined at Hampton Court,
and caused her secretly to be transferred to St.
James's, where she gave birth to a girl within an
hour of her arrival. A bitter correspondence en
sued between George the Second and his rash son,
the outcome of which was that, although the Prince
confessed his fault, the King ordered him to leave
St. James's with all his family." The child thus IU

The Chapels Royal
born was mother of the unhappy Caroline of Bruns
wick, wife of George the Fourth. After the death
of his wife, George the Second lived on the best of
terms with the Princess of Wales. Besides a son
who died in infancy, she had four sons and two
daughters who lived to grow up, and whom she
educated with great care ; to her training George
the Third owed his early impressions for virtue.
Her political intimacy with Lord Bute is well
known as one of the early features of her son's
reign. She died in 1777, and was buried in West
minster Abbey.
Of the five daughters of Caroline of Anspach,
the second and third, Amelia and Elizabeth, died
unmarried. The fourth, Mary, married on the 8th
of May 1740, at the Chapel Royal, St. James's,
Frederick, Hereditary Prince of Hesse-Cassel ; she
was then in her eighteenth year. For the bride
groom, her brother, the Duke of Cumberland, stood
proxy. The anthem for the occasion was composed
by Handel. The wedding was followed by a ball.
George the Third reverted to the German
Chapel Royal, St. James's, for his wedding, which
took place on 8th September 1761, in his twenty-
fourth year. On Sth July he had held an extra
ordinary Privy Council, unexpectedly found to be
for the declaration of his matrimonial choice. He
announced his intended marriage with Charlotte,
112

St. James's Palace
second sister of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz,
a small German house of ancient lineage and firm
Protestant principles. "Of the Princess herself,
who was scarcely seventeen, and not remarkable
for beauty, little as yet was or would be known.
Her character in after life, as Queen-Consort of
England for fifty-seven years, confirmed the sound
ness of the judgment which had raised her to
that rank. An ever-present, yet unostentatious
piety ; to the King an affectionate reverence ; to
her children, an unremitting care ; prudence,
economy, good sense, and good temper, — were
amongst her excellent qualities. Pure, and above
all reproach in her own domestic life, she knew
how to enforce at her Court the virtues, or at the
very least, the semblance of the virtues, which she
practised. To no other woman, probably, had the
cause of good morals in England ever owed so
deep an obligation." '
Lord Harcourt was sent to Strelitz to demand
the Princess publicly in marriage ; the Duchesses of
Ancaster and Hamilton and Lady Effingham
were sent to attend upon her. A royal yacht, the
Caroline, was sent to convey her, after its name
had been ceremoniously changed to the Charlotte.
The escorting squadron was commanded by Anson.
After a long and perilous voyage, in which the
^ Mahon's History of England.
H 113

The Chapels Royal
young bride showed her courage by playing and
singing to her ladies in the midst of the storm,
she landed at Harwich on 6th September, arriving
at St. James's on the .8th. The King met her at
the garden entrance, and when she would have
fallen at his feet, prevented and embraced her.
They were married at ten o'clock in the evening,
by Archbishop Potter of Canterbury. The Queen
was in white and silver, with a long train or
mantle of violet velvet and ermine ; a beautiful
little diamond tiara crown was on her head, worth
;^6o,ooo. The anthem, "The King shall rejoice,"
was composed by Dr. Boyce. After the wedding-
service, the Queen sat down, played, sang, and
conversed. When she had appeared at the grand
supper, prepared for all the wedding company, she
begged that she might, on account of excessive
fatigue, be allowed to retire, and supped alone
with the King. The issue of the marriage was
nine sons and six daughters.
George the Third married his sister, Augusta,
eldest daughter of Frederick and Augusta, Prince
and Princess of Wales, who had been born at
St. James's under the very extraordinary circum
stances already mentioned, to Charles William
Ferdinand, Hereditary Prince of Brunswick-
Wolfenbuttel, on i6th January 1764. The grand
Council Chamber was used, as affording more
114

St. James's Palace
space than the Chapel Royal. The hour was
7 p.m., and the officiant. Archbishop Seeker.
The bridegroom was her cousin, being the son
of Charles, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, by
Frederica Louisa, daughter of Frederick William,
King of Prussia, by Sophia-Dorothy, daughter of
King George the First of Great Britain. There
were four divisions of the House of Brunswick :
Wolfenbuttel, Bevern, Blankenburg, and Lune-
burg ; the representatives of which promised to
leave their dominions to each other on the failure
of male issue. The Hanoverian royal family
represent the Luneburg branch. Princess Augusta
had two sons and two daughters : Charles George
Augustus, Hereditary Prince, who married Frederica,
daughter of William, Prince of Orange ; Frederick
William, Duke of Brunswick, who married a
Princess of Baden, and fell at Quatre-bras in 1815 ;
Augusta, who married Frederick William, Duke of
Wurtemberg ; and the unhappy Caroline, Queen
of England, wife of George the Fourth. Princess
Augusta died in 181 3.
In 1766, 8th November, at 7.30 p.m., George
the Third celebrated the wedding of another of
his sisters, Caroline Matilda, then in her sixteenth
year, to Christian the Seventh, who was only seven
teen, and had lately succeeded to the throne of
Denmark, He has been described as " one of the
"5

The Chapels Royal
most singular beings ever fated to wear a crown.
Endowed with striking beauty of feature, great
physical strength, and mental vivacity, he became
a favourite with those who hold that felicitous
inspirations betoken intellectual maturity, and that
eloquent conversation in, it may be, one or two
foreign languages, argues a basis of solid learning,
and who take certain courtly graces as evidence of
thorough good breeding. . . . He alternated be
tween wild spirits and profound moroseness,
vehement desire and indolent weakness of will.
Vain to foppery, as quasi-geniuses are apt to be,
he desired to shine in every possible sphere ; but
his ambition aimed no higher than that of an
actor who is sure of applause. . . . Christian the
Seventh did nothing that duty required of him,
and everything that was unworthy of a King." It
was "in the hope of diverting him from the un
dignified courses to which he had abandoned
himself in the company of worthless associates,
that the ministers married him to Caroline Matilda,
a lovely and sprightly Princess, fifteen years of
age. . . . The marriage brought about no reforma
tion, and the follies perpetrated by the King day
and night, suggested to the Ministers the idea of
improving his mind by foreign travel." He reck
lessly spent a vast amount of money in London
and Paris : but he brought back with him a young
ii6

St. James's Palace
doctor, Struensee, who not only reformed the
King's life, and reunited him in affection to the
Queen, but carried out vast social and political
reforms in the State. Christian, Caroline Matilda,
and Struensee became an inseparable trio of
friends. But the Queen's infatuation for the
Minister, together with the fact that he had made
innumerable enemies by his reforms, roused a
conspiracy against them. On 28th April 1772,
Struensee and his assistant Brandt were beheaded ;
and Caroline Matilda was divorced. She retired
to Celle in Hanover, where she died suddenly, in
1775, in the midst of Danish overtures for her recall.
Her son succeeded as Frederick the Sixth in 1808.'
The next marriage was no less ill-starred : that
of George, Prince of Wales, afterwards Prince
Regent and King George the Fourth, to Caroline,
daughter of Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of
Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel, and Augusta, daughter of
Frederick, Prince of Wales. The bride was short
and unattractive, ill-educated and ill-trained, kind-
hearted but eccentric and unrefined ; and she was
being married to a heartless roud, selfish, un
principled, extravagant and self-indulgent, who
had already gone through a ceremony of marriage,
illegal, it is true, but of some moral importance,
with the charming Mrs. Fitzherbert. The Princess
1 Historians' History of the World, vol. xvi. p. 418 117

The Chapels Royal
was twenty-seven, and the bridegroom thirty-three.
She had been three days in England, and on first
seeing her the Prince had taken an intense dislike
to her. Whether it was true that one of the
ladies escorting her to London had persuaded
her to eat salad in which there were green onions,
or that feeling faint before the first meeting she
had swallowed a glass of brandy, or from want
of personal cleanliness, or from some general
effect, the result was that a prejudice was created
which was never removed. The marriage was
performed in the Chapel Royal, papered to imitate
red velvet, at lo p.m. on Wednesday, 8th April
i795> by Archbishop Moore of Canterbury.
When the Primate asked if there were any im
pediment, the bridegroom shook with emotion.
He held so fast by Queen Charlotte's hand that
she could not remove it. Lord Malmesbury
records that the Duke of Gloucester (brother of
George the Third) excused the Prince's conduct
by saying that he was quite drunk. But it is
unpleasant to dwell on the failings of this un
fortunate pair, which unhappily became afterwards
notorious. Caroline died in 1821. The death of
her only child. Princess Charlotte of Wales,
married to Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield, which
occurred in childbed in 181 7, plunged the nation
into profound and genuine sorrow.
118

St. James's Palace
The eldest daughter of George the Third,
Charlotte Augusta Matilda, Princess Royal, was
married to Frederick William, Hereditary Prince
of Wurtemberg - Stuttgart (afterwards King), a
widower, at the Chapel Royal, St. James's, on
Thursday, i8th May 1797, between one and three
in the afternoon. The bride was in her thirty-first
year, the bridegroom older. King George and
Queen Charlotte were devotedly attached to their
eldest daughter, and were in tears at the wedding ;
they had even tried to prevent it, from fear that
the Prince might follow his father's example, and
become a Roman Catholic. The bride was
supported by her brother the Duke of Clarence,
afterwards William the Fourth. The bridegroom
was good-natured and kind-hearted, and favourably
impressed the crowds of people who saw him.
After receiving the solemn paternal benediction of
King George, the Prince and Princess drove off"
from the garden gate to Windsor. They remained
in England nearly three weeks, and made their
departure from St. James's on Friday, 2nd June.
They had said good-bye to the Royal Family on
the previous evening, in a scene of genuine and
uncontrollable sorrow. Wtirtemberg was made
a Kingdom in 1805 by Napoleon, in the Treaty
of Pressburg. The Queen of Wurtemberg died
in 1828 without issue. 119

The Chapels Royal
All the other sons and daughters of George the
Third were married elsewhere. The next royal
wedding at St. James's did not take place till
forty-three years afterwards ; and that was the
happiest and most auspicious of all, the union of
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. It was on
I oth February 1840; Victoria had been on the
throne nearly three years, and was twenty, Albert
twenty-one. The day began wet and foggy, but
soon after the return from the Chapel the sun
shone out with unusual brilliance. The Prince
was supported by his father and elder brother.
Of the old Royal Family were present the Duchess
of Kent ; Adelaide, the Queen Dowager ; the Queen's
two uncles, the Dukes of Sussex and Cambridge ;
and her aunts, the Princess Augusta and the
Duchess of Cambridge : there were also her
cousins. Prince George, Princess Augusta and
Princess Mary of Cambridge, and Princess Sophia
of Gloucester. Of the twelve bridesmaids, Lady
Adelaide Paget married the Hon. F. W. Cadogan,
M.P. ; Lady Caroline Lennox, the Earl of Bess-
borough; Lady Sarah Villiers, Prince Nicholas
Esterhazy ; Lady Elizabeth Howard, Hon. and Rev.
Francis Grey ; Lady Frances Cowper, Lord Jocelyn ;
Lady Ida Hay, Lord Gainsborough ; Lady Elizabeth
West, the Duke of Bedford; Lady Wilhelmina
Stanhope, first. Lord Dalmeny (by whom she was
120

St. James's Palace
mother of Lord Rosebery), second, Duke of Cleve
land ; Lady Mary Grimston, Lord Radnor ; Lady
Jane Bouverie, William Ellice ; Lady Eleanora
Paget, Sir Sandford Graham ; and Lady Mary
Howard, Lord Foley. Of all who were present
in the Chapel, probably the only survivor is a boy
who was page to Queen Adelaide, Sir J. G. Tolle-
mache Sinclair, now in his 87th year. The
Bride was given away by the Duke of Sussex.
Prince Albert wore the uniform of a British Field-
Marshal, with the Collar of the Garter ; the Queen
was dressed in white satin made in Spitalfields,
Honiton lace, an orange wreath, a necklace and
earrings of diamonds, the Garter as an armlet,
and the Star of the Order in diamonds. " The
bridesmaids," wrote Lady Lyttelton, " formed the
most striking part of the scene in their pure and
simple white dresses ; they looked like village girls
among all the gorgeous colours and jewels that
surrounded them. The Queen's look and manner
were very pleasing, her eyes much swollen with
tears, but great happiness in her countenance, and
her look of (f;onfidence and comfort at the Prince,
when they walked away as man and wife, was very
pretty to see." The Queen wrote next day to her
Uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians, from
Windsor : " I write to you from here, the happiest,
happiest being that ever existed. Really I do not
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The Chapels Royal
think it possible for any one in the world to be
happier, or as happy as I am. He is an angel,
and his kindness and affection for me are really
touching. To look in those dear eyes, and that
dear sunny face, is enough to make me adore him.
What I can do to make him happy will be my
greatest delight. Independent of my great
personal happiness, the reception we both met
with yesterday was the most gratifying and en
thusiastic I ever experienced ; there was no end
of the crowds in London and all along the road."
The deep affection of the Queen for the Prince
never varied through the twenty-one delightful
years of their married life, but only increased in
strength and maturity. The Prince indeed deserved
this enthusiastic devotion, for, as well as one of
the most remarkable, he was one of the most
genuine and consistent men of his day. The
following brief estimate of him is given by the
editors of Queen Victoria's letters : "A close study
of the Queen's correspondence reveals the character
of the Prince in a way which nothing else could
effect. Traces of his untiring labour, his con
scientious vigilance, his singular devotedness,
appear on every page. There are innumerable
memorials in his own hand ; the papers are
throughout arranged and annotated by him ;
nothing seems to have escaped him, nothing to
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St. James's Palace
have dismayed him. As an instance of the minute
laboriousness which characterized the Royal house
hold, it may be mentioned that there are copies
of many important letters, forwarded to the Prince
for his perusal, the originals of which had to be
returned, written not only by the Prince himself,
but by the Queen under his direction. But besides
keeping a vigilant eye upon politics, the Prince
took the lead in all social and educational move
ments of the time, as well as devoting a close and
continuous attention to the affairs of Europe in
general, and Germany in particular. It is obvious
from the papers that the Prince can hardly ever
have taken a holiday ; many hours of every day
must have been devoted by him to work ; yet he
was at the same time a tender husband and father,
always ready with advice and sympathy, and
devoted to quiet domestic life." By his own
personality and example, and through the Queen,
the Prince Consort exercised so deep and whole
some an influence on British life and society, that
the I oth February 1840 was indeed an auspicious
day for the whole nation.
The marriage of the Princess Royal was the
next. It was on 25th January 1858, at 12.30 p.m.
The bridegroom was at that time Prince Frederick
William of Prussia, son of William, Prince of
Prussia, afterwards the Emperor William I. of
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The Chapels Royal
Germany. Prince Frederick William became
Emperor only for a few months. Writing three
years before to the King of the Belgians, Queen
Victoria thus described the Princess's temperament :
" I must say that she has a quick discernment of
character, and I have never seen her take any
predilection for a person which was not motived
by personal amiability, goodness, or distinction of
some kind or other. She has, moreover, great
tact and esprit de conduite. It is quite extra
ordinary how popular she is in Society — and again,
now, all these foreigners (King Victor Emmanuel
and his suite) are so struck with her Sense and
conversation for her age." The music at the
ceremony contained marches from Handel's " Occa
sional Oratorio," "Joseph," and "Judas Maccabaeus,"
as well as the "Hallelujah Chorus." The Queen's
motherly notes on the service indicate the natural
feeling under the State ceremonial: "The drums
and trumpets played marches, and the organs
played others, as the Processions approached and
entered. There was a pause between each, but
not a very long one, and the effect was thrilling
and striking as you heard the music gradually
coming nearer and nearer. Fritz looked pale and
much agitated, but behaved with the greatest
self-possession, bowing to us, and then kneeling
down in a most devotional manner. Then came
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St. James's Palace
the bride's Procession, and our darling Flower
looked very touching and lovely, with such an
innocent, confiding and serious expression, her
veil hanging back over her shoulders, walking
between her beloved Father and dearest Uncle
Leopold, who had been at her Christening and
Confirmation, and was himself the widower of
Princess Charlotte, heiress to the throne of this
country, Albert's and my Uncle, Mama's Brother,
and one of the wisest Kings in Europe ! My
last fear of being overcome vanished on seeing
Vicky's quiet, calm, and composed manner. It
was beautiful to see her kneeling with Fritz, their
hands joined. . . . Dearest Albert took her
by the hand to give her away, which reminded
me vividly of having in the same way, proudly,
tenderly, confidently, most lovingly knelt by
him, on this very same spot, and having our
hands joined there. ... I felt so moved, so
overjoyed and relieved, that I could have em
braced everybody."
Thirty-five years elapsed, and the dim old
Chapel Royal brightened up to welcome a marriage
not less auspicious than the two last : that of
George, Duke of York, to Princess Victoria Mary
of Teck, now King George the Fifth and Queen
Mary. This was on 6th July 1893. The bride's
mother was the popular and beloved Princess 125

The Chapels Royal
Mary of Cambridge, her father Francis, Duke
of Teck, only son of Duke Alexander of Wurtem
berg. The bridegroom and his supporters (his
father, the Prince of Wales, and his uncle, Alfred,
Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Duke of
Edinburgh) wore naval uniform ; the bride's
supporters were her father and her eldest brother.
Prince Adolphus. Her white satin dress, like
Queen Victoria's on a similar occasion, was made
in Spitalfields. The three prelates who officiated
were successive Archbishops of Canterbury ;
Benson (then Primate), Temple of London, and
Davidson of Rochester. The bridesmaids, sisters
or cousins of the bridegroom, were Princess
Victoria of Wales, Maud of Wales (Queen of
Norway), Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, Victoria
of Edinburgh (Grand Duchess of Hesse), Alex
andra of Edinburgh (Princess Ernest Hohenlohe-
Langanburg), Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh
(Crown Princess of Roumania), Princess Margaret
of Connaught (Crown Princess of Sweden), Princess
Patricia of Connaught, Princess Victoria of Batten-
berg (Queen of Spain), and Princess Alexandra of
Battenberg. Two pieces of splendid old tapestry,
once in the possession of Henry VIII., part of a set
of ten made for Cardinal Wolsey at Brussels, by
Bernard van Orley, a pupil of Raffaelle, were hung
in the Chapel by permission of the Queen, with
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St. James's Palace
leave to continue there in that position.' Eighteen
years have gone by, and the nation and empire
have every year additional reason for gratitude for
all that this marriage has secured.
Funeral Scenes at St. fames's.
Queen Mary Tudor, who, as was mentioned
before, was one of the earliest sovereigns to live
much at St. James's, put off the life that had been
so unhappy to her on 17th November 1558, in
the sixth year of her reign, and was buried nearly
a month afterwards, 13th December, at West
minster Abbey. A brief outline of the ceremonies
that took place will serve as an illustration of
the customs of those days. After death, the
physicians and surgeons took out the bowels and
heart, which were both buried in the Chapel, the
latter in a coffer of blue velvet bound with silver.
Then the Clerk of the Spicery and the Officers of
the Chaundry cered the body with a linen cloth,
wax, and costly spices. Next, the Sergeant
Plumber enclosed the body in lead ; the cover
ing was purple velvet, seamed with lace, and
fastened with gilt nails. The coffin was now
brought into the Privy Chamber, which had been
hung with black cloth and scutcheons of arms :
at one end was a Cloth of Estate, or Canopy,
^ Sheppard's St. Jameses Palace, vol. ii. p. 1 30.
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The Chapels Royal
of purple velvet, with chair and cushions to match.
The coffin stood on a table supported by tressels,
in front of the Canopy ; this was covered by a
pall of rich cloth of tissue, and on it were fastened
six scutcheons of sarsenet, in fine gold, of her
arms within the Garter.
Lights burned day and night round this
splendid catafalque ; day and night attendant
gentlewomen prayed and watched, with dirge and
mass, till Saturday, the loth December. On that
day the Archbishop 'of York, the Marquis of
Winchester, and others had to provide for the
conveyance of the coffin to the Chapel, with the
advice and direction of Garter King.
The Chapel, like the Privy Chamber, had
meantime been hung with black cloth and gar
nished with scutcheons. The Altar was trimmed
with purple velvet ; purple velvet also was the
canopy that hung over the Dean's stall. In the
middle of the Chapel was arranged a four-square
Hearse of forty-six great tapers, each of twenty
pounds weight ; crowns and roses adorned what
was probably the Canopy of the Hearse; below the
tapers was a valance of sarsenet, fringed with
gold, and. the Queen's Word (either her motto or
her name) repeated in letters of gold. Beneath
the Hearse was a Majesty, or special royal taber
nacle, of taffetta with a gilded Dome, and the
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St. James's Palace
four evangelists supporting the four corners. The
six posts of the Hearse were covered with black
velvet, and on every post was a scutcheon of
sarsenet in fine gold. Each end of the Hearse
was protected with a rail, hung within with black
cloth, and the ground between covered with the
same. On each side of the Hearse were stools
hung with black instead of the rail. At the head
of the Hearse was erected an altar, on the left of
the Choir, covered with purple velvet, and richly
garnished with the ornaments of the Church.
Warning had been given to all persons of
dignity to dress in black, and attend on the loth
of December at the Office of Dirge for the con
veyance of the body from the Privy Chamber to
the Chapel ; the Great Chamber, Stairs, and
Court to the Chapel door having all been hung
with black and garnished with scutcheons. The
Lords and Ladies then assembled at about 3 p.m.
in the Chamber of Presence and the Great Chamber ;
the officers of the Household stood with torches,
with divers of the Guard. The Bishop of Wor
cester, and other bishops, with the clergy and
choir of the Queen's Chapel, proceeded up from the
Chapel to convey the Corpse ; the members of
the Chapel stayed in the Great Chamber, the
Bishops passing into the room where the coffin
lay, censing it, and saying divers prayers. The
I 129

The Chapels Royal
coffin was then taken up by eight gentlemen: in
front went the Cross, and on either side a white
branch carried by boys in surplices; then the
clergy and singers of the Chapel, then the gentle
men, squires, and such of the Royal Chaplains
as had no dignity: on each side the officers
with torches, and the Guard. There followed
Knights, Councillors, Barons, Bishops (not in
robes). Overseers, Earls, the Executors, the Kings-
of-Arms ; then the Corpse, covered with a Pall of
Cloth of Tissue of Gold, with the Crown of Cloth
of Tissue : on one side the Marquis of Winchester
and the Earl of Westmoreland, on the other the
Earl of Shrewsbury and the Earl of Derby,
touching the coffin with their hands. Over it
was borne a Canopy of purple velvet, with six
blue knobs, borne by six gentlemen. Behind
the Coffin came the Chief Mourner, the dead
Queen's first cousin, Margaret, Countess of
Lennox (daughter of her aunt, Margaret Tudor,
Queen of Scotland, and wife of Matthew Stuart,
Earl of Lennox, to whom she bore Lord Darnley),
assisted by the Earl of Huntingdon and Viscount
Montague, her train born by Lady Catherine Has
tings, assisted by the Vice-Chamberlain ; after her,
the other fourteen mourners, two by two ; lastly,
other ladies and gentlemen, and the Guard. When
the coffin had been placed under the Hearse, the
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St. James's Palace
fourteen mourners took their places at the stools on
either side, with the Countess of Lennox at the head.
Order for service to begin was given by Norroy,
King -of -Arms; it contained the Dirge, three
lessons read by three bishops, the Magnificat and
Benedictus, during which the corpse was censed by
two bishops ; only the Bishops of Worcester and
Exeter used croziers. Service over, a great supper
was held ; after a supper a solemn watch ; at
lo p.m. prayers began, and lasted till the morning,
when the watchers were relieved and had their
breakfast according to their degrees. Torches
were held all night by the Guard, and other
servants. This was repeated daily. On Sunday
morning, when the night watchers had been
relieved by other ladies, the Mass of the Virgin
Mary was sung by the Bishop of Chester, during
which the Countess of Lennox made a solemn
offering, followed by the rest ; the same during
the Mass of the Holy Ghost, sung by the Bishop
of Exeter. At 8 a.m. a specially solemn service
was held, with a Requiem Mass, during which
Margaret of Lennox offered twice, first for the
deceased, and then for herself. Service ended,
they had a great dinner in the Presence Chamber,
and reposed themselves till three o'clock, when
a great Dirge was sung, followed by a great supper
in the Presence Chamber. The services on
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The Chapels Royal
Monday and Tuesday were like Sunday ; after
dinner on Tuesday the Heralds arranged all present
in order, and the corpse was brought forth and
placed in the Funeral Car ; the lifelike representa
tion of the dead Queen being "set on high" on
the coffin. The Car was drawn by five horses,
with a Page of Honour on each, banner in hand.
Margaret of Lennox rode on a horse draped in
black velvet ; she was supported by an Earl and
a Viscount. Four Countesses followed on horse
back ; then a chariot with four ladies ; then two
more chariots, each with four ladies, preceded each
by four ladies on horseback. Helmet, sword,
target and coat-of-arms were carried in front of
the body ; a Gentleman Usher sat at the head
and foot of the coffin ; a riderless horse was led
by the Master of the Horse near the Chief Mourner.
The corpse rested one night under the Hearse in
the Abbey ; next morning the whole company
proceeded to the interment from the Abbot's house.'
More than half a century afterwards, when
Elizabeth's glorious reign of forty-five years had
come to a close, and James had been nine years on
the throne, his eldest son, Henry, Prince of Wales,
a youth of extraordinary promise, died at St.
James's, 6th November 1612, in his nineteenth year.
This palace, as well as Ham House, Richmond,
^ Abbreviated from Leake, Ceremonials, iii.; quoted by the Sub-dean,
132

St. James's Palace
had been assigned to him for his special residence.
In the midst of a foolish extravagant Court and
profligate favourites, he showed a high example of
virtue and discretion, as well as universal good
sense. Devoted' both to father and mother, he
showed much judgment in his correspondence, by
avoiding mischief-making between two hasty and
unwise persons. His letters to his sister. Princess
Elizabeth (afterwards Princess Palatine and Queen
of Bohemia), and to his little brother. Prince
Charles, are touching evidences of the affection
that subsisted between them. When it came to
the question of the marriage of his sister Elizabeth,
and his mother, Anne of Denmark, wished to unite
her to the young King of Spain, he quietly and
firmly opposed the match, and promoted the
marriage with Frederick the Fifth, Elector Palatine.
He had received an education, says Miss Strick
land, which was a model for all princes, not by
lucky accident, but with earnest intent, founded
on proper principles ; and the result was most
excellent. He had been matriculated at Magdalen
College, Oxford, in 1605; and was on friendly
terms with Sir Walter Raleigh. In person he
was very handsome, six feet high before his seven
teenth year, with an open face, brown eyes, fair
complexion and hair, and Grecian profile. He
excelled at all athletic sports, tilting at the ring, 133

The Chapels Royal
and martial exercises, and had probably exhausted
himself by such constant exertions. After a con
siderable period of delicate health he died at St.
James's of typhoid fever. The disease was ill-
understood, and groundless surmises of poison
were whispered about. The public grief was
vehement and loudly expressed ; for days before
his death the neighbourhood of the palace was
filled with anxious crowds. Vivid and minute
accounts of his last days are quoted by the Sub-
dean from a manuscript of John More, formerly
Bishop of Ely : the courage and patience of the
Prince ; the helplessness of the physicians ; the
visits of the poor distracted King, who was half-
dead with grief ; the absence of the Queen, who was
terrified of infection ; the bleedings ; the administra
tion of multiplied and ever stronger cordials to
a body already parched with high fever ; the appli
cation of pigeons to the head to draw away the
blood from the brain ; the cleaving of a cock by its
back and binding it to the soles of the feet ; the
molestation of the sufferer by crowds of friends
who came to show their affection ; their expulsion
by King James before he himself retired to
Theobald's to await the no longer doubtful event;
the visit of the new Archbishop of Canterbury
(George Abbott), and the Prince's statement that
throughout his illness none had prayed with him,
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St. James's Palace
though he had not failed to pray quietly by
himself; the second visit of the Archbishop, and
his earnest and paternal exhortations ; the admin
istration of Sir Walter Raleigh's cordial, sent by
him from the Tower ; the administration of an
astringent paste made from the leaves of the
water germander or blue water-speedwell, and
again of diaphoratic and quintessential spirits ; the
exceeding powerful passionate prayer of the Arch
bishop as the end approached, and the sign given
by the Prince that he understood. Prince Henry
died on the 6th of November, and the coffin was
not moved from the bed-chamber to the Privy
Chamber till the 3rd December. Watched day
and night, it was removed to the Presence Chamber
on Saturday the 4th, when the Crown and Cap of
State were placed on the end of the coffin. The
same day it was moved to the Chapel, the Gentle
men of the Choir singing "mournful ditties"
before it ; the service was read by the Bishop of
Lichfield (Richard Neile), and anthems were sung.
From the day of the death till the funeral, morning
and evening prayers were said either in his own
Presence Chamber, or the Privy Chamber, by his
Chaplain, Gentlemen, and Chief Officers. The
services of Saturday were repeated on Sunday. On
Sunday, the night before the funeral, the usual
waxen image, or representation of the dead Prince 135

The Chapels Royal
was brought and bound on the top of the coffin,
apparelled in everything as at the time of his
creation as Prince of Wales two years before (1610).
In the midst of the Choir of the Chapel was a
canopy, as at the funeral of Queen Mary Tudor.
The funeral was on Monday, and the coffin was
borne from St. James's in an open car to West
minster Abbey, attended by two thousand mourners.
The next death, that of Princess Anne, the
seventh child and third daughter of Charles I., in
1636, is the occasion of a beautiful little story in
Fuller's Worthies. She was in her fourth year,
and towards her end said to one of her nurses,
" I am not able to say my long prayer (Our Father),
but I will say my short one, ' Lighten mine eyes, O
Lord, lest I sleep the sleep of death.' " Immediately
after, she died.
Soon after the Restoration, the third surviving
son of Charles I., Henry, Duke of Gloucester,
born at Oatlands, the 6th of July 1640, died at
St. James's, the 13th of September 1660, in his
twenty-first year, of smallpox. Possibly he might
have recovered if he had not been heavily bled.
Like his uncle, Henry, Prince of Wales, he was
a young man of distinguished promise. He was
highly praised by Clarendon. It was he who, at
the farewell interview between Charles I. and his
children, said he would rather be torn in pieces
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St. James's Palace
than be made a parliamentary king instead of his
elder brothers. After the death of his sister
Elizabeth at Carisbrook Castle in 1650, he was
left a prisoner with his faithful tutor, Mr. Lovel,
for more than two years, apparently forgotten ;
he then persuaded that good friend to ask the
House of Commons in his name what steps he
should take to recover his liberty. Cromwell
allowed him to go beyond the seas, and the
Commons gave Mr. Lovel ;^5oo for the purpose.
Henry joined his sister, the Princess Royal (the
young widowed Princess of Orange), at the Hague,
but passed on to Paris, as his mother had not seen
him since his second year. Here she pressed him
to join the Holy Roman Church, and disowned
him when he refused. He joined his brother
Charles at Cologne, and distinguished himself as
a volunteer with the Spanish in Flanders in
1657-58. His short and honourable life ended at
the very dawn of the brightest prospects, his body
was transferred from St. James's to Westminster,
and buried in the same vault as his great-grand
mother, Mary Queen of Scots.
Eight of the numerous children of James,
Duke of York (afterwards James II.), died at
St. James's: by Anne Hyde, James, Duke of
Cambridge (1663), and Charles, Duke of Kendal
(1667), Henrietta (1669), and Katherine (1671); 137

The Chapels Royal
by Mary of Modena, Charles, Duke of Cambridge
(1677), Katherine Laura (1675), Isabella (1680), and
Charlotte Marga (1682). As Mary of Modena
had borne five children before James Francis
Edward, who afterwards was known as the
Chevalier St. George, or the Old Pretender, his
birth in 1688 need hardly have excited so much
suspicion. Anne Hyde, Duchess of York, died at St.
James's in 1671, at the early age of thirty-three,
after long illness. Miss Strickland relates how
as soon as she heard of the fatal turn of the illness.
Queen Catherine of Braganza (wife of Charles II.)
came to visit her, and stayed to the end. Bland-
ford, Bishop of Oxford (he became Bishop of
Worcester the same year), also arrived, and saw
the Duke of York in the drawing-room. Anne
had charged her husband to inform Blandford,
or any other bishop who might come to speak to
her, "that she was reconciled to the Church of
Rome, and had already received its sacraments ;
but if, when so told, they still insisted on seeing
her, they might come in, provided they did not
disturb her with controversy." The Duke repeated
this to Dr. Blandford with further particulars, who
replied that he made no doubt she would do well,
as she had not been influenced by worldly motives ;
and afterwards went into the room and made her
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St. James's Palace
a short Christian exhortation, and so departed.'
The Duchess's conversion having been kept secret,
the bishop would have been severely censured if
he had not visited her dying bed ; and having
undertaken this duty, he seems to have executed
it in a becoming manner. Burnet, in relating the
incident, has, as was often the case, got hold of
the wrong side of the story. Anne's remains were
buried in Henry the Seventh's Chapel.
The death of Caroline of Brandenburg-Anspach,
wife of George the Second, took place at St. James's
in 1737, in her fifty-fifth year. After the birth of
her youngest daughter, Louisa (afterwards Queen
of Denmark), in 1724, thirteen years previously,
she began to suffer from rupture, which, from
horror of illness and dread of losing her influence,
she did her best to conceal till the end. Her
husband survived her twenty-three years. The
scene of her death-bed was rendered memorable
by her extraordinary courage and self-control, and
is told with graphic minuteness by her friend,
Lord Hervey. She had long been accustomed to
stoical endurance : Sir Robert Walpole relates how,
though labouring with so dangerous a complaint,
she made it so invariable a rule never to refuse a
desire of the King, that every morning, at Richmond,
1 Stanier Clarke, Journal of James IL ; quoted by Miss Strick
land, Queens of England, vol. iv. p 441.
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The Chapels Royal
she walked several miles with him ; and more than
once, when she had the gout in her foot, she
dipped her whole leg in cold water to be ready
to attend him. The pain, her weight, and the
distemper threw her into such fits of perspiration
as routed the gout ; but those exertions hastened
the crisis of her distemper. Only eleven days
before her death, she rose from her bed to gratify
the King's wish that she should preside at the
usual weekly drawing-room ; without her, he used
to say, there was neither grace, gaiety, nor dignity ;
but after supporting her agony as long as she
could, she allowed Lord Hervey to ask the King
to lead her out. That she suffered much from the
doctors of that era was partly her own fault, for
it was not till the third day that the truth about
her illness was communicated to them. Lord
Hervey says that her fever was so much increased
by twice taking Daffy's elixir, as well as doses of
mint water, whisky, and Sir Walter Raleigh's
cordial, that she had to be bled. There was also
an injection of hot water, and a painful operation,
to which she submitted with cheerfulness, making
jokes under the knife. It was on Sunday, 20th
August, when the Queen had been taking a solemn
farewell of her children (Frederick, Prince of Wales,
was not admitted), that the curious scene took
place between husband and wife. The Queen
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St. James's Palace
urged him to take a second wife after her death.
Amidst his sobs he answered, " Non, non ; j'aurai
des maitresses ! " " Eh, mon Dieu," said Caroline,
" cela n'empeche pas ! " During the lingering days,
the King did not stir from the Palace, but was
accustomed to expatiate at immense length before
a circle of hearers on the Queen's unique virtues.
If she had not been his wife, he would say, he
would rather have had her for his mistress than
any other woman he had ever seen or heard of.
Meantime Frederick, Prince of Wales, frivolous,
undutiful, and selfish as usual, was saying to his
friends at home : "We shall have good news soon ;
she can't hold out much longer." Caroline, from
her latitudinarian standpoint, had no great sympathy
with the forms of the Church. She allowed Sir
Robert Walpole to send for the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr. Potter, but would not receive the
sacrament. All the Primate could say, in answer
to eager inquiries as he left the sick-room, was,
" Gentlemen, Her Majesty is in a most heavenly
frame of mind." But as her last moment ap
proached, she asked to be raised in bed, while all
present should kneel and offer up a prayer on her
behalf. While this was going on, she grew
gradually fainter ; but, at her desire, water was
sprinkled upon her that she might revive, and
listen to or join in the petitions which her family 141

The Chapels Royal
uttered. "Louder!" she murmured more than
once as some one read or prayed. Her request
was complied with, and then her daughter, the
good and gentle Princess Caroline, repeated
audibly the Lord's Prayer. In this Caroline
joined, repeating the words as distinctly as failing
nature would allow her. The prayer was just
concluded, when she looked fixedly at those who
stood weeping around her, and then uttered a
long-drawn " So  ! " It was her last word.
She calmly waved her hand, a farewell to all
present and to the world ; and then, tranquilly
composing herself on the bed, she breathed a
sigh, and so expired.' The funeral seems to have
followed the usual ceremonies.
Caroline, one of the greatest of English Queen-
Consorts, born in 1683, was the daughter of John
Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Anspach,
styled the delight of his subjects, and of all who
knew him. Her mother was Eleanora, daughter
of John George, Duke of Saxe-Eisenach. Caroline
lived with her mother chiefly at Dresden ; and
afterwards at Berlin under the tutelage of Frederick
the First, King of Prussia, and his wife, Sophia
Charlotte, sister of George the First of England,
and daughter of the Electress Sophia. She became
acquainted with Leibniz and the Electress Sophia ;
^ Doran's Queens of the House of Hanover, i. 377.
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St. James's Palace
a proposal to marry her to the Archduke Charles
was abandoned on account of her Protestant
principles. Returning to Anspach, she married
in 1705 George Augustus, Electoral Prince of
Hanover, living at Hanover. On the death of
Queen Anne in 17 14, she accompanied her husband
to England, living chiefly at Richmond Lodge.
Her chief friend was John, Lord Hervey, one of
the twenty children of John, first Earl of Bristol,
who has left entertaining memoirs of her Court.
As Queen, she gave unwavering support to Sir
Robert Walpole, and maintained unbounded in
fluence over her petulant and irascible husband by
flattering his vanity and conniving at his amours.
She was a great supporter of the Low Church and
Latitudinarian parties.
Her good and charitable daughter. Princess
Caroline, died at St. James's in 1757, of what
would now be called appendicitis. Of " the truth-
loving Caroline," the writer on the Queens of the
House of Hanover says, that she was unreservedly
beloved by her parents, was worthy of the affection,
and repaid it by an ardent attachment. She was
fair, good, and accomplished. Inspired by a hope
less and permanent affection for her mother's
friend. Lord Hervey, she retired from the world,
and devoted herself with motherly love to his
children. Walpole says that she led not only an
143

The Chapels Royal
unblamable life, but a meritorious one. Her
whole income was dispensed between generosity
and charity, and, till her death by shutting up the
current disclosed the source, the jails of London
did not suspect that the best support of their
wretched inhabitants was issued from the Palace.
" Her goodness was constant and uniform, her
generosity immense, her charities most extensive ;
in short, I, no royalist, could be lavish in her
praise." It was in accordance with the odd prac
tice of those days that her bowels were driven at
night to the Abbey in her own coach, attended by
the gentlemen and ladies of her household and a
troop of Horse-Guards ; her body was conveyed
in the usual funeral procession next day from
St. James's to Henry the Seventh's Chapel, and
there buried.
The deaths of Princess Amelia, sixth and
youngest daughter of George the Third, Princess
Elizabeth, the only daughter of the Duke and
Duchess of Clarence (William the Fourth and
Queen Adelaide), and Princess Augusta, second
daughter of George the Third, which occurred in
different parts of St. James's Palace, do not appear
to have given rise to any observances in the Chapel.
Princess Amelia, who wrote the well-known verses
" Unthinking, heedless, idle, young," died in 1810,
aged twenty-three; Princess Elizabeth in 182 1, at the
144

\ \

St. James's Palace
age of twelve weeks, during which short period she
was nearer to the throne than Queen Victoria ; and
Princess Augusta in 1840, in her seventy-second
year. All three were buried at St. George's Chapel,
Windsor. The lying-in-state of the body of
Frederick, Duke of York and Albany, second son
of George the Third, took place in one of the State
rooms at St. James's, in January 1827, before its
removal to Windsor. He was in his sixty-fourth
year, was Commander-in-Chief of the Army, and
married the Princess Royal of Prussia.
The Sub-dean records that for nearly half a
century no other royal death took place at St.
James's. After an interval of sixty-two years, in
1889 died Augusta, widow of the first Duke of
Cambridge (seventh son of George the Third), in
her ninety-second year. She was the daughter
of the Landgraf Frederick of Hesse-Cassel, and
gra'nddaughter of a British Princess, Mary,
daughter of George the Second and Caroline. The
body was placed in the large dining-room of her
apartments which had been fitted up as a mortuary
chapel, but on the 12th February, the day before
the removal of the remains to their resting-place
at Kew, a service was held in the Chapel Royal,
conducted by the Bishop of London (Dr. Temple)
and the Sub-dean. The Duchess was deeply be
loved for her genuine and unobtrusive virtues,
K 145

The Chapels Royal
and her goodness alike of heart and head, by all
her many relations and friends.
Various memorial services have been from time
to time of late years held in the Chapel Royal for
various members of the Court.
Other Notes on the Chapel Royal, St. fames's.
Charles the First made constant use of the
Chapel, and it was here that he attended his last
earthly, service before he walked across St. James's
Park that cold morning of 30th January to his
execution at Whitehall.
It is also memorable as the first place of public
worship in which the Liturgy of the Reformed
Church of England was performed.
An amusing account is given by Miss Strick
land of Bishop Burnet's complaint in 1700 a.d. to
Queen Anne (then living at St. James's as Princess)
that the ladies did not look at him when he was
preaching, but directed their eyes rather to the
young beaux of the Court. As Almoner to the
Princess, and Tutor to her son the Duke of
Gloucester, he seems to have frequently occupied
the pulpit. The pious Queen Mary wrote to King
William the Third of his "thundering long
sermons." Burnet persuaded Anne to have all
the pews raised so high that the ladies, when
seated, could see nobody but himself, This un-
146

St. James's Palace
popular change produced the following amusing
pasquinade, attributed to Lord Peterborough the
famous general : —
When Burnet perceived that the beautiful dames
Who flocked to the Chapel of holy St. James,
On their lovers alone their kind looks did bestow,
And smiled not at him when he bellowed below.
To the Princess he went
With a pious intent
This dangerous ill in the church to prevent.
" O Madam," he said, " our religion is lost
If the ladies thus ogle the knights of the toastl
"Your Highness observes how I labour and sweat
Their affections to raise and attentions to get ;
And sure, when I preach, all the world will agree
That their eyes and their ears should be pointed at me;
But now I can find
No beauty so kind
My parts to regard or my person to mind ;
Nay, I scarce have the sight of one feminine face
But those of old Oxford,^ or ugly Arglass.
" Those sorrowful matrons, with hearts full of ruth.
Repent for the manifold sins of their youth ;
The rest with their tattle my harmony spoil.
And Burlington,^ Anglesey,^ Kingston,* and Boyle.^
Their minds entertain
With fancies profane,
^ Wife of Aubrey de Vere, twentieth Earl of Oxford.
^ Juliana Noel, wife of Charles, second Earl of Burlington.
* Lady Catherine Darnley, natural daughter of James II., wife
of James Annesley, third Earl of Anglesey.
* Wife of Evelyn Pierrepont, fifth Earl of Kingston, afterwards
first Duke.
^ Probably one of the Burlington family.
147

The Chapels Royal
That not even at church their tongues they restrain ;
Even Henningham's shape their glances entice.
And rather than me they will ogle the Vice ! ^
"These practices. Madam, my preaching disgrace:
Shall laymen enjoy the just rights of my place?
Then all may lament my condition so hard,
Who thrash in the pulpit without a reward.
Therefore, pray condescend
Such disorders to end.
And to the ripe vineyard the labourers send
To build up the seats, that the beauties may see
The face of no bawling pretender but me."
The Princess, by the man's importunity prest,
Though she laughed at his reasons, allowed his request ;
And now Britain's nymphs, in a Protestant reign
Are boxed up at prayers like the virgins in Spain.
In Queen Elizabeth's time (1598), the choristers
were recommended to follow the lessons in Bibles,
rather than to talk and hunt after fines for wearing
spurs. Very interesting chapters are given by the Sub-
dean on the beautiful gold and silver-gilt altar-plate
of the Chapel Royal, St. James's, which is chiefly
of the time of the Restoration and the seventeenth
century ; the ceremony of offering gold, frankincense
and myrrh on the feast of the Epiphany ; the old
royal processions, when the King attended the
Chapel in state ; the varying proportions of the
official staff at the Chapel ; the Georgian custom of
^ Vice-chamberlain.
148

St. James's Palace
holding drawing-rooms after the Chapel Royal
service on Sunday ; anecdotes and reminiscences
of the clerical notabilities who have been connected
with the Chapel, and the organists and organs of
its establishment. The Chapel Royal has always
been one of the best schools of an art of which
this country has good reason to be proud, English
Church music.

149

V
THE CHAPEL ROYAL, WHITEHALL

THE CHAPEL ROYAL, WHITEHALL
yT was only for a period of one
hundred and sixty-five years that
the Palace of Whitehall was the
home of the Court ; from the
fall of Wolsey, 1529, to the death
of Mary the Second, 1694. But as that period
includes the stirring reigns, at a very gorgeous and
sumptuous period of English history, of Henry
the Eighth, Edward the Sixth, Mary, Elizabeth,
James the First, Charles the First, Charles the
Second, James the Second, and William and
Mary, there is hardly any limit to what might
be written of its scenes, episodes, and memorable
events. Here, in this sketch, attraction must be
restricted to the Chapel. ^
The history begins with the reign of Henry
the Third, when Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, 153

The Chapels Royal
Chief Justiciar, brother-in-law of Alexander the
Second, King of Scotland, the greatest commander
and statesman of his day, obtained a grant of
land from the Abbot of Westminster, and built
himself a noble palace within easy distance of the
royal residence and the Courts of Justice at West
minster. On his death in 1242, the property
passed to the Blackfriars of Holborn, who sold it
to Walter de Grey, Archbishop of York. During
the lives of twenty-five Archbishops it was their
London residence, and known as York Place or
Palace. It was rebuilt by Wolsey on a scale
of great magnificence, and no doubt in the same
architectural style as his splendid Palace of Hamp
ton Court. On Wolsey's fall it was confiscated by
Henry the Eighth, by an act of gross and tyrannous
injustice to the See of York. The name Whitehall
grew up gradually, from the fresh appearance of
the stone of the new Palace. Shakespeare alludes
to the change of name in the play of Henry the
Eighth.'^ Wolsey's Palace occupied three acres. Henry
bought a large amount of land from the Abbot
of Westminster, part of which was turned into
gardens and park, and added much to the
buildings. The Palace included two galleries, the
Cockpit, Tennis Court, Bowling Alley, and Tilt
^ Henry VIII., Act iv. Scene i.
154

Whitehall
Yard ; the Holbein Gateway, a Chapel, and hall
for entertainments. It covered the enormous space
of nearly twenty-four acres.
In the reign of James the First, Inigo Jones
was instructed to prepare plans for a wholly new
Palace. These can still be seen, and are a
monument of his consummate genius and taste.
'There was never, however, money enough in
the royal exchequer to carry out so vast and
superb a building: only one small portion of it
was ever completed, and that was the new
Banqueting House, used in the Georgian era as
the Chapel Royal after the complete destruction
of the old Palace in the reign of William the
Third (1698), and now devoted to the purposes of
a Museum for the United Services Institution.
The magnificent ceiling of the Banqueting House,
which delineates the reception of James the First
amongst the deities of Olympus, was executed by
the vigorous and glowing brush of Rubens at the
order of Charles the First, and is now reckoned
to be worth more than a million of money.
James the Second added a Roman Catholic
Chapel to Whitehall. Evelyn in his Diary says
of it : " Nothing can be finer than the magnificent
marble work and architecture at the end, where
are four statues representing St. John, St. Peter,
St. Paul, and the Church, in white marble, the
155

The Chapels Royal
work of Mi-. Gibbons, with all the pillars of exquisite
art and great cost." '
The old Chapel Royal, which must have been
in the Tudor style, with a carved timber roof,
probably very like the Chapel at Hampton Court,
was either destroyed in the great fire of 1698,
which extinguished the Palace as a royal residence,
or so greatly damaged that its ruins were removed
before 1728.
One of the first notable royal events in the
Palace was the marriage of Henry the Eighth
to Anne Boleyn. Stow says it was on the 25th
January, St. Paul's Day, 1533; Burke dates on
the 14th November 1532. It took place not in
the Chapel Royal, but privately in the King's
closet. Whitehall was the scene of the gloomy death
of Henry the Eighth, and his body lay in state
in the Chapel. " He was become so corpulent and
unwieldy, that he could only be moved about in
a chair, and an ulcer in one of his legs was at
this time so fetid as to be hardly endurable by
those about him." Deserted by most of his
courtiers, he still had time for acts of cruel tyranny.
Katherine Parr, the sixth wife, escaped attainder
only a few months or weeks before his death.
The most accomplished noble of his day, Henry
' ^Quoted in Royal Palaces of England, p. 209.
156

Whitehall
Howard, Earl of Surrey, one of the most charming
of the early English poets, died on the scaffold
on a ridiculous pretext just nine days before the
death of the despot. His father, the illustrious
Duke of Norfolk, was to have been executed on
the 28th January 1547, but fortunately the King
died in the night. None dared tell him of his
approaching end. "Sir Anthony Denny was the
only person who had the courage to inform the
King of his real state. He approached the bed,
and leaning over it, told him that all human aid
was now vain ; and that it was meet for him to
review his past life, and seek for God's mercy
through Christ. Henry, who was uttering loud
cries of pain and impatience, regarded him with
a stern look, and asked him what judge had sent
him to pass this sentence upon him. 'Your
Grace's physicians,' Denny replied. When these
physicians next approached their patient to offer
him medicine, he repelled them in these words :
'After the judges have once passed sentence on
a criminal, they have no more to do with him ;
therefore begone ! ' It was then suggested that
he should confer;, with some of his divines. ' I
will see no one but Cranmer,' replied the King,
'and him not as yet. Let me repose a little,
and as I find myself, so shall I determine.' " ' Thus,
^Strickland's Queens of England, ii. 439.
157

The Chapels Royal
says Strype, "the last office the Archbishop did for
the King his master, was to visit him in his last
sickness, whom of all his bishops and chaplains
he chose to have with him at that needful hour,
to receive his last comfort and counsel. But the
King was void of speech when he came, though
not of sense and apprehension. For when the
King took him by the hand, the Archbishop,
speaking comfortably to him, desired him to give
him some token that he put hfs trust in God
through Jesus Christ, according as he had advised
him ; and thereat the King presently wrung hard
the Archbishop's hand, and soon after departed." '
His body lay in state in Whitehall, first in
the Privy Chamber, and then in the Chapel. A
book of Ceremonials was compiled by Stephen
Martin Leake (1702-1773), successively Lancaster
Herald, Norroy, Clarencieux, and Garter. He
embodies an account of the funeral, which is cited
by Sub-dean Sheppard in his Old Royal Palace of
Whitehall, and from him quoted in Royal Palaces
of England. "On Sunday, the 13th of February,
when the body was removed from the Chapel to the
Chariot, over the coffin was cast a pall of rich cloth
of gold, and upon it a goodly image, like to the
King's person in all points, wonderfully richly
apparelled with velvet, gold, and precious stones
^Strype's Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, i. 199.
158

Whitehall
of all sorts, holding in the right hand a sceptre
of gold, and in the left hand a ball of the world
with a cross : upon the head a crown imperial of
inestimable value, a collar of the Garter about
the neck, and a garter of gold about the leg ; this,
being honourably conducted as aforesaid, was tied
upon the said coffin by the Gentlemen of his Privy
Chamber upon rich cushions of cloth of gold,
and fast bound with silk ribbons to the pillars of
the said Chariot for removing." The next morning
the funeral procession started for Windsor, cover
ing a space of four miles.
Elaborate religious ceremonies connected with
the Chapel Royal are described by Henry Machyn,
that most useful diarist of the years between 1550
and 1563, at the time of Mary's marriage to Philip
of Spain. Her Spanish guests were lodged at
Whitehall, and had solemn processions beyond
which the elaborations of ritual could hardly go.
Another great religious procession from the Chapel
was on St. George's Day, when the Earl of North
umberland was made a Knight of the Garter,
and King Philip took part.
Queen Elizabeth frequently kept Christmas and
Twelfth Night at Whitehall ; but though, of course,
she attended the services in the Chapel at such festi
vals, the records of them are connected with plays
and masks rather than with religious observances. 159

The Chapels Royal
A vivid description of Elizabeth's celebration
of Maundy (the ceremony of washing the feet of
the poor on Thursday in Holy Week, so called
from the French mander, and the Latin mandare,
"to command," in commemoration of the new com
mandment of St. John xiii. 5, 34) is given by
Machyn. It began in the Chapel, but was carried
out in the Great Hall. " The Queen's Grace kept
her Maundy in her Hall at the Court in the after
noon ; and her Grace gave unto twenty women so
many gowns ; and one woman had her best gown.
And there her Grace did wash their feet ; and with
a new white cup her Grace drank unto every
woman, and they had the cup. And so her Grace
did likewise unto all, and every woman had a sum
in money." The same day she distributed to more
than a thousand men, women, and children, both
whole and lame, 2d. each, as they were collected
together in the park.'
Elizabeth died at Richmond, but her body was
brought to Whitehall to lie in state from 24th
March to 28th April, when it passed from White
hall to the Abbey.
James the First and Anne of Denmark lived
chiefly at Whitehall. They were both most en
thusiastic revellers in masks, dances, and plays,
and kept a most sumptuous, profuse, and ex-
^ Royal Palaces of England, p. 221.
160

Whitehall
travagant Court, Naturally not much of this is
connected with the Chapel Royal : but a minute
description of the magnificent wedding of Princess
Elizabeth with Frederick, Count Palatine, has been
left by John Chamberlain, a famous letter-writer
from 1598 to 1625. "The bride and groom were
both in a suit of cloth of silver, richly embroidered
with silver, her train carried up by thirteen young
ladies, or lords' daughters, at least, besides five
or six more that could not come near it. These
were all in the same livery with the bride, though
not so rich. The bride was married in her hair,
that hung down long, with an exceeding rich
coronet on her head, which the King valued next
day at a million of crowns. Her two bridemen
were the young prince (Henry of Wales) and the
Earl of Northampton. The King and Queen
both followed, the Queen all in white, but not
very rich saving in jewels. The King, methought,
was somewhat strangely attired in a cap and
feather, with a Spanish cape and a long stocking.
The Chapel was very straitly kept, none suffered
to enter under the degree of a baron, but the three
Lords Chief Justices. In the midst there was a
handsome stage or scaff"olding made ; on the one
side whereof sat the King, Prince, Count Palatine,
and Count Henry of Nassau ; on the other side,
the Queen, with the bride, and one or two more.
L 161

The Chapels Royal
Upon this stage they were married by the Arch
bishop of Canterbury (Abbott), assisted by the
Bishop of Bath and Wells, who made the sermon.
It was all done in English, and the Prince Palatine
had learned as much as concerned his part reason
ably perfectly." '
Charles the First's first appearance after his
father's death was at sermon at Whitehall on 9th
April 1625. After his marriage, Henrietta Maria
had Mass celebrated both at Whitehall and
Somerset House (her own particular palace).
A marriage at Whitehall brings back the recol
lection of one of the most charming of all English
Princesses, Mary Stuart, Princess Royal, eldest
daughter of Charles the First, wife of William the
Second, Prince of Orange, and mother of King
William the Third of England. According to the
strange custom which survived from the Middle
Ages, her marriage was taken in hand at a very
early age. Mary was only in her tenth year when
her father, still hankering after a Spanish match
such as he had tried to obtain for himself, began
negotiating for a betrothal of his child to the heir
of Spain. Remonstrances were sent by Frederick
Henry of Nassau, Prince of Orange and Stadtholder
of Holland, which, combined with Charles's con-
1 Chamberlain's Letters, given by Birch, Court and Times of
James the First, and quoted in Royal Palaces of England, p. 226.
162

Whitehall
victions of the insincerity of the Court of Spain,
induced him to listen to proposals for an alliance
between the Stadtholder's son, and one of the little
Princesses of England. Elizabeth was first selected,
then in her seventh year ; but she herself suggested
that her elder sister Mary would be more suitable.
Accordingly in 1641 an engagement took place
between Mary, then in her tenth year, and William,
who was nearly completing his sixteenth (he was
born the 7th May 1626). "¦ The betrothal was so
popular that in spite of the acute political troubles
of the time, bonfires and illuminations took place
all over London. When William arrived, Mary
was in bed with a cold, swelled face, and bilious
attack caught at the trial of Strafford ; but in spite"
of the dissuasion of King Charles, the young lover
insisted on seeing her, and found her much
more beautiful than her portrait. Charles and
Henrietta Maria were slyly concealed behind the
bed-curtains to see the first interview between the
young people. William, who was considered
the handsomest and most accomplished prince in
Europe, made the most favourable impressions
upon one and all. The wedding-day was fixed for
the Sunday after Easter, and long and elaborate
descriptions exist of the decoration of the Chapel
with cloth of gold, and of the service, which in
cluded a sermon. The boy's description of the
163

The Chapels Royal
event to his father is interesting from its simplicity.
" I must tell you how I was married last Sunday,
the 1 2th of May, and all that passed on that day.
The ambassadors came that morning at about
eleven to me. The Earl of Holland put me into
one of the King's coaches, and conducted me to
Vuhael (Whitehall), on the King's side, where he
was. The King took me into the Queen's bed
chamber, where the Queen - Mother ^ and the
Princess were. After a little while I was conducted
to the chapel, accompanied by the ambassadors.
Then came the King, and soon after the Princess,
who was led by the Prince of Wales and the Duke
of York. The Queen was in a chamber, whence
she saw through a window all the ceremonies.
Then the Archbishop ^ began to read the articles
of marriage, to which he made me respond in
English, which responses I had learned by heart.
When that was read, the King joined our hands ;
after that I gave the Princess the ring. It was not
a diamond ring, but a plain gold ring without
enamel. When that was done I was led out of the
chapel by the Prince of Wales and the Duke of
York, and went to a chamber where I could hear
the sermon. The Princess came to this chamber,
led by M. Brederode and M. Sommelsdyck, and
we were both placed in chairs, and were together
1 Marie de Medicis of France, ^ Bishop Wren of Ely.
164

Whitehall
there till the sermon was over. Then I went into
the Queen's chamber, where the King was, and
the Queen, and the Queen-Mother. The Princess
came there also. Then M. Sommelsdyck made an
harangue of thanks to the King, which being done,
I kneeling asked of the King, the Queen-Mother,
and the Queen, their blessing on me as their son,
which they bestowed. Then we dined— the ambas
sadors by themselves. At the King's table was the
King, the Queen-Mother, the Queen, the Princess,
the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York, and me
and little Princess Elizabeth. After dinner, the
Queen-Mother retired to her lodgings, and the
Queen went to walk in Hey-parc (Hyde Park),
accompanied by the Princess, the Prince of Wales,
the Duke of York, and me. The King remained in
his apartment. After coming from our walk, the
King and Queen supped with the same party who
had dined, save the Queen-Mother and the Princess
Elizabeth. After supper the King and Queen
retired to their presence-chamber, where they re
mained till ten o'clock. Then the Queen took the
Princess to be undressed in her chamber. The
King and all the lords conducted me into another
chamber, where I was undressed. The King led
me, after I was disrobed, into the chamber where
the Princess was in bed. The Queen and all her
ladies were about her. After I had been some 165

The Chapels Royal
time in bed " (three-quarters of an hour, says the
French account), "I left it, and was led into another
chamber, where I slept that night. The King and
Queen came into that chamber to see me into that
bed, and wish me good-night." ' Strafford was
beheaded only a week after this wedding.
In the following February (1642) Queen
Henrietta-Maria took her young daughter over to
Holland, and stayed with her for more than a year.
The final marriage ceremony was solemnized at the
Hague on the little Princess Royal's twelfth birth
day, 4th November 1643. She was not allowed to
live with her boy-husband till the autumn of 1646,
when she was fifteen, and he twenty-one. She
gave birth to her son, afterwards William the Third
of England, after the death of her husband, in
1650. She helped her brothei- Charles the Second
and his little Court with great generosity during
his exile. After the Restoration, she visited her
brother in London in 1660, and died there of small
pox. She was buried in Henry the Seventh's
Chapel, but no inscription or monument marks
her tomb.
The execution of Charles the First took place
in front of one of the windows of Inigo Jones's
beautiful Banqueting House, which in 1724 became
the Chapel Royal. But as it was then in its
^ Archives de la Maison d! Orange, vol. iii. p. 462.
166

Whitehall
original use, there is no reason for repeating here
that melancholy and familiar scene.
During the years that Cromwell occupied
Whitehall with full regal dignity as Lord
Protector (i 653-1 658), an establishment of Inde
pendent Ministers was appointed for the Chapel
Royal, Whitehall, and services carried on there
regularly after the Independent model. During
his last illness he was brought from Hampton
Court to Whitehall, where he died on 3rd
September 1658. His body lay in state in
Whitehall, with all the magnificence which ac
companied the death of kings, till it was buried
with regal pomp in Henry the Seventh's Chapel.
After the Restoration the old brilliant life of
Whitehall was resumed by the Stuart sovereigns.
Evelyn records how in 1667 the celebrations on
St. George's Day, by the Knights of the Garter,
were held at Whitehall. After the services in
the Chapel, they proceeded to the Banqueting
House to a great feast. The King sat on an
elevated throne at the upper end at a table alone ;
the Knights at a table on the right hand, reach
ing the length of the room. About the middle of
the dinner the Knights drank the King's health,
then the King theirs ; when the trumpets and
music played and sounded, the guns going off at
the Tower. The cheer was extraordinary, each 167

The Chapels Royal
Knight having forty dishes to his mess, piled
up five or six high ; the room was hung with
the richest tapestry.
It was at Whitehall that Charles the Second
was seized with his mortal illness after that
memorable Sunday evening so graphically de
scribed by Evelyn, and from him by Macaulay.
In his last hours Father Huddleston, an aged
priest who had saved the King's life thirty-five
years before, after the battle of Worcester, was
introduced by James, Duke of York, who had
already cleared the bedchamber of all the nobles
and attendants except the Earls of Bath and
Feversham. To him the King made his con
fession ; on which Huddleston made him repeat
the following prayer :
"O my Lord God! with my whole heart and
soul I detest all the sins of my life past, for the
love of Thee, whom I love above all things ; and
I firmly purpose, by Thy holy grace, never to
offend Thee more. Amen, sweet Jesus, Amen !
Into Thy hands, sweet Jesus, I commend my soul.
Mercy, sweet Jesus, mercy."
Huddleston then gave him absolution, and
administered extreme unction and the viaticum
according to the rites of the Church of Rome.
Afterwards the King prayed heartily with Ken ;
but when Ken again asked him to receive the
1 68

Whitehall
sacrament, he replied that he hoped he had already
made his peace with God. Details of this scene
are given in the Diary of fames the Second,
Huddleston's Brief Account, and Barillon's De
spatches. Mary the Second died at Kensington Palace
in 1694. Her funeral procession was formed at
Whitehall, and passed through the precincts of
the Palace on its way to Westminster. With
the great fire of 1698, which destroyed all the
buildings but the Banqueting House, Whitehall
ceased to be a royal residence.
In 1724, in the reign of George the First,
the Banqueting House, where services had occasion
ally been held since the fire, was formally converted
into the Chapel Royal, and was so used for one
hundred and sixty-seven years, till 1891, when the
Chapel Royal Commissioners reported that it was
not well attended, and recommended that it should
be closed. Being at that time a Chaplain to Queen
Victoria, I wrote to Mr. Shaw Lefevre, then
President of the Board of Works, saying that I
thought very few people ¦ knew that it was the
Chapel Royal, or that they could attend the
services, as there was no conspicuous notice
outside giving such information. I thought that
if it was treated in the same degree of care and
enthusiasm which had been shown by Henry 169

The Chapels Royal
White for the Chapel Royal, Savoy, it would
be equally popular. It appeared to me that a
place where important and instructive sermons
could be preached, without the limitations of
parish life and services, was of real importance
to London. The interior of the Chapel, though
exceedingly plain, had great dignity from the
consummate sense of proportion of Inigo Jones.
The gorgeous figures of Rubens' immense canvas
on the ceiling were certainly incongruous, but
they were very little seen, and gave a general
aspect of dim magnificence. However, the Chapel
or Banqueting House was given over to the United
Service Institution, and is now an interesting
Museum.^
^ Canon W. F. Erskine Knollys, the friend of Archbishop Tait,
and brother of the Rt. Hon. Sir William Knollys, K.C.B, (Treasurer
and Comptroller of the Household to the Prince of Wales, after
wards Edward VII.), served this Chapel with great zeal and ability
for many years.

170

VI
THE CHAPEL ROYAL, HAMPTON COURT

THE CHAPEL ROYAL, HAMPTON COURT
HILE Windsor is the noblest,
Hampton Court is the most
attractive of the Palaces of
England. Its beautiful and
romantic situation by the
Thames ; the vast'^spread of its courts and wings,
" more like a town than a Palace " ; the perfection
of its architecture in two great styles, the imagina
tive Tudor of Wolsey, and the majestic Palladian
of Wren ; its glorious colour, in two prevailing
tones of Indian red and scarlet ; the grandeur of
the great Hall of Henry the Eighth ; the charm
of Wolse)?'s Chapel enhanced with solemn and
not inharmonious dignity by Wren and Gibbons
under Anne ; the perfection of the proporttons of
Wren's two great royal suites of galleries and 173

The Chapels Royal
chambers ; the wonderful breadth, richness, and
variety of its gardens ; the splendour of its gate
ways and avenues ; all this invests Hampton Court
with a charm that cannot be surpassed.
Hampton Court was for long the property of
the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem.
Wolsey, seeking a dwelling where he might find
health and quiet, obtained from them a lease of
ninety-nine years, dated 24th June 151 4, and at
once set about the new buildings. It is not within
the scope of the present sketch to give a detailed
history of the architecture or decorations of this
magnificent palace, or of the events with which
it is connected, but to record what can be learnt
about the. Chapel. It had, on a smaller scale, some
resemblance in style to Henry the Seventh's Chapel
at Westminster, with tall perpendicular windows
and fan-shaped roof, with pendants and bosses
"excellently fretted and gilt";' of these, the roof
and the proportions remain. But the alterations
under Anne, being themselves of consummate
taste and proportion in their own style, with the
lovely carving by Grinling Gibbons at the east
end, and the great solemn renaissance windows,
are a variety in beauty rather than a destruction
of harmony. The Chapel, like the Hall and
other parts of the Palace, was restored in 1847,
^ John Evelyn's Diary. <
174

Hampton Court
when the windows were filled with modern stained
glass. It was not till towards 1529 that Wolsey lost
the favour of the King; but as early as 1525 the
Flemish Envoy in London wrote to the Regent
of the Netherlands that the Cardinal had presented
his house of Hampton Court with all its contents
to the King. And there is a story that when
Henry asked his friend and minister why he had
built himself so magnificent a place, Wolsey
replied that it was to show how noble a palace
a subject might offer to his lord. Before this,
Wolsey always dated his letters to the King, " From
your Grace's Manor of Hampton Court," but to
others, " My Manor of Hampton Court." Two
years later the surrender was an accomplished fact ;
for in 1527, when the French envoys came to
London to arrange a marriage between Francis
the First, and Henry's daughter Mary, then ten
years of age, they rode down to see the King at
Hampton Court, and described it as a very hand
some house built by the Cardinal, and presented
by him to the King.
Wolsey's Chapel at Hampton Court was served
like a Cathedral. There was a Dean, a great
divine, a man of excellent learning; ten singing
priests, and twenty - four children ; on festivals,
forty or fifty priests assisted at the services, and 175

The Chapels Royal
walked in procession before the Cardinal, wearing
gorgeous copes, said to be the richest in England.
" No minstrels played as well, no children sang
as sweetly, as those of Wolsey's choir. The King,
whose love of music was known to all, complained
that the Cardinal's Chapel was better served than
his own, and told his choirmaster, Cornish, that if
a new song were set before the two choirs, it was
better and more surely handled by the Cardinal's
singers than by His Grace's own." '
The christening of Edward the Sixth was the
first great regal event connected with the Chapel.
It took place by torchlight, the Monday after his
birth. The procession started from the Queen's
bedchamber, and she herself, so soon after her
confinement, had to take part in the ceremony,
and be removed from her bed to a State pallet.
The infant was presented at the font by his sister,
the Lady Mary. The Lady Elizabeth, all un
conscious of the awful fate of her mother, was
carried in the arms of Queen Jane's brother, the
future Protector, and bore the chrism (spiced oil)
for her brother. The unhappy Anne Boleyn's
father, the Earl of Wiltshire, was present, carrying
a taper of virgin wax, and a towel. The font of
solid silver was guarded by Sir John Russell
1 Brewer, Letters and Papers of Henry VIII., ii. Part I. 271 ;
quoted in Cartwright's Hampton Court.
176

Hampton Court
(ancestor of the Dukes of Bedford), Sir Nicholas
Carew, Sir Francis Bryan, and Sir Anthony Browne
(afterwards guardian of the young Prince, and of
Princess Elizabeth, a great builder, grantee of Battle
Abbey, inheritor of Cowdray), with aprons and
towels. The infant was carried under a canopy
by the Marchioness of Exeter, whose husband was
first cousin to Henry the Eighth : their mothers.
Queen Elizabeth of York and Katherine, Countess
of Devon, were both daughters of Edward the
Fourth. The canopy was borne by the Duke of
Suffolk (husband of Henry's sister, Mary Queen
of France, and grandfather of Lady Jane Grey),
the Earl of Arundel, and Lord William Howard.
While the child was being prepared, Te Deum was
sung. The Lady Mary gave her godson a cup of
gold, Cranmer gave him three great bowls and
two great tankards ; the Duke of Norfolk the same
(he was uncle by marriage to Henry the Eighth,
having married Anne, another daughter of Edward
the Fourth ; he escaped the block by the death
of Henry the very night before he was ordered for
execution). The train of the little Lady Elizabeth,
aged 4, was carried by the sister of the future
Queen Katharine Parr, Lady Herbert.
The little Prince was born on 12th October;
Queen Jane died on 25th October. The body lay
in great state in the Chamber of Presence till the
M 177

The Chapels Royal
last day of the month, when it was removed with
solemn . rites to the Chapel of Hampton Court,
where the ceremonies and masses were renewed
day by day till 12th November, when the funeral
procession set out from Hampton to Windsor.'
On All Saints' Day, 1541, Henry and his fifth
wife, Katharine Howard, were keeping the festival
in Hampton Court Chapel. While kneeling before
the altar, Henry raised his eyes to heaven and
said : "I render thanks to Thee, O Lord, that
after so many strange accidents that have befallen
my marriages. Thou hast been pleased to give
me a wife so entirely conformed to my inclinations
as her I now have." He then asked his confessor,
the Bishop of Lincoln, to prepare a public form of
thanksgiving to Almighty God for having blessed
him with so loving, dutiful, and virtuous a queen.
This was to be read next day, the Festival of All
Souls. That very day, when the King was at
Mass, Cranmer put into his hands a paper giving
details of the Queen's former misconduct with
Francis Derham, when living in the house of her
grandmother the Duchess of Norfolk. There is
a tradition that the unhappy Katharine, when con
fined to her room, made an attempt to see the
King when he was at Mass in the Chapel ; and that
when she was forcibly prevented and carried back,
^ Strickland's Queens of England, ii. 285.
178

Hampton Court
her screams were heard by every one at the

service.'

Henry the Eighth and his sixth wife, Katharine
Parr, who had been married twice before, and whose
husband. Lord Latymer, had only been dead three
months, were married at Hampton Court, not in
the Chapel, but in the Queen's Closet, loth July
1543. The following Christmas, a Chapter of the
Knights of the Garter was held, with service and
jousts. At Hampton Court Edward the Sixth spent
most of his early life. He attended the Chapel
very regularly, and made offerings at Mass on
Sundays. "The year before his accession he kept
Christmas at Hampton Court, and made offerings
at Mass on the feasts of St. Stephen, St. John, and
Childermas ; on the latter day (Holy Innocents'),
he gave the children of the King's Chapel forty
shillings for singing Gloria in Excelsis on Christ
mas Day."^
In 1 55 1, having received the Order of St.
Michael from the King of France, Edward the
Sixth kept Michaelmas Day with as great solemnity
as that of St. George, and invited the French
Ambassador to Hampton Court for the occasion.
The royal arms and the badge of the Order of
St. Michael were set up together; and the Am-
1 Strickland's Queens of England, ii. 361. ^ Ibid., ii. 41.
179

The Chapels Royal
bassador was present at the Communion Service,
"where he saw the King reverently with us of his
Council communicate the Sacrament, wherein, as
we perceive, he seeth and understandeth great
difference between our reverence in our religion and
the slanders thereof usually spread by evil men.'"
In 1555 Queen Mary and King Philip kept
Easter at Hampton Court, with all the pomp of
the old ritual. And again, " on the 23rd of April,
being St. George's Day, after a grand High Mass
in the Chapel Royal, King Philip, as Sovereign of
the Order of the Garter, went with the Knights,
and the Lords of the Council in their robes, in
procession round the cloisters and courts of the
Palace ; attended by heralds, and accompanied by
the Lord Chancellor, and by Bishop Gardiner in
his mitre, and followed by a crowd of noblemen
and ecclesiastics, with acolytes bearing crosses
and carrying tapers, thurifers swinging censers, and
clerks and priests all in copes of cloth of gold and
tissue. As they marched round the cloister of the
old Inner Court (which stood on the site of the
present Fountain Court), solemnly singing the hymn
' Salve festa dies,' the Queen looked down on them
from the window of her bedchamber." ^
^ Cartwright's Hampton Court, p. 43.
^ Law's History of Hampton Court Palace, i. 267 ; from Machyn's
Diary.
180

Hampton Court
During this visit, Elizabeth was brought a
prisoner to the Palace, but convinced Mary of her
loyalty. She was placed at liberty, and remained
at Hampton Court throughout the summer, treated
with marked kindness by Philip. She was often
present at Mass in the Chapel, and when Mary
questioned her as to her belief in Transubstantia-
tion, is said to have answered in the famous lines :
Christ was the Word that spake it,
He took the bread and brake it;
And what His words did make it.
That I believe and take it.^
We get a picture of Queen Elizabeth attending
Sunday service at Hampton Court in 1584, in the
narrative of a young Pomeranian noble, Leopold
von Wedel, a great traveller. "As it was Sunday,
we went to the Church or Chapel in the Falace.
This Chapel is richly decorated, and has a fine
silver and gilt organ, with many silver pipes, large
and small. Before the Queen marched her Life
Guards, all picked men, strong and tall, two
hundred in number we were told, though not all
of them were present. They carried gilt halberds,
and wore red coats faced with black, bearing the
Queen's arms in gold. Then came the gentlemen
of rank and the Lords of the Council, two of
them bearing a royal sceptre, a third with the
^ Cartwright's Hampton Court, p. 52. 181

The Chapels Royal
sword of state in a red velvet scabbard, em
broidered with gold, and set with precious stones
and large pearls. Then came the Queen, dressed
in black on account of the deaths of the Prince
of Orange and the Duke d'Alengon, and wearing
a large pearl the size of a hazel-nut on each side
of her curly hair. The people on both sides
fell on their knees, but she was very gracious,
and accepted with a courteous air petitions from
rich and poor. Her train was borne by a countess,
followed by twelve young ladies of noble birth,
and twenty-five noblemen with small gilt hunting-
spears. Both sides of the gallery along which the
Queen walked to the Chapel were lined by the
guard bearing arms. As the day was almost
ended there was no sermon, only singing and
prayers. Then the Queen returned as she had
come, and went to her rooms, and when the people
fell on their knees as she passed, she said, ' I
thank you with all my heart.' " '
The sprightly spouse of James the First, Anne
of Denmark, was, as we have seen,^ an enthusi
astic supporter of Revels and Masques. The first
Christmas which the new Stuart Sovereigns kept
^Cartwright's Hampton Court, from Baron von Wedel's
" Narrative," in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, ix.
228-251. 2 P. 164.
182

Hampton Court
at Hampton Court was a brilliant series of such
entertainments, culminating on Sunday, the 8th
of January, in Daniel's Masque of the Twelve
Goddesses, the Queen appearing as Pallas. But
James soon afterwards gave himself to a more
serious and congenial undertaking : the Hampton
Court Conference, which, under the guise of a
friendly readjustment of differences between the
Church of England and the Puritans, was as a
matter of fact treated as an opportunity for teach
ing the Puritans the hopelessness of their position
as far as King and Church were concerned, and
thus sowing the seeds of that vigorous crop of In
dependence which during seventeen years abolished
the throne, and banished the Church. It was to
have been held in the Chapel Royal, and doubtless
services connected with it were celebrated there : but
it was found more convenient to conduct the discus
sions in one of the King's rooms. The best result
of the Conference was the noble and magnificent
translation of the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures,
carried out in different ways already by Wycliffe,
Tyndale, and Coverdale, in that matchless speci
men of the finest English diction, known as the
Authorized Version.
When Charles the First was Master of Hampton
Court, Laud, who as Bishop of London was Dean
of the Chapels Royal, urged the King to attend 183

The Chapels Royal
the prayers of the Church, instead of being present
only at the sermon, as had been hitherto the
custom ; and records in his diary that " the most
religious King not only assented, but gave me
thanks." ^
The treasures of Hampton Court, including
those of the Chapel Royal, were sold after the
execution of the King in 1649. ^"^ ^^53 ^^e Palace
had to be bought back, at a loss, as. a residence,
for Lord Protector Cromwell. Services after the
Independent fashion were established in the Chapel ;
and here Mary, Oliver's daughter, was married to
Lord Falconbridge by an Independent minister,
after the ceremony had already been performed
by a clergyman of the English Church, to gratify
what the Protector called the importunity and folly
of his daughter.
On the death of Cromwell, Parliament was only
prevented from selling Hampton Court by Ludlow
(Commander-in-Chief of the Irish Army, and an
opponent of Cromwell's Protectorship). In Feb
ruary 1660, it was offered to General Monk. He
declined it, but was made Steward of the Manor,
and afterwards confirmed by Charles the Second
in that appointment.
In 1665 Pepys was at Hampton Court on a
^Cartwright's Hampton Court, from W. H. Hutton's Hampton
Court, and Hook's Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury.
184

Hampton Court
Sunday, and followed Charles the Second to
Chapel, where he heard a good sermon.^
It was for William the Third that Wren built
the superb red brick Italian building known as
the Fountain Court, with its fagades of unrivalled
magnificence to East and South. For this he
had to clear away some of Wolsey's building.
He had intended to have a corresponding vast
court to the West, which would have in
volved the removal of the Chapel, and most
of the rest of the old buildings : but death
intervened.^ On the 24th of July 1689 the Princess Anne
gave birth to a son, William Henry, afterwards
Duke of Gloucester, the only one of her eighteen *
children who survived infancy. On the 28th he
was baptized in the Chapel. He died at the age
of eleven at Windsor, and was buried in Henry
the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster. Though
rather delicate, he was a bright attractive boy,
devoted to drilling his young companions, and
to every kind of playing at war. He was a great
favourite with his uncle. King William.
When Anne became Queen, "she restored
the Chapel after the taste of the day, adorning
it with fine oak panellings and carvings by
1 Pepys' Diary, 23rd July 1665. ^ Defoe's Tour, iii. 12.
^ Seventeen or eighteen : the number is given variously.
185

The Chapels Royal
Grinling Gibbons, and a royal pew with a painted
ceiling."' George the First and George the Second both
spent much of their time at Hampton Court, but
there is little or nothing to say of the Chapel
during their reigns.
George the Third had a dislike for Hampton
Court, and during his time the State apartments
were gradually stripped.^ From 1760 the Palace
was divided into suites of rooms for distinguished
people on their retirement. It was owing to the
kindness of Queen Victoria and her constant love
for her people that the Palace and Gardens were
thrown open to the public, and became the most
popular and charming resort in the neighbourhood
of London. The Chapel and its services are kept
up for the residents in the Palace. It has seats
for 350.
^ Cartwright's Hampton Court, p. io8.
^ His grandfather, the irascible George the Second, had been
unkind to him and terrified him here during his boyhood.

186

VII
THE CHAPEL ROYAL, SAVOY

THE CHAPEL ROYAL, SAVOY
fUNNING from the Strand to the
Thames, close by the larger
thoroughfare Wellington Street
and Waterloo Bridge, is a steep
little lane called Savoy Street.
It passes a quaint little green church-croft on the
right as you descend towards the river, on which
stands a small and ancient Chapel, of Perpendicular
architecture, with an odd little belfry. This is all
that remains of the once famous Palace of the
Savoy, one of the most magnificent structures in
England. Beatrix, daughter of Thomas (i 177-1233), Count
of Savoy, married Raymond Berengarius, Count
of Provence, and was the mother of five Queens :
Margaret, wife of Louis the Ninth (St. Louis),
King of France ; Eleanor, wife of Henry the
189

The Chapels Royal
Third, King of England ; Saincta, wife of Richard,
Duke of Cornwall, Emperor of Germany ; Beatrix,
wife of Charles the First of Anjou, King of Naples ;
and Johanna, wife of Philip the Fair, King of
Navarre. Beatrix, Countess of Provence, had a
brother Peter (i 203-1 268) who, in 1263, succeeded
his nephew, Boniface Roland, as Count of Savoy.
Uncle Peter seems to have been on the best of
terms with his English relations, for his niece.
Queen Eleanor, persuaded her husband, Henry
the Third, to give him the Earldom of Richmond
and the Lordship of Essex, as well as the acres
for the Palace of the Savoy and its gardens. As
Count of Savoy he added Valence to his dominions,
and got Foucigny with his wife. Eleanor of
Prx>vence, Queen of England, did well by her
relations ; for the youngest of her nine uncles,
Boniface, a Carthusian monk. Bishop of Valence,
became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1241. Count
Peter gained the confidence of Henry the Third,
and was sent by him on delicate missions to
France. On one occasion he returned with a
boatful of young ladies whom he proposed to
marry to the wards of his nephew. King Henry
the Third. The kind-hearted uncle was rewarded,
for many of these married gentlemen of birth
about the Court, with the special sanction of the
Queen. 190

Savoy
When Peter inherited the Countship of Savoy,
he left the Palace in the Strand to the friars of
Mountjoy. Later on Queen Eleanor bought them
out, assigning her interest in the estate to her
most dear son, Edmund, Earl of Lancaster. His
grandson, Henry, Earl of Derby, was created Duke
of Lancaster, and left a daughter and heiress,
Blanche, who carried the Duchy of Lancaster to
her husband, John of Gaunt. The red Provence
roses, which afterwards went by the name of
Lancaster, and became the badge of that division
of the royal family, are said to have been planted
in the gardens of the Savoy by Earl Edmund
when he brought home his bride, Blanche of Artois,
Queen Dowager of Navarre. Figs, cherries, plums,
and nuts grew there in abundance.
To King John the Second of France, the Good,
the Savoy was assigned as a residence when he
was brought back a prisoner to England by Edward
the Black Prince. Three years later he paid part
of his ransom, and was allowed to return to France
to collect the rest. Failing in this attempt, he
returned to England and surrendered himself once
more to captivity. He died at the Savoy in 1364,
and Edward the Third gave him a magnificent
funeral, personally accompanying the body some
miles out of London on its way to France.
In Wat Tyler's rebellion, his followers conspired 191

The Chapels Royal
with the poorer citizens to burn the Palace of the
Savoy, in consequence of the unpopularity of John
of Gaunt. Inflamed with wine, they ran there and
laid fire to it, destroying a building "to which,"
says Stow, "there was none in the whole realm
to be compared for beauty and stateliness." Henry
the Fourth, as eldest son of John of Gaunt, united
the estates of the Duchy of Lancaster, including
the Savoy, to the Crown.
Henry the Fourth died in 141 3; seventy-two
years afterwards the throne was occupied by his
great-great-nephew, Henry the Seventh, who con
verted the site of John of Gaunt's ruined Palace into
a hospital or almshouse for needy poor people, who
were to be visited in their sicknesses, refreshed with
meat and drink, and if need be with clothing, and
also buried if they should happen to die in the
almshouse. The income was derived from rents
in Essex, Hertford, Kent, and elsewhere, and
houses in the precincts. There were beds for one
hundred inmates, with a Master and staff". From
a balance-sheet of 1535 it appears that there were
four chaplains on the foundation, two hired
chaplains ("conducts"), a sub -sacrist, a sub-
hospitaller, four attendants on the altar, and
thirteen sisters. It was not well managed, and
obtained a bad reputation for corruption. In 1553
(the last year of Edward the Sixth), the Lord
192

r^Ae^ ^Ax^t/te^ on.au<^.

fj/a/iMn*

T

Savoy
Chief Baron of the Exchequer recommended that
the whole of the estates should be made over to
the new Hospital of Bridewell, which the Lord
Mayor and citizens were founding with the help
of the Crown. Queen Mary, however, came to
the rescue of the old Catholic foundation, and re
established it in 1557. Of this. Fuller says: "The
Hospital being left as bare of all conveniences as
the poor creatures brought to it, the Queen en
couraged her Maids of Honour to supply it ; who,
out of their own wardrobes, furnished the same
with new beds, bedding, and other furniture in a
very ample manner." Queen Mary also left the
Hospital money in her will. Fuller was lecturer
at the Savoy in 1642, and again after the Restora
tion. He attracted large congregations to the
Chapel by his sermons.
In spite of Mary's attempt, the Hospital did
not flourish ; the Chapel became the parish church
of the Precincts, which were reckoned as one of
the seven parishes of the City and Liberties of
Westminster. Some of the Masters were men
of eminence : George Montaigne (or Mountain)
(1569-1628) became Archbishop of York; he was
Gresham Professor of Divinity, Chaplain to King
James the First, Dean of Westminster, Bishop of
Lincoln, Lord High Almoner, Bishop of London,
an enthusiastic supporter of Laud, and Bishop of
N

The Chapels Royal
Durham. He is said to have won his final promo
tion from his royal patron by a profane jest on the
nature of a miracle : " Say unto this Mountain, Be
thou removed and cast into that See." Another was
the rank adventurer, Mark Antony de Dominis,
Archbishop of Spalatro, in Dalmatia, under the
rule of Venice, who has a most amusing history.
He took a leading part in the quarrel between that
Republic and the Court of Rome. Henry the Fourth
of France contrived a reconciliation between the two
disputants ; and the Pope appointed him a yearly
pension of 500 crowns to be paid out of the revenues
of the See of Spalatro. The Archbishop was so
indignant, that he applied to Sir Dudley Carleton
(1573-1632), afterwards Viscount Dorchester,
English Ambassador at Venice, to know whether
he would be received into the Church of England.
He was well acquainted with the doctrines and
constitution of the English Church from his in
timacy with Sir Henry Wotton (who had also
been Ambassador at Venice) and his learned
chaplain William Bedell (afterwards Provost of
Trinity College, Dublin, and Bishop of Kilmore
and Ardagh). He observed, he said, many abuses
and corruptions in the Church of Rome, and he
desired above all things to live in a Church re
formed ; especially he had an affection for the
Church of England. The ambassador acquainted
194

Savoy
King James, who thought that his own book on
the Oath of Allegiance had been the cause of the
quarrel, and did the more desire to receive the
Archbishop. He was to be entertained at Lambeth;
and all the English bishops, with more of the
harmlessness of doves than the wisdom of serpents,
agreed to contribute to his maintenance. It is
incredible, says Fuller, what flocking of people
there was to behold this old Archbishop, now a
convert ; prelates and peers presented him with
gifts of high valuation. He was a man old and
corpulent, but of a comely presence. He was
gifted with an unlimited assurance, plenty of ready
talent in writing and speaking, of a jeering temper,
and of a most grasping avarice. He was De
Dominis in the plural, says Crakanthorp {Defensio
Ecclesiae Anglicanae), for he could serve two
masters or twenty if they gave him wages. He
soon began to petition for preferment. The
modern Solomon gave him the Deanery of
Windsor and the Mastership of the Savoy ; he
appointed himself to the parish of West Ilsley,
Berkshire, where he made shift to read the thirty-
nine articles in English after his induction. For
trying to overset all the leases granted by his
predecessors at the Savoy, in order to levy fresh
fines (large sums paid down at the renewal of
leases), he was sternly reproved by King, Bishop 195

The Chapels Royal
of London. Now he brought out his work De
Republicd Ecclesiastica (On the Ecclesiastical
Polity), in three folio volumes, which was trans
lated into ten languages. Growing confident, he
indulged his jeering temper at the expense of
Count Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador. The
Don took deadly offence, and immediately pro
ceeded to contrive the Archbishop's ruin by a
diabolical plot. Having great influence at Rome,
he was easily able to induce the Pope to send
the most flattering offers to the Archbishop if he
would return. The greedy and unscrupulous old
man swallowed the bait. When he heard of the
reward of an eight-fold salary, he had a longing
to revisit his native land, and petitioned the King
for leave. The King, indignant at his hypocrisy,
ordered him to leave in twenty days. At this
moment, an Episcopal wag, Toby Matthews,
Archbishop of York, indulged in one of his accus
tomed hoaxes as to his own death ; it was a
favourite pastime of his to make these announce
ments, in order to regale himself by watching the
movements of the crowd of suitors. Archbishop
de Dominis had the inconceivable assurance to
ask for the place. Refused with scorn, he started
for Brussels, his trunks full of English gold, his
heart swelling with the Pope's promise of a
Cardinal's hat and a rich Bishopric. Nothing
196

Savoy
came. Having spent the time of waiting in
writing a railing book against the Church of
England, he was obliged to go to Rome without
safe-conduct or promise of favour. Suspected by
the Inquisition on his arrival, he was thrown
into prison. There he died, and his body was
burnt as that of a heretic'
Totally different was his successor, the famous
Gilbert Sheldon (i 598-1 677), afterwards Archbishop
of Canterbury ; Fellow of All Souls, Oxford ; Vicar
of Hackney ; Rector of Newington ; Warden of All
Souls ; the friend of Hyde and Falkland ; the faithful
attendant of Charles the First at Oxford, New
market, and the Isle of Wight ; imprisoned at
Oxford in 1648; at the Restoration in 1660 he
became Bishop of London, Dean of the Chapels
Royal, and Master of the Savoy. He was virtually
primate during the old age of Archbishop Juxon,
and it was at his lodgings in the Savoy that the
celebrated Savoy Conference was held between
Puritans and Churchmen. In 1663 he became
Archbishop of Canterbury, and was a prominent
adviser of Charles the Second. During the plague
he remained at Lambeth. He was an active and
liberal promoter of the rebuilding of St. Paul's
Cathedral. He was greatly interested in the Church
beyond the seas ; and as Chancellor of the Uni-
^ Perry's History of the Church of England, i. 306.
197

The Chapels Royal
versity of Oxford he built the Sheldonian Theatre
(Hall of Ceremonies) at his own expense.
As Master of the Savoy, he was succeeded by
Henry Killigrew (1613-1700), son of Sir Robert
Killigrew, courtier and ambassador. He played
havoc with what remained of the revenues, allowing
the place to become a refuge for all sorts of bad
characters, and granting leases on any terms which
might bring money to his pocket. All the hospital
buildings were let out in tenements, except a part
occupied by royal troops. Killigrew appropriated
the rents, and kept no accounts. In 1702, two
years after his death, the hospital was finally sup
pressed altogether, and only the Chapel remained.
Fifty years afterwards there was a flagrant
scandal of easy marriages at the Savoy. In the
Public Advertiser, 2nd January 1754, appears the
advertisement : "By authority. Marriages per
formed with the utmost privacy, decency, and
regularity at the Ancient Royal Chapel of St.
John the Baptist in the Savoy, where regular
and authentic registers have been kept since the
Reformation (being two hundred years and up
wards) to this day. The expense not more than
one guinea, the five shilling stamp included. There
are five private ways by land to the Chapel, and
two by water." The advertiser was John Wilkinson,
Incumbent of the Savoy: he does not seem to
198

Savoy
have been Master. He is said to have performed
eleven hundred of these matrimonial transactions
in a year. He was at length brought to justice
and sentenced to fourteen years' transportation.^
The modern position and reputation of the
Chapel Royal, Savoy, is entirely owing to its well-
known Chaplain, Henry White, who was appointed
in 1859, and died in 1900. He restored and decor
ated the building, remodelled the choir, robed
them in purple and white, instituted the Savoy
Club which kept them all together, fostered a spirit
of intense loyalty to the place, and by his able
literary sermons drew large congregations. The
marriages at the Savoy became events of the
season, and he used to boast that of all those he
had performed not one, as far as he was aware,
had turned out badly. Distinguished people came
to the services : the dramatic profession, interested
by the proximity of so many theatres, were well
represented ; White's position as Chaplain to the
Speaker added to his authority. The Chapel took
its place in London calendars among the Chapels
Royal, and it has maintained its importance and
popularity. 1 Loftie's Memorials of the Savoy gives a very complete account
of its history.

199

VIII
THE CHAPEL ROYAL, KENSINGTON PALACE

Daniel Finch,
The work of

THE CHAPEL ROYAL, KENSINGTON PALACE
ILLIAM THE THIRD, in
search of pure air near
London for the relief of his
asthma, bought Nottingham
House, Kensington, from
second Earl of Nottingham.
repairing and rebuilding was
undertaken by Sir Christopher Wren, Surveyor-
General of Works to William and Mary, as he
had been previously to James the Second and
Charles the Second.
The Chapel was in the usual style of the period ;
an oblong room with oak panelling, carving, and
classical windows. One of the early events con
nected with it was an Installation of Knights of the
Garter, on 4th August 1713. Harley was one, and 203

The Chapels Royal
it was the last Chapter of the Order held by Anne,
who was only twelve years on the throne.
In George the Second's time it is recorded how
one of the modes by which Frederick, Prince of
Wales, used to annoy his mother. Queen Caroline,
was by coming too late to Chapel at Kensington,
and making his wife, Augusta of Saxe-Coburg,
instead of entering by another door, squeeze to her
seat, between the Queen and her prayer-book.^
During the greater part of the reign of George
the Third, Kensington remained unoccupied ; but
before 1801 a suite of rooms was assigned to
Edward, Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria ;
in 1 8 10, to Caroline of Brunswick, the unhappy
Princess of Wales; and in 18 10 also to Augustus
Frederick, Duke of Sussex, sixth son of George
the Third. It was in Kensington Palace that
Queen Victoria was born, on the 24th May 18 19.
The baptism took place on the 24th June, in the
Grand Saloon, now known as the Cupola Room,
not in the Chapel.
Queen Victoria's home was with her mother,
the Duchess of Kent, at Kensington, till her acces
sion in 1837. They attended the services in the
Chapel of the Palace regularly, and it was here
that the Princess received her first Communion.
^ Leigh Hunt, Old Court Suburb, ii. 126; quoted in Royal
Palaces of England.
204

Kensington Palace
The services were for the inmates of the Palace,
and were conducted by a Chaplain to the House
hold, the public being admitted.
The Chapel, a small plain room by the Council
Chamber on the ground-floor of the Palace, had
already been removed to that position at the request
of the Duchess of Kent, to give more space at the
entrance to the staircase leading to her apartments.'
"The Communion plate included a flagon and
chalice with date marks of the year 1660 and 1664,
which had been presented by Queen Anne ; a flagon
given by William the Third, bearing his initials
and the date 1692 ; a paten given by George the
Third in 17 14 ; and a paten and alms-dish presented
by George the Second in 1736. There is an entry
in the Lord Chamberlain's Warrant Book, 12th
May 1732, for Bibles and other books for the
Chapel at Kensington to cost ;^i56." ^ Mr. Wilfrid
Cripps, the great authority on plate, says that the A
on Queen Anne's chalice and flagon really covers a
C which stood for Charles the Second.
"The Chapel was closed in 1901, and some
beautifully printed Bibles, which were used in it
between the years 171 7 and 1901, and a Prayer
Book dated 1760, may be seen in a case in the
middle of the Presence Chamber." ^
1 Royal Palaces of England, p. 333. * Ibid., p. 334.
s Ibid., p. 334.
205

The Chapels Royal
Miss Thackeray in her Old Kensington thus
describes the Palace Chapel : —
" The clock began striking eleven slowly from the
archway of the old palace ; some dozen people are
assembled together in the little palace chapel and
begin repeating the responses in measured tones.
It is a quiet little place. The world rode beyond
it on its many chariot wheels to busier haunts,
along the great highroads. As for the flesh and
the devil, can they be those who are assembled
here? They assemble to the sound of the bell,
advancing feebly, for the most part skirting the
sunny wall, past the sentry at his post, and along
the outer courtyard of the palace, where the
windows are green and red with geranium pots,
where there is a tranquil glimmer of autumnal
sunshine and a crowing of cocks. Then the little
congregation turns in at a side-door of the palace,
and so through a vestibule comes into the chapel,
of which the bell has been tinkling for some week
day service. It stops short, and the service begins
quite suddenly, as a door opens in the wall, and
a preacher in a white surplice comes out and begins
in a deep voice almost before the last vibrations
of the bell have died away. . . . The great square
window admits a silenced light, there are high
old-fashioned pews on either side of the place, and
opposite the communion-table, high up over the
206

Kensington Palace
heads of the congregation, a great square curtained
pew, with the royal arms, and a curtained gallery."
The following list of chaplains was compiled
and contributed to Notes and Queries by A. O. K.
in July 1879: —
Robert Blakeway, 1 721-1736.
Richard Ward, 1 736-1 756.
J. Dimsdale, 1757.
Seth Thompson, D.D., 1805.
John Wetherall, LL.D., 1807- 1833.
Joseph Jackson, 1833- 1854.
John Barlow, 1854-1867.
W. T. Bullock, 1 867-1 879.
W. C, Bromehead, 1879.
John Graves, died 1888.
Miss Grace Ellis, the writer on Kensington
Palace in Royal Palaces of England, records how
Dr. Davys, Princess Victoria's tutor, who became
Bishop of Peterborough on her accession, was
accustomed to preach every Sunday morning in
the Chapel. " I like your sermons so much, Mr.
Dean " (he was then Dean of Chester), the Duchess
of Kent once said to him. A low bow from the
Dean. " Because," continued the Duchess, " they
are so short."

207

IX
THE GERMAN CHAPEL ROYAL,
MARLBOROUGH HOUSE

O

THE GERMAN CHAPEL ROYAL,
MARLBOROUGH HOUSE
N the year 1809, the south-eastern
angle of the buildings of St.
James's Palace was destroyed by
fire, leaving the present German
Chapel, once part of that exten
sive ^group, almost isolated. The public ' road
which now runs through from Pall Mall to the
Mall cuts it off still more completely. This
Chapel was known formerly as the Queen's
Chapel, and was at any rate begun by Inigo Jones
in anticipation of the marriage of Charles the
First with a Spanish Princess for the rites of her
own creed and Church. Orders and notes exist
relating to this foundation under the dates 23rd
March, i8th April, 20th April, 3rd May, and 30th
May (1623) ; in the latter it is recorded that the
Spanish Ambassador had laid the foundation-stone. 211

The Chapels Royal
As the marriage negotiations came to nothing,
the completion of the Chapel was postponed. In
1625 Charles the First married Henrietta Maria,
daughter of Henry the Fourth of Navarre, often
called the Great, King of France, and Marie de
Medicis ; the little bride was only in her sixteenth
year. One of the stipulations of the alliance was
that the Queen was to have liberty for the full
practice of her own religion. She brought over
quite a French colony : they are said to have
numbered as many as 440 ; among them there
was a young bishop, twenty-nine priests, and other
attendants. Service was conducted in a room near
the Queen's apartments in Whitehall, hung with
tapestry and fitted as a chapel. " The Queen," says
a contemporary historical letter quoted by Miss
Strickland, "at eleven o'clock came out of her
chamber in a petticoat, and with a veil over her
head, supported by the Count de Tilliers, her
chamberlain, followed by six of her women, and
the mass was mumbled over her. Whilst they
were at mass, the King gave orders that no English
man or Englishwoman should come near the place.
The priests have been very importunate to have
the Chapel finished at St. James's, but they find
the King slow in doing that. His answer was (he
was evidently greatly annoyed), 'That if the
Queen's closet, where they now say mass, be not
212

Marlborough House
large enough, let them have it in the great chamber ;
and if the great chamber be not wide enough, they
may use the garden ; and if the garden were not
spacious enough to serve their turn, then the park
was the fittest place.' With all their stratagems
they cannot bring him to be in the least in love
with their fopperies. They say there came some
English papists to hear the Queen's mass on
Sunday, but that she rebuked them, and caused
them to be driven out."
Henrietta Maria was a mere child, and very
wilful ; and she and her French colony gave Charles
the First a serious amount of trouble. It was to
her French advisers that he attributed her petulant
refusal to agree with many of his wishes. The
King wrote on the subject to Marie de Medicis,
to his friend Steenie, Duke of Buckingham, and
to others. At last the situation grew so intolerable
that Charles made up his mind to dismiss (with
few exceptions) the whole company. Charles him
self was endowed with a gift of determination which
was a marked characteristic throughout his life :
there is a story in Lilly's history of him that his
mother, Anne of Denmark, prophesied that he
would live to plague three kingdoms by his
obstinacy. The account of the dismissal of the
French is given in a contemporary letter. It was
in June 1626, before he had been married a twelve- 213

The Chapels Royal
month : " Monday last, about three in the after
noon, the King, passing into the Queen's Side, and
finding some Frenchmen, her servants, unreverently
curveting and dancing in her presence, took her by
the hand and led her into his lodgings, locking
the door after him, and shutting out all, save the
Queen." ' They were then sent to Somerset House
by Lord Conway, as was narrated in the account
of St. James's Chapel on page 94. Some more
details are here added. While this scene was trans
acting in her own apartments, the Queen, who was
detained by the King in his chamber, became very
angry ; and when she understood that her French
train were actually expelled from Whitehall, she
flew into an access of rage. She endeavoured to
bid them a passionate farewell from the window,
whence the King drew her away, telling her "to
be satisfied, for it must be so." However, the
infuriated Queen contrived to break the windows,
as she was prevented from opening them. Charles,
who was also small in person, was obliged to use
all his strength to restrain his wife, by grasping her
wrists in each hand. " But since, I hear her rage
is appeased, and the King and she went to Nonsuch,
and were very jocund together."
The French retinue were kept at Somerset
House (one of the houses allotted to the Queen),
^ Sir Henry Ellis, Historical Letters, first series.
214

Marlborough House
while the King detained their mistress at his country
palaces ; a few days after he had separated them
from her, he came in person to Somerset House,
attended by Buckingham, Holland, and Carlisle,
and addressed them in a set speech, informing them
of the necessity of dismissing them to their own
country. The young bishop asked to know his
fault, and Madame de St. George, who had been
the Queen's gouvernante and to whom the Queen
was throughout life devoted, passionately appealed
to Henrietta. " I name none," replied Charles ;
but he peremptorily ordered their return to France.
He gave his promise that they should receive their
wages with gratuities to the amount of _;!^22,ooo,
and then withdrew with his attendants. By various
pretences the French retinue delayed their departure
from day to day throughout the whole of the month
of July. Besides retaining the Queen's clothes and
jewels as perquisites (see p. 95), they brought her
immensely in debt to them for purchases, which
she allowed to the King were wholly fictitious.
At last Charles, exasperated by their struggles to
remain in England, wrote to Buckingham the
following angry letter to expedite their expulsion : —
" Steenie, — I have received your letter. . . .
This is my answer. I command you to send all
the French away to-morrow out of the town — if
215

The Chapels Royal
you can, by fair means, but stick not long in dis
puting ; otherwise, force them away, driving them
away like so many wild beasts, until you have
shipped them ; and so the devil go with them. Let
me hear of no answer, but of the performance of
my command."
Although a numerous collection of coaches,
carts, and barges were waiting the next day at
Somerset House, the foreign suite unanimously
resolved not to depart, saying, " they had not been
discharged with the proper punctilios." On which
the King sent a large posse of heralds, trumpeters,
and a strong body of yeomen. The heralds and
trumpeters having formally proclaimed His
Majesty's pleasure, the yeomen then stepped for
ward to execute His Majesty's orders, which were
none other than that " if the French still continued
refractory, to thrust all out, head and shoulders.
This extremity was not resorted to, as they departed
the same tide. A great mob had been gathered
in the Strand by these proceedings, and withal
most riotously disposed. As the beautiful Madame
de St. George was departing, gesticulating with the
utmost vivacity, and pouring forth a torrent of
eloquence at the atrocity of tearing her from the
Queen, one of the leaders of the mob threw a large
stone at her head which knocked off" her cap. . . .
216

^y^zo'n/

, ^^^//^e^to^/^aiA/ a^i^tcJ^'.

Marlborough House
The only French attendants left with the Queen
were her nurse, her dresser, and ' Madame de la
Tremouille,' afterwards known as the heroic
Countess of Derby, defender of Lathom House."
Sir Walter Scott, in Peveril of the Peak, with the
freedom of genius, makes her a Romanist ; she
was in reality a Huguenot. She had been married
the previous year to James, Lord Strange, after
wards seventh Earl of Derby, and was daughter
of Claud de la Tremouille, Due de Thouars. Three
priests were retained for the services of the Queen's
Closet. But the Queen became so unhappy and
wayward, that a great friend of her father's, the
Duke of Bassompierre, was sent over from Paris
to reason her into a better frame of mind, and to
obtain the redress of any real grievances. After
infinite and protracted difficulties, he relates that
" First, she has re-established — and this is for her
conscience — a bishop and ten priests, a confessor
and his coadjutor, and ten musicians for her Chapel ;
that at St. James's is to be finished with its
cemetery, and another is to be built for her at
Somerset House, at the expense of the King, her
husband." It is very doubtful whether the Chapel
at St. James's, which, as was noted before, was
begun by Inigo Jones for the Spanish Infanta in
prospect of her becoming Princess of Wales and
Queen of England, was finished during the
217

The Chapels Royal
troublous reign of Charles. The struggles of
Charles with his Parliaments began in his very
first year, and were largely occupied with questions
of religion ; the fact of his having married a Roman
Catholic, and allowed the practice of her religion
even in the private apartments at Whitehall and
St. James's, was enough to rouse their suspicious
indignation without the formal completion and
consecration of the Chapel of Inigo Jones, now
known as the Marlborough House, or German
Chapel. It is stated by one writer (Brayley,
Londiniana) that the Chapel was actually erected
for Katherine of Braganza, Queen of Charles the
Second, and that the first stone was laid by Don
Carlos Colonna. Another writer, criticizing this
statement (Dr. Rimbault, Notes and Queries),
suggests that the Chapel was only refitted for the
Portuguese Queen after the Cromwellian period.
The truth probably is that the Chapel remained
unfinished through the reign of Charles the First,
and was completed by Wren for the bride of
Charles the Second.
In the Court language of the period the use
of the word " Chapel " is very ambiguous : it is
as often employed to mean "royal ecclesiastical
establishment" as the building; and this ambiguity
has obviously misled some of these writers. The
troubles of Charles the First, both with France
218

Marlborough House
and with the Parliament, arose through the un
certain course which he pursued with regard to
the toleration and recognition of Roman Catholic
worship. When proposing his marriage with
Henrietta Maria, he had entered into an engage
ment with the English Parliament that nothing
should be said in the articles of marriage about
protection for the English Romanists. On 9th
April 1624, he had made a solemn declaration in
their presence that "whensoever it should please
God to bestow on him any lady that were popish,
she should have no further liberty but for her own
family, and no advantage to the recusants at home."
But Louis XIII. and Richelieu insisted that the
same solemn engagements on behalf of the English
Catholics, which had been given to the King of
Spain, should now be given to the King of France ;
and under the influence of Buckingham, Charles
gave way. He forced on his father. King James
the First, the abandonment of his promise to the
English Parliament ; and he obtained from the
French Government that the engagement about
the Romanists might be given in a secret article
apart from the public treaty. Hence, on the one
hand, the French were always disgusted that the
marriage treaty was not more fully carried out,
and especially at its violation by the expulsion of
Henrietta's unwieldy Romanist household, through 219

The Chapels Royal
which Richelieu had hoped to make an effective
papist colony in England ; and on the other, it
was a perpetual grievance to the Parliaments that
the laws against Romish recusants were not en
forced. On the whole, as there are no orders for
the completion of the Chapel in the reign of Charles
the First, it is most probable that it was really
finished after the Restoration.
The opening of the Chapel is thus described
by Pepys : "21st September 1662. Got up betimes,
and walked to St. James's. . . . The Queen
(Katherine of Braganza) coming in by her coach,
going to her Chapel at St. James's (the first time
it hath been ready for her), I crowded after her
(he was then aged thirty), and I got up to the
room where her closet is ; and there stood and
saw the fine altar, ornaments, and the friars in
their habits, and the priests come in with their
fine copes and many other very fine things. I
heard their music too ; which may be good, but
it did not appear so to me, neither as to their
manner of singing, nor was it good concord to
my ears, whatever the matter was. The Queen
very devout : but what pleased me best was to
see my dear Lady Castlemaine,' who, though a
^ Barbara Villiers, daughter of William, second Viscount
Grandison (nephew of George, first Duke of Buckingham),
married Roger Palmer, created Earl of Castlemaine by Charles
220

Marlborough House
Protestant, did wait upon the Queen to Chapel.
By and by, after mass was done, a friar with his
cowl did rise up and preach a sermon in Portuguese;
which I not understanding, did go away." Other
glimpses are given. "24th February 1663 (Ash
Wednesday). To the Queen's Chapel, where I
stayed and saw their mass, till a man come, and
bid me go out, or kneel down : so I did go out."
An interesting view of the simplicity and piety of
the excellent Queen Katherine of Braganza is in
the next record. "24th June 1664. To Whitehall;
and Mr. Pierce shewed me the Queen's bedchamber
and her closet, where she had nothing but some
pretty pious pictures, and books of devotion ; and
her holy water at her head as she sleeps, with a
clock by her bedside, wherein a lamp burns that
tells her the time of the night at any time. Thence
with him to the Park, and there met the Queen
coming from Chapel, with her Maids of Honour,
all in silver lace gowns again."
"15th April 1666. Walked into the Park to
the Queen's Chapel, and there heard a good deal
of their mass, and some of their music, which is
not so contemptible, I think, as our people would
make it, it pleasing me very well ; and indeed
the Second ; created Duchess of Cleveland ; ancestress through
her daughter, Lady Grace Fitzroy, Countess of Darlington, of the
Dukes of Cleveland, She joined the Roman Church. 221

The Chapels Royal
better than the anthem that I heard afterwards at
White Hall, at my coming back. I stayed till the
King (Charles the Second) went down to receive
the Sacrament, and stood in his closet with a great
many others, and there saw him receive it, which
I did never see the manner of before."
"25th November 1666. This being St.
Katherine's Day, the Queen was at mass by
seven o'clock this morning; and Mr. Ashburnham
do say that he never saw any one have so much
zeal in his life as she hath ; and (the question being
asked by my Lady Carteret) much beyond the
bigotry that ever the old Queene-Mother (Henrietta
Maria) had." (Bigotry here means uncompromising
genuine sincerity.)
" 24th December 1667. By coach to St. James's,
it being about six at night ; my design being to see
the ceremonies, this night being the eve of Christmas,
at the Queen's Chapel. I got in almost up to the
rail, and with a great deal of patience staid from
nine at night to two in the morning, in a very
great crowd ; and there expected, but found nothing
extraordinary, there being nothing but a high mass.
The Queen was there, and some high ladies. All
being done, I was sorry for my coming, and missing
of what I expected ; which was, to have had a child
born and dressed there, and a great deal of do :
but we broke up, and nothing like it done. And
222

Marlborough House
there I left people receiving the Sacrament : and
the Queen gone, and ladies ; only my Lady Castle
maine." There is a glimpse of Henrietta Maria's Chapel
Royal at Somerset House, on a date quoted before :
" 24th February, Ash Wednesday, 1663. Thence
to Somerset House; and there into the Chapel,
where Monsieur d'Espagne (one of Cromwell's
chaplains) used to preach. But now it is made
very fine, and was ten times more crowded than
the Queen's Chapel at St. James's, which I wonder
at." He need not have wondered, if he had known
or remembered the King's Order in Council, July
1662, against the overcrowding of that interesting
place of worship : it is quoted by the Sub-dean.
"On account of the flocking of Catholics to the
Chapel of the Queen at St. James's, no English
be allowed to attend these services, except the
officers of Her Majesty's Family (Household) and
their children, on pain of punishment ordered by
law." The Roman priest, Huddleston, who adminis
tered Extreme Unction and the Sacrament of the
Mass to Charles the Second on his death-bed at
Whitehall, records that he obtained the Host from
the Queen's Chapel at St. James's.'
Miss Strickland mentions, amongst James the
1 Huddleston's Brief Account.

The Chapels Royal
Second's other imprudences, the publicity with
which he immediately set up the Roman form of wor
ship. " The ostentatious parade with which James
thought proper to practise the ceremonials of his
Church, gave great offence to many of his subjects.
He was no longer contented with accompanying
his consort to her Chapel, but opened a (Roman)
Catholic Chapel in Whitehall, to which he insisted
on their both going in state to receive the sacrament,
attended by the great officers of their household." '
It was in the Queen's Chapel that the baptism
took place of the little son of James the Second
and Mary of Modena, whose birth had driven the
Protestant party to their final resolution. " In
the midst of these alarms the King, with his usual
want of tact, caused the Prince of Wales to be
christened in the (Roman) Catholic Chapel of St.
James's ; the Pope, represented by his Nuncio
Count d'Adda, being godfather, the Queen-dowager,
Katherine of Braganza, godmother. This cere
monial is noticed by one of the Court in these
words : ' The Prince of Wales was christened
yesterday, and called James Francis Edward.
The Catholic Court was fine, and the shew
great. The Sub-dean describes, with many interesting

^ Strickland's Queens of England, vol. iv. p. i6.
* Ibid., vol. V. p. 65.

224

Marlborough House
details, how, under William and Mary, this Chapel
was granted for the use of French and Dutch
Protestants ; and how Bishop Blomfield allowed it
to be used by the numerous foreign Protestants
who came to the Universal Exhibitions of 1851
and 1862. The fact that the French and Dutch
services (held at alternate hours), continued till
1834, seems to show that they took place in the
same building as those in the time of William
and Mary. It is necessary, again, to remember the
ambiguity of the word "Chapel": it sometimes means
the building, sometimes the establishment of the
special clergy and choir with their congregation.
In 1700 the Princess Anne and Prince George
of Denmark founded a German Lutheran Chapel ;
and it is not clear whether it was in a room at
St. James's Palace, or in the Chapel of Somerset
House, or, as seems more probable, some new
building "against" or adjoining the Queen's
Chapel, which was in the hands of the French
and Dutch. An exchange certainly took place
in 1 78 1 between the French and Dutch ministers
on the one hand, and the German Lutherans on
the other. Probably under the Hanoverians the
German Lutheran congregation became the larger,
and (if there were two buildings) needed the more
spacious. At the present day, the German Lutheran
P 225

The Chapels Royal
Chapel is generally known as the Chapel of
Marlborough House. The service of the English
Church is held there, as well as the German
Lutheran. The Sub-dean states that it was in this Chapel
that Queen Victoria's elder half-sister. Princess
Feodora, daughter of the Duchess of Kent by her
first husband, the Prince of Leiningen, was con
firmed in 1823, and married to the Prince of
Hohenlohe-Langenburg in 1828.
Another service was added to those held in
this Chapel in 1881 ; that is, one on Sunday after
noons at 4.30 for Danish Lutherans. The petition
for this service was supported by Alexandra,
Princess of Wales.
One of the most important events in the
Chapel in recent years was a very impressive
memorial service in German for the late Emperor
Frederick, on Sunday, 24th June 1888.

226

X & XI
THE PRIVATE CHAPELS AT WINDSOR
CASTLE AND BUCKINGHAM PALACE

THE PRIVATE CHAPELS AT WINDSOR
CASTLE AND BUCKINGHAM PALACE
|HE Private Chapel at Windsor
Castle dates from the recon
struction by Wyatt in the time
of George the Fourth. Its
principal feature is an octagon,
panelled in white and gold, with
small galleries under low Tudor arches. The
gallery of the Sovereign is exactly opposite the
corresponding gallery which serves as pulpit.
When the Sovereign resides at Windsor, this is
where the Sunday morning service and sermon
take place. The preachers are suggested by the
Dean of Windsor, and approved by the Sovereign.
Those in later days whom Queen Victoria liked
best to hear were Bishop Boyd Carpenter, Dean
Stanley, Dean Vaughan, Canon Fleming, and the
present Archbishop of Canterbury (Davidson). 229

The Chapels Royal
The preacher always wore the black gown ; and
before service he was required to write out his
text in a clear hand, to be placed on the Queen's
cushion. The Private Chapel at Buckingham Palace is
a small oblong hall in classical style, with classical
pillars and decorations. Among the marriages
which have taken place there are that of the
present Princess Royal to the late Duke of Fife
(27th July 1896) ; the present Queen Maud of
Norway to King Haacon, then Prince Charles
of Denmark (22nd July 1896) ; and Princess
Augusta of Cambridge to H.R.H. Frederick
William, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-StreHtz
(28th June 1843).

230

XII
ST. MARGARET'S CHAPEL,
EDINBURGH CASTLE

ST. MARGARET'S CHAPEL,
EDINBURGH CASTLE
HIS great historic fortress was
known in ancient days as the
Maidens' or Maiden Castle. Of
this name Camden gives the
following explanation. The
Britons called it Castel Mynedh
Agneth, the Maidens' or Virgins' Castle, because
certain young maidens of the royal blood were
kept there in old times. The source of this oft-
repeated story has probably been the assertion
of Conchubhranus, that an Irish saint or recluse,
named Monena, late in the fifth century, founded
seven churches in Scotland, on the heights of
Dunedin, Dumbarton, and elsewhere. This may
have been the Monena of Sliabh-Cuillin, who died
in 510 A.D. The site of her edifice is supposed
to be that now occupied by the Chapel of St.
233

The Chapels Royal
Margaret, the most ancient piece of masonry in
the Scottish Capital, and it is a curious circum
stance, with special reference to the legend of the
Pictish Princesses, that close by it (as recorded
by the Caledonian Mercury, 26th September 1853),
when some excavations were made, a number of
human bones, apparently all of females, were found,
together with the remains of several coffins.
All old historians vie with each other in praise
of Scotland's saintly Queen, Margaret, sister of
Edgar Atheling, daughter of Edward the Outlaw
(by the daughter of the Emperor Henry the Third),
granddaughter of Edmund Ironside, and great-
niece of Edward the Confessor. "When health
and beauty were hers," says one writer, "she
devoted her strength to serve the poor and un
cultivated people whom God had committed to
her care ; she fed them with her own hand,
smoothed their pillow in sickness, and softened
the barbarous and iron rule of their lords. No
wonder that they regarded her as a guardian angel
among them." " She daily fed three hundred,"
says another authority, "waiting upon them on her
bended knees like a housemaid, washing their feet,
and kissing them. For these and other expenses
she not only parted with her own royal dresses,
but more than once she drained the treasury."
King Malcolm Canmore, her husband, a Celt,
234

Edinburgh Castle
and unlettered, was unable to read the missals
given him by his fair-haired Saxon Queen, but was
wont to kiss them and press them to his heart in
token of love and respect.
In the Castle of Edinburgh she built the little
oratory which still exists, on the very summit of
the rock. It stands within the citadel, and is in
perfect preservation, measuring about 26 feet by
10, and is spanned by a finely ornamented arch
for the apse, that springs from massive capitals,
and is covered with zigzag mouldings. This Chapel
was dedicated to her in after years, and liberally
endowed. Malcolm and Margaret had six sons and two
daughters. Of the sons, Edward the eldest was
killed with his father at the siege of Alnwick ;
Edmund the Second was associated with his uncle,
Donald Bane, in the throne, as successor to
Malcolm, to the exclusion of the rightful heirs ;
Ethelred became Abbot of Dunkeld and Earl of
Fife; Edgar, Alexander, and David, all three
became distinguished Kings of Scotland. Of the
daughters, Matilda married King Henry the First
of England, and became mother of the Empress
Maud, mother of Henry the Second ; and Mary
married Eustace, Count of Boulogne. St. Mar
garet took the greatest pains with the instruction
of her children, from their earliest years instilling 235

The Chapels Royal
into their young hearts the principles of religion
and equity. She ruled her household with the
utmost wisdom, attending to her servants, and
setting them an example. The King was led by
her to love God's service, and to unite with her
in reforming many ecclesiastical abuses which
disfigured the Church in Scotland. An ancient
writer says : " She excited the King to do works
of justice, mercy, alms-deeds, and other virtues ;
in all which, by divine grace, she induced him
to comply with her pious desires. For he, seeing
that Christ dwelt in the heart of his Queen, was
always willing to follow her advice."
Within sight of Edinburgh Castle there is
a medicinal spring, known as the Balm Well of
St. Catherine, where bituminous oil, rising from
the coal seams, floats on the top of the water.
Legend says that St. Margaret commissioned her
friend or patroness, St. Catherine, to bring her some
oil from Mount Sinai. After long and sore travel
from the rocks of Mount Horeb, the saint arrived
at this spot, on the ridge where stood the Church of
St. Mary, built by Macbeth, Baron of Libberton,
but let fall the vessel containing the sacred oil ;
hence the spring. Close by it, James the Fourth
erected a beautiful little Chapel dedicated to St.
Margaret, but long since demolished. The legends
about St. Catherine of Alexandria represent her
236

Edinburgh Castle
body as having been buried at Mount Sinai. The
probability is that Queen Margaret brought the
medicinal properties of the spring into notice ; that,
as it was on a rocky ridge, she called it, with
devout fancy, the Well of Moses on Sinai ; and
that as St. Catherine was said to be buried on
that sacred mountain, she associated the spring
with some kind of devotion to the Saint.
During King William's absence at the siege of
Alnwick, the Queen, by the severity of her fastings
and vigils, increased a heavy illness under which
she laboured. Two days before her death. Prince
Edgar arrived from the Scottish camp with tidings
that Malcolm had been slain, with her son Edward.
Then, writes her biographer Turgot, lifting up
her eyes and hands towards Heaven, she said :
" Praise and blessing be to Thee, Almighty God,
that Thou hast been pleased to make me endure
so bitter anguish in the hour of my departure,
whereby I trust to purify me in some measure
from the corruption of my sins ; and Thou, Lord
Jesus Christ, Who through the will of the Father
hast brought life to the world by Thy death, oh
deliver me ! " While pronouncing the last words,
she died. This, says Turgot (Bishop of St.
Andrews, formerly Prior of Durham), was after
she had heard Mass in the present little oratory,
and been borne to the Tower on the west side of
237

The Chapels Royal
the rock. She died holding in her hand a relic
known as the Black Rood of Scotland, which,
according to St. ^Ired, was a Cross an ell long,
of pure gold and wonderful workmanship, having
thereon an ivory figure of the Saviour, marvellously
adorned with gold. This was on the i6th of
November 1093, in the forty-seventh year of her age.
History declares that with the majesty of a
Queen and the meekness of a saint, Margaret
possessed a beauty that falls but seldom to the
lot of women ; and in her time she did much
to soften the barbarism of the Scottish Court.
She was magnificent in her own attire; she
increased the number of persons in attendance on
the King, and caused him to be served at table
with gold and silver plate. She was canonized by
Pope Innocent the Fourth in 1251. For several
ages the room in which she died was known as
"Theblessit Margaret's chalmer." A fountain on
the west side of the Castle long bore her name ;
and a small guard-house on the western rampart
is still called The Queen's, or St. Margaret's, Post.
The complete restoration of her oratory, says
an Edinburgh Courant of 1853, has been effected
in a very satisfactory manner under the super
intendence of Mr. Grant. The modern western
entrance has been built up, and an ancient one
opened in the north-west corner of the nave. Here
238

Edinburgh Castle
a new doorway has been built in the same style
as the rest of the building. The three small
round-headed windows have been filled up with
stained glass : the light in the south side of the
apse representing St. Margaret, the two in the side
of the nave showing her husband. King Malcolm
Canmore, and her son, St. David. The light in
the west gable of the nave has a cross, the sacred
monogram, and this inscription : " Haec aedicula,
olim Beatae Margaretae Reginae Scotiae (capella),
ingratae patriae negligentia lapsa, Victoriae Reginae
prognatae auspiciis restituta, a.d. mdcccliii."
(" This little building, once the Chapel of St.
Margaret, Queen of Scotland, decayed through the
neglect of an ungrateful country, was restored under
the hand of Queen Victoria, a.d. 1853.")
The body of the Queen was reverently conveyed
to Dunfermline ; and it was regarded as an in
terposition of Heaven that a heavy mist concealed
the bishop, the royal corpse, and the awe-stricken
bearers from the half-savage Donald and red-
haired Islesmen until they had crossed in safety
the Passagium Reginae or Queen's Ferry, nine
miles distant, where Margaret had granted land
for the maintenance of a passage-boat ; a grant
still in force.
She was buried in Dunfermline Abbey, under
the great block of grey marble which still marks 239

The Chapels Royal
her grave ; and in the sides of it may yet be seen
the sockets of the silver lamps, which, after her
canonization, burned there until the Reformation,
when the Abbot of Dunfermline fled to the Castle
of Edinburgh with her head in a jewelled coffer,
and gave it to some Jesuits, who conveyed it to
Antwerp. From thence it was borne to the
Escurial in Spain, where King Philip the Second
built a Chapel for its reception, and it is still
preserved by the monks of St. Jerome.
Her son Edgar, a prince of talent and valour,
recovered the throne by his sword from the usurper
Donald, and took up his residence in the Castle
of Edinburgh, where he had seen his mother
expire. He died on the 8th of January 1 107.
David the First, about 1143, granted the
Church in the Castle to the monks of Holyrood.
In 1 1 77 Cardinal Vivian, on his return from
Ireland, convoked a Council of Scottish prelates
to the Castle. In 11 80 Alexander, the Papal
Nuncio, summoned thither bishops, abbots, and
other religious men, and caused the consecration
of John to the See of St. Andrews, by Matthew,
Bishop of Aberdeen.'
Robert the Bruce undertook the repair of St.
Margaret's Chapel; in 1329 ;;^20 had been spent
on the fabric.^
^ Royal Palaces of Scotland. ^
240

•yvt.y^ci4^a.cx4£^ uAc^^^.

Edinburgh Castle
Before 1366, a Chapel of St. Mary had been
built in the Castle for the use of the inhabitants,
St. Margaret's Chapel being so exceedingly small.
In that year Robert the Second founded a bene
faction in . St. Margaret's Chapel for masses for
the souls of himself, his Queen Euphemia, Kings
Robert and David Bruce, and all Kings his
ancestors and successors. The same year this
was confirmed by Robert the Third, who named
also the priest who should serve in the new St.
Mary's. Probably one priest served both. St.
Mary's became known as the Garrison Church.'
In the reign of James the Fourth, Edinburgh
Castle ceased to be a royal residence.'
1 Royal Palaces of Scotland.

Q

241

XIII
HOLYROOD ABBEY

HOLYROOD ABBEY
[HE beautiful ruin, which is now
left roofless and exposed to every
pitiless blast of wind and rain
that beats upon it from the cold
North Sea or the Pentland Hills,
is mournfully typical of the for
tunes of the royal family of the Stuarts with which
its history is entwined. Robert the Third was the
first King who made the Abbey his residence;
James the Seventh the last who lived in it con
secutively. The origin of the Abbey of the Holy Rood, or
Cross, is a legend of miracle. The story is of
David the First, one of the ablest of the Scottish
Kings, son of Malcolm Canmore, the supporter of
the Empress Maud against Stephen ; Founder of
the Sees of Brechin, Dunblane, Caithness, Ross, 245

The Chapels Royal
and Aberdeen ; Founder of the burghs of Edin
burgh, Berwick, Roxburgh, Stirling, and Perth ;
the introducer into Scotland of the new regular
orders of monastic clergy^ especially the Cistercians ;
who made feudal law the law of his country, organ
ized a feudal court, and established the office of
Chancellor for the administration of the laws, and
the publishing of the royal charters. He was
hunting one day in the forest of Drumsheugh, now
partly covered by the streets of Edinburgh. His
followers had been left behind, when in a narrow
glade he was attacked and thrown by a stag at bay.
He was on the point of being gored to death, when
a cross miraculously slid into the King's hand, and
the enraged animal took to flight. Of this tradition
there are various versions : one is that of Bellenden,
who says that the event took place on the feast of
the Exaltation of the Cross ; the King, following
the desire of his heedless young nobles, and re
pudiating the advice of his confessor, took to the
chase instead of devoting himself to private medita
tions.' David, to commemorate his miraculous
escape, founded the Abbey of Holy Rood, in honour
of the Holy Cross, the Virgin Mary, and All Saints,
endowing it for Canons Regular, under the rule
1 Scott's Provincial Antiquities : . Prose Works, vii. 284 ;
Jamieson's Royal Palaces, p. 81; Bellenden's Boece, bk. xii.
c. xvi.
246

Holyrood Abbey ^
of St. Augustine, and conferring on it rich endow
ments in lands and privileges. *
The building of the Abbey was begun in
1 1 28 A.D. ; the Chapel, which is by far the oldest
part of the building now remaining, was probably
taken in hand soon after that date.' The miraculous
Cross, which had saved the life of the Founder,
held a conspicuous place in the reHquary. It was
said to be of so remarkable a quality, that none
could devise the material of which it consisted,
or even decide whether it had more affinity to the
animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom. It was
reconstructed by Abbot Crawford about 1460.
Of the early buildings of the Canons there is
no means of knowing the nature or extent. Evi
dences of wealth are found in important localities
which belonged to them, such as the Canon Mills,
to the north of Edinburgh, near the Water of Leith,
where the tenants of the princely monks were bound
to bring their grain to be ground. The Canons
had the privilege of erecting a burgh between the
Abbey and the nearest gate of the city ; the main
street of which, a communication with the old High
Street, is still called the Canongate. It was not
till 1636 that feudal superiority over this ecclesi
astical suburb was obtained by the City of
Edinburgh; and it remained long afterwards a
^ Preface to Liber Cartarum Sanctae Crucis. 247

The Chapels Royal
separate sub-corporation, with its own magistrates,
and system of local taxation.
When the Abbey became actually a Palace is
indistinct. Robert the Bruce and other Kings held
councils or parliaments in Holyrood. In 1381 the
Abbey received a distinguished foreigner as guest
of the nation in the person of John of Gaunt, Duke
of Lancaster, nephew of Joan, wife of David the
Second and daughter of Edward the Second of
England, and grandfather of Joan Beaufort, who
in 1423 married James the First of Scotland.
John of Gaunt's Palace of Savoy had been burned
down by the Tyler rioters, and for a time it was
prudent that he should live out of the country.
He was received with royal honours, the heir-
apparent, the Earl of Carrick, afterwards Robert
the Third, acting as host. When in 1385 Richard
the Second sacked Edinburgh, he spared Holyrood
at the intercession of John of Gaunt, in gratitude
of the hospitality with which he had been received.'
The Kings of Scotland exercised the right of
bringing their Court to reside at times in the
different Abbeys which they had founded, or to
which they had been benefactors : Dunfermline,
Scone, or Perth. In 1371, David the Second, the
unfortunate son of Robert the Bruce, after his
captivity in England, was buried near the high
^ Sir Herbert Maxwell's Holyrood House, p. 85.
248

Holyrood Abbey
altar. It has been already mentioned that Robert
the Third, the second Stuart King (through his
grandmother Marjory, daughter of Robert the
Bruce), seems to have been the first to use
Holyrood as a residence. His able and energetic
son, James the First, occasionally kept his court
there ; in the Abbey House his Queen, Joan
Beaufort, was delivered of twin sons, i6th October
1430. An interesting scene took place in the
Chapel in his time. Alexander, Lord of the Isles,
who had been in rebellion, suddenly appeared
before the King and Queen at service on the eve
of St. Augustine, clad only in his shirt and
drawers. Holding a naked sword by the point,
he knelt before the King, and craved pardon. His
life was spared, and he was imprisoned for a time
in Tantallon Castle. He became Justiciary north of
the Forth during the minority of James the Second.'
James the First's son, James the Second, who, like
his father, was a capable and reforming ruler, was
born, crowned (at the age of six and a half years),
and married at Holyrood ; ^ and his remains were
brought there for burial after his disastrous death
through the bursting of a piece of ordnance at the
^ Sir Herbert Maxwell's Holyrood House, p. 87.
2 He married Mary of Gueldres ; and the French chronicler
gives an enthusiastic account of the marriage feast. It lasted four
or five hours, and wine flowed like sea-water.
249

The Chapels Royal
siege of Roxblirgh Castle in 1460. James the Third
was married at Holyrood to Margaret of Norway,
whose dowry was Orkney and Shetland,' but he was
buried at the Abbey of Cambuskenneth. James
the Fourth, the brother-in-law of Henry VIII.,
determined at last to erect a regular palace on a
site which had become so convenient. Between
1498 and 1 50 1 the work was got in hand, and
in 1503 was far enough advanced to receive
Princess Margaret of England, then in her
fourteenth year, as the child bride of the Scottish
King, then thirty-one. A most minute account
of the wedding festivities was kept by John
Younger, Somerset Herald, who was in the train
of the infant Princess ; "it has long been the
delight of antiquaries," says Sir Herbert Maxwell,
"by reason of the vivid picture it preserves of
the habits of the time." It is quoted by Maxwell,
and at much greater length by Miss Strickland
(Queens of Scotland). When the brilliant pro
cession had reached the Abbey Church, every one
leaped off" his horse, and passed in orderly pro
cession within. The King and Queen lighted
down ; and he took the Queen by the body, doing
humble reverence, and led her to the great altar.
They both knelt down together, and passed into
1 Orkney and Shetland were pledged for the payment of her
dowry. The dowry was never paid, and they were never redeemed.
250

Holyrood Abbey
the Palace through the cloister, the King bare
headed, and always holding the Queen by the body.
Next day, 8th August, the King sat in state on
a magnificent throne in a superb chamber to receive
the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of Durham,
the Earl of Surrey, and other English lords, who,
after being presented, brought in the Queen. The
marriage service was performed in the Abbey
Church by the Archbishop of Glasgow, after which
Te Deum was sung ; and when all the ceremonies
had been accomplished, bread and wine were
brought in by the lords in rich pots and rich
cups. Afterwards they repaired to a magnificent
feast in six chambers. The child Queen was served
with wild boar's head, pork, and ham, followed by
twelve divers dishes besides. After dinner the
minstrels played, and the King, Queen, ladies,
knights, gentlemen, and gentlewomen all danced.
Also some good bodies made games of passe passe,'
and did very well. Next day there was a great
tournament, and the festivities continued till the 14th.
In 1507 an interesting scene took place in the
church, when the papal legate. Bishop Forman,
and the Abbot of Dunfermline delivered to James
a sWord of state, an embroidered belt, and a con
secrated hat, from Pope Julius the Second. Pope
1 Either fencing, or the game of Pall-mall, in which the iron
hoop was called the Pass.
251

The Chapels Royal
Leo the Tenth caused the same honour to be done
to Henry the Eighth in St. Paul's Cathedral in 1514.
After the death of James the Fourth on Flodden
Field, his body was buried at Richmond in Surrey.
The oldest extant part of the Palace bears inscribed
on it the name of James the Fifth ; there is also an
entry in the Lord Treasurer's accounts of 1 530 :
Item, To the Egyptians that danced before the
King in Holyrood House, 40 shillings.
In 1534 James the Fifth presided at a meeting
in the Abbey of Ecclesiastical Commissioners for
the Extirpation of Heresy. Some of the accused
recanted ; the bishops declared that the King had
no prerogative of mercy, and two unhappy victims
were burned on the Calton Hill, in view of the
Palace — David Straiton, a gentleman of Forfar
shire, and Nicholas Gourlay, a priest. The
Emperor, Charles the Fifth, gave James the
Golden Fleece, the King of France gave him the
Order of St. Michael; and on 21st February 1536
he was invested in the Abbey Church "with great
solemnity," with the Order of the Garter, the gift
of his uncle, Henry the Eighth. James was the
first Scottish King to receive this distinction.
In 1537 James brought home his bride,
Magdalen, eldest daughter of Francis the First
of France. She was consumptive, and within
eight weeks was buried in the Abbey. It was
252

Holyrood Abbey
the first occasion of a general public mourning
in Scotland. In June 1538 he married his second wife,
Mary of Guise, who was crowned in the Abbey
on 22nd February. The two boys whom she
bore were both buried in Holyrood in 1541.
In 1542 James died at Falkland Palace, broken
hearted after the defeat of Solway Moss, leaving
an infant daughter, Mary Queen of Scots, and
was buried in the Abbey beside his first wife,
Magdalen of France.
In the accounts of 1542 there is an entry of
;^4oo Scots to Sir David Murray of Balmaird
as compensation for lands at Duddingston, " taken
into the new park beside Holyrood House " ; from
which it would appear that the royal deer park
included the mountain range of Arthur's Seat
and Salisbury Crags, and penetrated into the
wooded country towards the south.
In 1544 the English army invading Scotland
for Henry VIII. under Lord Hertford, brother
of Queen Jane Seymour, and afterwards Duke
of Somerset and Protector, burned down the
domestic buildings of the Abbey, but the Chapel
escaped. One of Hertford's officers, Sir Richard
Lee, carried off to St. Albans, Hertfordshire, two
treasures of Holyrood : the great brass font, the
gift of Abbot Robert Bellenden, which Lee placed 253

The Chapels Royal
in St. Albans Abbey; and the brass eagle kctern
which he gave to St. Stephen's Church in the
same town. The font was melted down hy sacri
legious hands in the Civil War of the seventeenth
century ; the lectern was buried by the clergy of
St. Stephen's, and dug up in 1750. It was given
to Holyrood by Abbot Crichton, after he became
Bishop of Dunkeld.
In 1547 Hertford, now Duke of Somerset,
renewed his invasion, and stripped the lead from
the roof of the church.
In 1569 Lord Robert Stewart, natural son of
James the Fifth, was Commendator, or Lay Abbot
of Holyrood. He exchanged temporalities with
Adam, Bishop of Orkney, and succeeded in having
the lands of the bishopric erected into an earldom
for himself. Adam, now Abbot of Holyrood, when
on his defence before the General Assembly (the
Parliament which had carried through the Reforma
tion had met in 1560), incidentally described the
state of the Abbey Church. For twenty years it
had been ruinous through the decay of the two
eastern pillars where the choir, transepts, and
nave met, so that nobody was safe under it; not
;^2ooo would make it fit for hearing the Word
and administration of the sacraments. With their
consent, and the help of the proper authority, he
proposed to pull down the Choir and Transepts,
254

Holyrood Abbey
and with the price of their materials to repair the
Nave. So the Choir and Transepts perished. The
tombs of the Kings and Queens before the high
altar were removed to a vault at the south-east
angle of the Nave. The Nave was converted into
the Parish Church of the Canongate.
Mary had arrived from France in her capital
in 1 56 1, and had found the Reformed service of
the Book of Common Prayer, which the Scottish
Reformers at first accepted, instead of the mass.
It was not said in peace, for the French officers
of, Mary of Guise used to attend, with a view of
talking and laughing so loud that the preacher
could not be heard. The Palace had been repaired
by the Scottish Government : James the Fifth's
Tower had been restored, and a new wing built
between it and the church. The first evening
Mary was serenaded by a band of violins and
rebecs, and psalms were lustily sung by a large
company. The Abbey having become the Parish
Church of the Canongate, she had mass celebrated
in a small private Chapel. An angry crowd
surrounded the door with a view of murdering
the priest, but were kept at bay by Mary's
legitimated brother, Lord James Stuart (after
wards the Regent Moray), who had great in
fluence with the Lords of the Congregation and 255

The Chapels Royal
the Protestant party ; when service was ended
the priest was protected by the two other brothers.
Lord James and Lord Robert, who escorted him
to his chamber. This demonstration was followed
next Sunday by an energetic sermon from John
Knox against any masses whatever. Knox's inter
view with Mary left both unconvinced, and when
at the end of three weeks she set out on her
first royal progress, hearing her private mass at
the places where she stayed, Knox continued to
declaim against the practice.
It is not within the limits of a sketch concerned
with the Church of Holyrood Abbey, to trace the
follies and indiscretions which led to the tragic
downfall of the unfortunate Queen. It is enough
to say that in September 1564, appeared Matthew,
Earl of Lennox, after twenty-five years of exile,
to press the suit of his son. Lord Darnley, who
through his mother, Margaret Douglas (daughter
of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scotland, and sister
of Henry the Eighth), stood nearest after Mary
herself to the English throne. Mary was taken
with " the lustiest and best proportioned long man
that she had seen ; for he was of a high stature,
long and slim, well set up, and well instructed from
his youth in all honest and comely exercises."
She danced with him, stayed with him two days
at Seton, wandered about the town with him at
256

¦iS^, ' fc1>*«S''5ir— .

Holyrood Abbey
night in disguise, and when, on 22nd July 1565,
the papal dispensation had arrived to annul the
bar of consanguinity (they were first cousins), they
were married as soon as might be on Sunday
the 29th, at 6 a.m., in the Queen's private Chapel
in the Palace of Holyrood, according to the Roman
rites, by the Bishop of Brechin. Next morning,
without consent of Parliament, she unwisely had
him proclaimed Henry, King of Scots, and an
nounced that henceforth all letters should run in
the name of King Henry and Queen Mary. None
said " God save his Grace ! " except his father,
Lennox. Darnley was nineteen ; Mary, twenty-
three. The marriage was soon found to be disastrous
and impossible. " Intemperate, and violent in his
cups, intolerably haughty to nobles, overbearing
and cruel to inferiors, he had earned the hatred of
all men, except his immediate sycophants ; more
over, the grossness of his unveiled licentiousness
put grievous affront upon the Queen. He took
deep umbrage, because, having received the kingly
title, his name was not given precedence over the
Queen's upon the coinage and in public acts. He
absented himself for long periods from Holyrood,
' in hunting and hawking, and other such pleasures
as were agreeable to his appetite.'
1 Sir Herbert Maxwell's Official Guide.
R 257

The Chapels Royal
On the 9th of March following the marriage
(1566) came the murder of the powerful favourite
Rizzio, while Mary was at supper in a closet-room
off her bedchamber. Five persons were present:
Queen Mary, Lady Jane Stuart, Countess of Argyll
(her half-sister, legitimated daughter of James the
Fifth), Rizzio, Lord Robert Stuart, and Arthur
Erskine (Captain of the Guard). Suddenly Darnley
burst into the room, from the private winding
staircase, followed by Lord Ruthven, pale with
illness. Douglas, Earl of Morton, had secured
the Palace gates, and arrived with his band
through the gallery and bedchamber. George
Douglas (future Bishop of Moray), and others
crowded up the private staircase. Rizzio was
torn, shrieking, from behind the Queen's dress,
and murdered at the outer door of the Chamber
of Presence, pierced by many wounds. Darnley
returned, reproaching his wife with infidelity with
Rizzio since the previous September. Mary's
friends, Huntly, Atholl, Bothwell, and others,
fled for safety, and Mary was kept a close
prisoner in her own Palace, Next morning she
stood with Darnley over the grave of Rizzio in
the Abbey Church.
On Monday, loth February 1567, at 2 o'clock
in the morning, a terrific explosion was heard at
a small house on the outskirts of Edinburgh called
258

Holyrood Abbey
Kirk-o'-Field, where Darnley had been lodged
about a fortnight to recover from an illness, as
the air was reputed good. Mary herself had
brought him back from Glasgow, where he had
been staying in his father's castle, while she and
Bothwell had been paying country visits. The
explosion destroyed the little house, and the bodies
of Darnley and his page were found several yards
away in the garden, without trace of smoke or
grime. The eleven months since Rizzio's murder
had been a time of great unhappiness between
Mary and Darnley; but the day before the ex
plosion, Sunday, Mary spent several hours with
him, "very familiarly." In the meantime Bothwell
and his accomplices were filling the room below
with gunpowder. Next day, Tuesday, Margaret
Garwood, Mary's favourite chamberwoman, was
married in Holyrood, and Mary provided the
wedding-feast. On Saturday, the fifth day after
the murder, "without any kind of solemnity or
mourning heard among all the persons at Court,"
the body of Darnley was buried by night beside
that of his father-in-law, James the Fifth, in the
Abbey Church. Next day, Sunday, Mary went
to Seton, returning to Holyrood on the 19th.
Broadsheets were now all over Edinburgh,
charging Bothwell with the deed; and Bothwell
continued high in Mary's favour. It was not till
259

The Chapels Royal
23rd March, when Archbishop Beaton, Catherine
de Medici, Lennox, Queen Elizabeth, and others
had written warning Mary of the views taken
of her conduct, that a Requiem Mass for Darnley
was sung at Holyrood. On 12th April a mock
trial of Bothwell was held, the town being filled
with his armed retainers. On 19th April, at the
rising of Parliament, Bothwell bore the sword of
state in the procession back to Holyrood. On
2 1 St April, as Mary was riding back from Stirling,
where she had been visiting her infant son,'^
Bothwell carried her off to Dunbar. There was
a difficulty in the way of marriage, but in that
age only a slight one : Bothwell was already
married to an excellent Countess, Jean, daughter
of the formerly powerful George, fourth Earl of
Huntly. In papal times, marriages could always
be dissolved by the Roman Court on the plea
of consanguinity, and the payment of a large
fee : on 7th May arrived the necessary dissolution
from the complaisant Pope Pius the Fifth, after
wards canonized. Bothwell had been through
previous matrimonial adventures, but it seems
that consanguinity was the allegation. Countess
Jean found a happy home with Alexander, the
eleventh Earl of Sutherland, and is still remem-
^ He was born 19th June 1566, nearly three months after the
murder of Rizzio.
260

Holyrood Abbey
bered in that county for her wise and able rule
during the minority of her son. She became
ancestress of the Earls and Diikes of Sutherland
and all their numerous descendants. On 15th
May, only three months and five days since his
murder of Darnley, Bothwell and Mary were
married in the Abbey Church, according to the
Reformed rites, by Adam Bothwell, Titular Bishop
of Orkney. In three weeks' time, 6th June, Mary
left Holyrood for the last time, flying with her
husband to Borthwick Castle, "to escape the
vengeance of an outraged nation. On the 15th
Mary parted with Bothwell for ever, on Carberry
Hill, in presence of the army of the Confederate
Lords.'" " Her dauntless spirit, combining with the
membry of her surpassing beauty, her matchless
charm, her kindly ways, has effaced the dubious
traits in her character; so that it has come
to pass that Holyrood Palace is more closely
associated with Mary Queen of Scots than with
any other that has lived therein ; and visitors
dwell lovingly upon every memorial of her that
remains."^ James the Sixth, as stated before, was born on
19th June 1566, in Edinburgh Castle, and crowned
a year afterwards, on his mother's abdication, 24th
^ Sir Herbert Maxwell's Official Guide, p. 142.
261

The Chapels Royal
July 1567, at Stirling Castle. At Stirling he passed
his childhood ; but when his cousin, Esm^, sixth
Seigneur D'Aubigny and first Duke of Lennox,
was sent over from France in 1579 to replace John
Stewart, fourth Earl of Atholl, as head of the
Catholic party, James from the first conceived a
strong affection for him, and Esm^'s influence
became so predominant that he was able to take
the King for a first visit to his capital. James
took up his quarters at Holyrood, appointed Esmd
Lord High Chamberlain, and shortly afterwards
created him Duke of Lennox.
On ist May 1590 James landed at Leith, after
an absence of six months, bringing with him his
bride, Anne, daughter of Frederick the Second,
King of Denmark and Norway, by Sophia,
daughter of Ulric the Third, Duke of Mecklen
burg. Ever since 1585 negotiations for this
marriage had been in progress, but they were
hindered by the objections of Queen Elizabeth.
At length the wedding was celebrated by proxy
at Copenhagen on 20th August 1589. The bride,
on her voyage to Scotland, was driven by a storm
to Norway; the impatient James sailed to find
her, and discovered her near the modern Chris-
tiania. There, on 23rd November, they were
married. After their arrival in Edinburgh, Queen
Anne was crowned and anointed in Holyrood on
262

Holyrood Abbey
the 17th, and festivities were continued for a
whole month. When the Presbyterian clergy of
Edinburgh protested against the anointing as a
mere Jewish ceremony, the King dexterously sent
for Andrew Melville, and asked him to pronounce
an oration in the service, which he accomplished
in verse "to the great admiration of the hearers,
and the exceeding joy and contentment of both
their Majesties."'
In 1594 the eldest son of James and Anne,
Prince Henry, whose death in his nineteenth year
cut short a life of the utmost promise, was baptized
at Holyrood. On this occasion the Magistrates
of Edinburgh sent ten tuns of wine to replenish
the royal cellars. As a mark of recognition, at
the baptism in November 1596 of Princess
Elizabeth (the future Queen of Bohemia), the
King invited them to be present : whereupon they
promised a wedding gift of 10,000 merks. When,
in 1 61 3, Elizabeth married Frederick, Prince
Palatine, they increased this sum to 15,000.^
On Saturday, 26th March 1603, James was roused
from sleep before midnight, by the news of Queen
Elizabeth's death, brought by Sir Robert Carey, who
rode four hundred miles in sixty-two hours. On
Sunday, 3rd April, after sermon in St. Giles's
Cathedral, the King addressed the congregation,
1 Maxwell, p. 147. " Maxwell, p. 152. 263

The Chapels Royal
and promised he would visit Holyrood every
third year.
It was fourteen years before he returned, in
1 617. Immense preparations were made by the
Lords of the Privy Council : amongst other plans,
the Abbey Church (Chapel Royal) was to be decor
ated by London tradesmen. Inigo Jones had
charge of the work : there were to be pictures of
the Apostles, of Faith, Hope, and Charity, and
other such religious representations. The people
objected, and became so threatening that the
bishops wrote to the King begging that the
erection of these figures might be postponed.
However, "a glorious altar was set up, with
two closed Bibles, two unlightened candles,
and two basons without water, set thereon."
For the first time since the Reformation the
Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was adminis
tered to kneeling communicants. James openly
announced a policy of universal conformity
with the Church of England, which became the
seed of unlimited disasters in the coming time.'
On 28th June 161 7 he left Holyrood, to return
no more.
The next royal visit was that of Charles the
First in 1633. He had intended to come earlier;
but he had been deterred by the extreme un-
1 Maxwell, p. 156.
264

Holyrood Abbey
popularity of his Act of Revocation of 1626, by
which he recalled all grants of Crown lands made
since the death of James the Fifth in 1542. The
day after his arrival, service was performed in the
Chapel Royal by Bishop Bellenden of Dunblane.
On Tuesday, the i8th, Charles was crowned in
Holyrood with much splendour. A minute account
of the ceremony is given by Sir James Balfour in
his Annals : he was Lyon-King-at-Arms ; for an
epitome of it the reader may be referred to Sir
Herbert Maxwell's very interesting Official Guide.
On 24th June, St. John Baptist's Day, King
Charles attended with the bishops in the Chapel
Royal, and after the English service, touched about
one hundred persons that were troubled with the
King's evil (scrofula), putting round the neck of
each a piece of gold, coined for the purpose,
and hung by a white silk riband. He erected
Edinburgh into a bishopric, and attached to the
see the parish of Holyrood House, and much of
the old Abbey lands.
In the autumn of the same year. Bishop
Bellenden, as Dean of the Chapel Royal, received
orders that the English service was to be per
formed twice daily in the Chapel ; that he should
preach in a surplice on Sundays and feast days ;
that the communion should be received kneeling ;
and that Privy Councillors, Judges, and State 265

The Chapels Royal
Officials should so receive it in the Chapel Royal
once a year. Bellenden, finding this decree im
practicable, was sent to Aberdeen, and Dr. Wed-
derburn. Prebendary of Wells, was appointed
his successor.
In October 1636 came Charles's letter to
Archbishop Spottiswoode, commanding that the
English Common Prayer, with some alterations
in a High Church direction by Archbishop Laud,
should be used in every church in Scotland. The
day appointed for the first reading in St. Giles's
Cathedral was 23rd August 1637. The service
was attended by both the Archbishops, several
bishops, the Privy Councillors, and the Lords of
Session ; but the congregation rose in tumult,
drove out the Dean, and pelted him with stones
and refuse as he struggled back to Holyrood.^
A general supplication, begging for liberty
of worship, was answered by a proclamation at
Stirling in February 1638, declaring the petition
illegal, and that further remonstrance would be
held as treason. This was the signal for the
National Covenant, the most decisive document
in Scottish history. The signing began on ist
March 1638 in Greyfriars' Church, Edinburgh.
Arran, for whom Charles had revived the Mar-
quisate of Hamilton, was sent down to restore
1 Sir Herbert Maxwell's Official Guide.
266

Holyrood Abbey
peace, but only on condition of forswearing the
Covenant, an utterly impossible proviso. Pro
ceeding to the Chapel Royal for the prescribed
worship, he found the organ nailed up, and
Covenanters threatening him that any who should
use the English service again would do so at the
peril of his life.
In May 1639 Charles arrived at Berwick with
an army ; but the hostility both in Scotland and
England forced him to agree to a pacification. In
August 1 64 1 he went to Scotland to seek aid
against the extremists. He had now to accept
the people's terms : and worshipped in Holyrood
Chapel after the Reformed model, under Mr.
Alexander Henderson. On 17th November he
rode forth from Holyrood for the last time.
During the occupation of Holyrood by Crom
well's soldiers in 1650, the Palace was burnt down
by excessive fires made by the soldiers in the
wintry rooms; but between 1651 and 1658 Crom
well caused it to be rebuilt. The Chapel escaped.
At the end of 1660, after the Restoration, John,
Earl of Middleton, who had commanded both for
the Parliament and the King, and was now a
zealous royalist, arrived at Edinburgh as Lord
High Commissioner. Every statute that had
been passed since 1633 was rescinded. Absolute
monarchy and Episcopacy were restored. Professor 267

The Chapels Royal
Sharp of St. Andrews and three other clergy were
sent to London to be consecrated. On 7th May
1662, Sharp (Archbishop of St. Andrews), Arch
bishop Fairfoull of Glasgow, and Bishop Hamilton
of Galloway consecrated seven other bishops in
the Chapel Royal of Holyrood.
In 1671 Sir William Bruce of Balcaskie, Charles
the Second's Surveyor -General or Architect for
Scotland, was ordered to make plans for the re
construction of the Palace. The King ordered
that in the west quarter of the Palace, "that part
which was built by the Usurper and doth darken
the Court, be taken down."^ At any rate, the
fine tower of James the Fifth was reproduced at
the south-west angle, completing a very noble
fagade. The new Palace, in good renaissance
style, was built behind the front. 'In 1672, the
Lords of the Privy Council "having arrived at
the opinion that it was ' necessary and suiting to
His Majesty's pious and religious disposition that
some convenient place be designed and set apart
wherein His Majesty and those of his family at
Holyrood House may worship God,' they decreed
that the Abbey Church should cease to be, as
heretofore, the parish church of the Canongate.
The congregation was directed to use Lady Yester's
Church, until a new parish church was erected,
^ Liber Cartarum Sanctae Crucis.
268

Holyrood Abbey
which was done by applying to this purpose the
bequest of Thomas Mercer, merchant, who had
left 20,000 merks in 1649 to build a church in
the Grassmarket. The present Canongate parish
church was erected by means of this fund, which
Parliament handed over to King Charles, but it
was not opened for worship until after the Revolu
tion of 1688.'" The double use of the Chapel
Royal must have been very inconvenient.
In 1679 the extreme unpopularity of James,
Duke of York, in England, induced Charles to
send him in honourable banishment as Lord High
Commissioner to Holyrood. Not being able to
alter the services at the Chapel Royal, he had Sir
William Bruce's Council Chamber fitted up for
Roman Catholic worship.
After becoming King in 1685, in 1687 James
ordered that the Roman ritual should be restored
in the Chapel Royal ; it was also to be the Chapel
of the Knights of the Thistle, which order he re
vived. These changes were to become effective
on ist May 1688. In the meantime a free
school was established in connection with the
Chapel, where boys were instructed in Greek,
Latin, poetry, rhetoric, philosophy, and other
subjects ; it was to be a Roman rival to the great
Protestant institutions of the High School and
^ Sir Herbert Maxwell's Official Guide, p. 171.
269

The Chapels Royal
Edinburgh College. William of Orange landed
in Torbay on 5th November, when the whole
scheme disappeared. On loth December the fury
of the citizens of Edinburgh burst forth ; they
"invaded the Palace; they demolished, in so far
as they could, the private Chapel ; they plundered
the house of the priests, destroyed their printing-
presses, and rifled the school ; they brought out to
the close the timber-work, the books, and all else
on which they could lay hands, and made a bonfire.
They sought for the images, and found them at last
in an oven, of which the opening was concealed
by an old cupboard. These they carried in pro
cession through the streets of the town and back
to Holyrood, and there they burnt them in the
Abbey Close. They entered the Chapel Royal,
razed the new work which had just been completed,
tore up the marble pavement, and demolished all
they could find.'"
The Union of Scotland with England became
effective in 1767, and from that date till 1745
Holyrood remained silent except for the annual
visit of the Lord High Commissioner, who came
to open the General Assembly of the Church of
Scotland, to preside over its sessions, and to occupy
the Palace for a fortnight on behalf of the King.
During these visits services were held in the
^ Royal Palaces of Scotland, p. 1 34.
270

Holyrood Abbey
Chapel Royal, On 17th September 1745, Prince
Charles Edward occupied Edinburgh, took up his
quarters at Holyrood, and on the 21st won the
victory of Prestonpans over General Cope. He
left Holyrood on 31st October on his march to
Derby, and did not return.
On 9th February 1746, Prince Frederick of
Hesse, husband of Princess Mary, daughter of
George the Second, and a Commander in the
British Army, took up his quarters for a month
at the Palace, and on the i8th entertained his
brother-in-law, William Henry, Duke of Cumber
land, who had previously spent a night at the
Palace in January.
In 1758 the Chapel Royal had become too
dangerous to allow the services during the annual
visit of the Lord High Commissioner. The Barons
of the Exchequer ordered a builder to put on a
new roof. Unfortunately the man was inexperi
enced, and the roof too heavy. On 2nd December
1768, the new roof fell with a crash. Captain
Grose thus describes the ruin: "When we lately
visited it, we saw in the middle of the Chapel the
broken shafts of the columns which had been borne
down by the weight of the roof. Upon looking
into the vaults, the doors of which were open, we
found that what had escaped the fury of the mob
at the Revolution, became a prey to the rapacity 271

The Chapels Royal
of the mob who ransacked the church after it
fell. In A.D. 1776 we had seen the body of
James the Fifth and some others in their leaden
coffins ; the coffins were now stolen. The head
of Queen Margaret, which was then entire, and
even beautiful, and the skull of Darnley were also
stolen." '
At the end of 1795 the apartments on the
eastern side of the quadrangle were prepared for
the residence of the Comte d'Artois, afterwards
Charles the Tenth of France, with his sons the
Due d'Angouleme and the Due de Berry. The
French royal family lived here for four years, and
added during that time to the brilliance of Edin
burgh society. Charles succeeded to the throne in
1824, but lost it again in 1830. In July of that
year he was granted the use of all vacant apart
ments in Holyrood. He lived there with his
suite under the title of Comte de Ponthieu : other
rooms were assigned to his grandson the Due de
Bordeaux or Comte de Chambord, heir of the
French monarchy, who died in 1883. The exiled
King devoted himself to religious exercises, left
Holyrood for Austria in 1834, and died in 1836.^
George the Fourth paid his famous visit to
* Billings' Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland,
iii. 275. Queen Margaret probably means Queen Magdalen.
^ Royal Palaces of Scotland, p. 141.
272

i-A: VI

iML?=4v..--T^

Holyrood Abbey
Holyrood in August 1822, under the auspices of
Sir Walter Scott.
Queen Victoria's first visit to Edinburgh was in
September 1842, when she did not reside at the
Palace; in 1850 she occupied the royal apart
ments, and afterwards frequently rested there on
Balmoral journeys. In 1872 she stayed there with
Prince Leopold and Princess Beatrice in August;
in 1876, when she came to unveil a statue of the
Prince Consort, and in 1886 when she visited the
International Exhibition.
Among those buried in Holyrood Chapel are : —
King James the Fifth.
Queen Magdalen of France, his first
wife.
Henry, Lord Darnley, husband of Mary Queen
of Scots.
Queen Mary of Gueldres] wife of James the
Second (removed from Trinity College
Church).
George, seventeenth Earl of Sutherland, K.T.
William, nineteenth Earl of Sutherland.'
Mary, wife of Earl William (born Maxwell of
Preston, Kirkcudbright).
Robert Douglas, Viscount Belhaven, friend
1 Earl William and his wife were parents of Elizabeth, Duchess-
Countess of Sutherland.
s 273

The Chapels Royal
and Master of the Horse to Henry,
Prince of Wales.
Robert Cheyne, twelfth Prior of Holyrood.
George Wishart, Bishop of Edinburgh (1599-
1671).
Jane Hamilton, wife of Hugh, third Earl of
Eglinton, daughter of James, Earl of
Arran, Duke of Chatelherault, and a
devoted adherent of Mary Queen of
Scots.
Jane Stewart, Countess of Argyll, legitimated
daughter of James the Fifth, and half-
sister of Mary Queen of Scots.
James Sinclair, twelfth Earl of Caithness, 1823.
Jane, Countess of Caithness, wife of the twelfth
Eari, 1853.
Hon. James Sinclair, their third son, 1856.
Hon. Elizabeth Sinclair, his wife, 1856.
Alexander Sinclair, thirteenth Earl of Caith
ness, 1855.
Hon. Alexander Sinclair, third son of thirteenth
Eari, 1857.
Frances Harriet, Countess of Caithness, wife
of thirteenth Earl, 1854.
James Sinclair, fourteenth Earl of Caithness,
1881.
Louisa Georgiana, Countess of Caithness, first
wife of fourteenth Earl, 1870.
274

Holyrood Abbey
Marie, Duchesse de Pomdr, Countess of
Caithness, widow of fourteenth Earl,
1857.
George Sinclair, fifteenth Earl of Caithness,
1889.
The Rt. Hon. Sir John Sinclair, Bart, of
Ulbster, M.P., the agriculturist and
statistician (1754- 1835).
Hon. Diana Macdonald, wife of Sir John,
1845.
Sir John Sinclair, seventh Bart, of Dunbeath,
1873.
Margaret, Lady Sinclair, his widow, 1879.
Jane, Countess of Roxburghe, wife of first
Earl, Governess to the children of James
the Sixth, 1643.
Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney, Com
mendator of Holyrood, who married
Mary Queen of Scots and Bothwell, died
1593.
Francis, tenth Lord Sempill, 17 16.
John, eleventh Lord Sempill, 1727.
Hon. Marion Sempill, daughter of twelfth
Lord, 1796.
Hon. Jane Sempill, her sister, 1800.
Hon. Rebecca, her sister, 1811.
Hon. Sarah, daughter of fourteenth Lord
Sempill, 1866. 275

The Chapels Royal
Maria Janet, Baroness Sempill, 1881.
Edward Sempill, her husband, 1871.
Eleanora, widow of George, fifteenth Lord
Saltoun, 1800.
Lord Webb Seymour, scientist, second son
of tenth Duke of Somerset, 18 19.
Mary Dunbar, widow of Lord Basil Hamilton,
sixth son of first Duke of Hamilton, 1760.
Mary, daughter of Lord Edward Murray,
eighth son of first Duke of Atholl, 1804.
Lady Elizabeth Sutherland, daughter of
sixteenth Earl, widow of Hon. James
Wemyss, M.P., 1803.
Ann Watts, Countess of Cassilis, second wife
of Archibald, eleventh Earl, 1 793.
Lady Charlotte Erskine, daughter of John
Francis, thirtieth Earl of Mar,
Isabella Carr, of Etal, widow of fifteenth Earl
of Erroll, 1808.
Thomas, eleventh Earl of Strathmore, 1846.
Lady Caroline Edgecumbe, wife of Ranald
Macdonald, Chief of Clanranald, and
daughter of second Earl of Mount Edge
cumbe, 1824.
The light and free humour of the leaders of
Scottish opinion is illustrated by the fact of their
determined insistence in keeping their national
276

Holyrood Abbey
Westminster Abbey as a hopeless and irremediable
ruin, in spite of a bequest of ;^4o,ooo from the
Earl of Leven and Melville for its repair ; ' and on
retaining as the principal ornament of Holyrood
Palace the amusing series of portraits of one
hundred and eleven Scottish Sovereigns, from
Fergus the First, 330 years e.g., which were set
up on the accession of James the Seventh. All
except the last ten (before James the Sixth) are
spurious, and were painted to order from a hand
some Edinburgh butcher. To dine at a banquet
of the Lord High Commissioner in the magnificent
gallery which contains these laughable daubs, has
an effect of jocose unreality which is most incom
patible with the dignity of the Palace, the nation,
and the occasion. If they are reckoned as memorial
tablets or emblems they might at any rate be hung
in a passage or corridor.
^ As an example of what might be done, the lovely Chapel of
Roslin, once in a ruinous condition, was exquisitely and admirably
restored at the private expense of its owners, James and Robert,
successively fourth and fifth Earls of Rosslyn.

277

XIV
DUNFERMLINE PALACE AND ABBEY

DUNFERMLINE PALACE AND ABBEY

|HE picturesque town of Dun
fermline derived its original
importance from the presence
of the Abbey and the Royal
Palace. It lies between five
and six miles to the north
west of the ancient passage across the Firth of
Forth called after its promoter, St. Margaret, the
Queen's Ferry, The towers and spires are
grouped on a gentle eminence containing much
broken ground, and giving steepness to its streets
and variety to its features. King Malcolm
Canmore had a tower here, and a remnant of
architecture on a jutting eminence still goes by
his name. Malcolm and St. Margaret spent much
of their time here: here she brought up her
281

The Chapels Royal
children ; here she had her great School of Church
Needlework ; here she did her countless deeds
of charity, and multiplied with pious zeal the
austerities of Lent and Advent. When, in 1303,
Edward the First had occupied and subsequently
burnt the Abbey buildings, King Robert the Bruce
restored them, and built the Palace on the south
west side, in addition to King Malcolm's tower. In
1323 his son, afterwards David the Second, was born
in the Palace, and no doubt christened in the Abbey.
In 1343 David the Second was residing with his
Queen, Johanna, at Dunfermline. The Kings of
Scotland in those days were very peripatetic, and
not only visited their own manors, castles, and
residences, but stayed for considerable periods
in the different abbeys, and in the castles of the
nobles. Dunfermline Palace was the birthplace
of James the First. It was a frequent residence
of James the Sixth ; and a separate Palace was
built for his wife, Anne of Denmark, known as
the Queen's House. There, on 19th August 1596,
was born Princess Elizabeth, afterwards Electress
Palatine, and Queen of Bohemia. There also, on
19th November 1600, was born Prince Charles,
who on the untimely death of his elder brother.
Prince Henry, became Prince of Wales. In
1602 Edinburgh was visited by the plague, and
the Council took measures for the isolation of the
282

Dunfermline Palace and Abbey
town and royal residence of Dunfermline. Between
1599 and 1603 Councils were frequently held there.
Charles the Second was several times at Dun-
fermhne during his residence in Scotland after the
death of his father. " In 1708 the north gable wall,
part of the front wall, and most of the roof
fell to the ground," ' Daniel Defoe found in Dun
fermline " the full perfection of decay — its decayed
monastery, palace and town, the natural consequence
of the decay of the Palace." In the middle of the
eighteenth century the adjacent " Queen's House "
was used for cock-fights, and in 1 797 it had become
so ruinous that it was demolished.'
As at Holyrood, the Abbey Church was the
Chapel Royal of the Palace. Of this great church,
the nave still stands, conspicuous in the massive
size of its buttresses, and the richness and strength
of its Norman architecture. The interior bears a
strong resemblance to the nave of Durham
Cathedral, though its proportions are not so vast.
Some of the circular columns are plain, some
ornamented with a deep and bold zigzag, others
with the eight winding lines. The arches of the
arcade are richly moulded, and surrounded by an
outward carved semicircle. Clerestory and triforium
are of simple dignity. Pointed introductions are
thought to indicate the repair of damage done to
1 Royal Palaces of Scotland, p. 44.
283

The Chapels Royal
the Abbey by the followers of Edward the First.
Below the windows of the aisles is Norman arcade
work richly ornamented by zigzag arches.
The possession of the bodies of St. Margaret
and her husband. King Malcolm Canmore, made
the Abbey a favourite place for pilgrimages. It
is supposed, says Billings, that the foundation
was a Priory until the reign of David the First,
St. Margaret's son, and himself sainted, when it
was raised to the rank of an Abbey, Ganfrid,
Prior of Christ Church, Canterbury, having been
elected its first Abbot in 1128. In 1244 the
Abbey was raised to the dignity of the Mitre, the
usual privileges being granted in the usual manner
by Pope Innocent the Fourth at the request of
King Alexander the Third. It was in 1249 that
St. Margaret was formally canonized by the Pope^
having long been given that designation by the
popular voice. Great care was taken to investigate
the numerous miracles alleged to have taken place
at her tomb. In 1 250 the bones of the Saint were
translated from the place where they were originally
deposited, " in the rude altar of the Kirk," to the
Choir of the Abbey. The young King Alexander
the Third with his mother and a large assembly of
nobles and clergy were present at the ceremony.
The remains were placed in a silver sarcophagus,
which the chroniclers stated to have been orna-
284

Dunfermline Palace and Abbey
mented with precious stones. What became of these
relics in the rough times of the Scottish Reforma
tion has been told in the chapter on Edinburgh
Castle. They, or part of them, were conveyed to
Edinburgh Castle, and afterwards were taken in
charge by the last Abbot. They passed into the
hands of the Jesuits, and remained some time
at Antioch ; conflicting reports afterwards attribute
them a permanent resting-place at Douay, and at
the Escorial.'
The burial of Malcolm Canmore and St.
Margaret at Dunfermline began a long series of
royal interments near the remains of ancestors so
illustrious ; and the chroniclers generally mention
this Abbey as the successor in this respect of lona,
the more ancient burial-place of Scottish Sovereigns.
Among the seven who are thus recorded, must
be mentioned King Robert the Bruce, who died
at Cardross, 7th June 1329. His remains were
conveyed to Dunfermline, where they were buried
in the Choir of the church before the high altar.
The body was embalmed, and a rich tomb was
erected above the spot. It is supposed to have
been made in Paris, of white marble, in Gothic
work, and richly gilt. A very beautiful tomb to
his mother exists in perfect condition in Paisley
Abbey. King Robert's tomb was discovered in
^ Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland, ii. 155.
285

The Chapels Royal
1818, when some workmen were laying the
foundations of the modern part of Dunfermline
Abbey. This new addition, of cruciform shape with
a central tower, was opened on the 30th September
1 82 1. It is an imitation, characteristic of that
date, of the old Perpendicular Gothic.
In recent years great improvements have been
carried out in Dunfermline, educational and
material, through the benefaction (;^75o,ooo) of
Mr. Andrew Carnegie, who was born in the town.

286

XV
THE ROYAL PALACE AND ABBEY OF SCONE

THE ROYAL PALACE AND ABBEY OF SCONE
TTH the Abbey of Scone are
connected some of the most
interesting events of Scottish
history. The Abbey was
founded by Alexander the
First in 1 1 15. In the reign of Kenneth the Second
(971-995 A.D.), the famous Stone of Destiny had
been transferred from Dunstaffnage Castle, Argyll
shire, to the royal stronghold at Scone. Dun
staffnage is said to have been the seat of the
Scottish monarchy until the overthrow of the
Picts, when that distinction passed to Scone.
Scone is two and a half miles north of Perth, on
the left bank of the River Tay. Nearly all, if
not all of the Kings of Scotland, until the time
of Edward Baliol, were crowned on the Stone of
J 289

The Chapels Royal
Destiny. In 1296 it was carried off by Edward
the First, and placed in Westminster Abbey, for
the Coronation of the Sovereigns of England.
The old Bardic prophecy ran thus :
Except old seers do feign.
And wizard wits be blind.
The Scots in place must reign
Where they this stone shall find.
Since James the Sixth of Scotland ascended the
throne of England, this prediction has been literally
fulfilled. The present Palace of Scone is a modern
building, replacing one erected by the Earl of
Gowrie and Sir David Murray of Gospatrick
(afterwards created Lord Scone) in the reign of
James the Sixth, which occupied the site of the
old Palace of the Kings. Much of the old
furniture of James the Sixth's building is pre
served in the present Palace ; there is a bed used
by James the Sixth, and another with hangings
of flowered crimson velvet, said to have been
worked by Queen Mary during her imprisonment
in Loch Leven Castle. The gallery, which is 160
feet long, occupies the place of the old Coronation
Hall, where Charles the Second was crowned King
of Scots in 1 65 1.
Mr. Robertson considers it probable that it
was Malcolm the Second (1005-1034 a.d.), son
290

Royal Palace and Abbey of Scone
of Kenneth the Second, and grandfather of the
King Duncan of Shakespeare (murdered by his
nephew, Macbeth), who first abandoned the habits
of Kings who dwelt successively with different
nobles, and established at Scone a fixed court
round the Stone of Destiny.^
When Alexander the First founded the Abbey
at Scone, the ancient Palace may have been in
corporated, or the two may have existed side by
side as they did at Dunfermline. At any rate it
continued to be a frequent residence of Kings.
^ Royal Palaces of Scotland, p. 9.

291

XVI
CHAPEL ROYAL, STIRLING CASTLE

CHAPEL ROYAL, STIRLING CASTLE
JTIRLING CASTLE, the Windsor
of Scotland, stands on a site of
extraordinary beauty. Whether
seen from the plain below, or
the battlements above, the build
ings are full of variety and dignity, rich in archi
tectural ornaments, and differences of elevation.
The town, which climbs the sloping side of the
Castle which ends in the bastions and turreted
walls reared on the precipitous cliffs, is full of
old houses with paved courts, arched entrances,
and pleasant gardens. The fertile plain of Forth
spreads round, with its wooded undulations and
rich fields, stately mansions with their pleasure-
grounds, the windings of the famous river,
widening towards the sea, and the clustered
houses of cheerful towns and villages. In the
295

The Chapels Royal
distance rise the purple peaks of the Grampians,
with the familiar forms of Ben Lomond, Ben
Aan, Ben Lui, and Ben Voirlich to the west.
Some of the principal battlegrounds of Scotland
lie around : Stirling, when Wallace defended the
old bridge ; Dunblane, Falkirk, and Bannoclcburn.
The oldest part of the Castle is on the south
west, a rough simple square tower, with bastions
overhanging the precipice. The Parliament House
was probably built by James the Third ; its Great
Hall, 120 feet in length, and other rooms, are now
used as the mess-room and other offices of the
garrison. In this group of buildings is the Chapel
Royal, built by James the Sixth in 1594 to super
sede one of earlier date.' Long an armoury, and
at one time the garrison Chapel, it is now roofed
across, and used for stores, or as a shelter hall for
picnic parties. Last year (191 1) the staff of the
Royal Engineers in Scotland was ordered to report
on the possibility of restoration ; but the reply was
returned that all architectural features of interest had
been obliterated. The Castle has not been improved
by being used as a barrack ; it is the headquarters
of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.
Although earlier Scottish Sovereigns often held
their Court and Parliament in Stirling Castle, it
did not become one of their stated residences till
^ Billings' Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland.

Stirling Castle
the times of the family of Stewart.' From the
different Stewart princes it received its present
form ; specially James the Third (the architect
King), James the Fifth (the nephew of Henry
the Eighth), and James the Sixth (the First of
England). It was the birthplace of James the
Second, who often made his home there ; there
he unfortunately stained his reign and character
by the murder, with his own hand, of William,
Earl of Douglas, in violation of his own writ of
safe-conduct. In his day the royal apartments
were in the north-west corner of the Castle,
and are now partly the residence of one of the
officers of the garrison. The closet where the
murder was committed still goes by the name of
the Douglas's Room."
James the Third had a peculiar fondness for
the Castle on account of its pleasant situation,
made it his principal residence, and shut himself
in it so closely with his favourites, that the barons
and nobles were seldom admitted to his presence.
Besides repairing and embellishing that part which
had fallen in, he added several new structures,
especially the Parliament Hall mentioned above.
It has an oak roof of exquisite workmanship, and
full of carvings.
1 The spelling " Stuart " seems to have come in at a later date.
2 Rev William Nimmo, History of Stirlingshire, 1817. 297

The Chapels Royal
The Castle had formerly within its walls a
Chapel sacred to St. Michael, the founder of which
is not certainly known. It may possibly have
been Robert, Duke of Albany, the Regent, as a
charter of his is quoted in Robertson's Index
granting ten merks from the lands of Craigforth
in Stirlingshire for a chaplain in St. Michael's
Chapel, in the Castle of Stirling.
James the Third instituted a College of secular
priests in the Castle, and erected for them a special
Chapel Royal. His annexation of the rich tempor
alities of the Priory of Coldingham to the Chapel
Royal, by offending Lord Home and Lord Hailes,
was one of the causes of his ruin.
James the Fiftji was crowned here. The chief
ornament of the Castle, "the Palace," all of hewn
stone with much statuary work on it, was built
by him. The form is square with a small court
in the middle, where the King's lions are said to
have been kept, and which still goes by the name
of the Lion's Den. "The Palace" has many large
and beautiful rooms ; the ground storey is used
by the soldiers of the garrison, the upper by the
officers. The Chapel which replaced that of James the
Third was built by James the Sixth in 1594 for
the baptism of his eldest son. Prince Henry.
When it became a storehouse there used to be
298

Stirling Castle
preserved in it the hull of a boat which the whimsical
fancy of the King caused to be built, and placed on
a carriage, to convey into the Great Hall the provi
sions for a grand repast to the foreign ambassadors
and other company on that occasion. From the
roof also used to hang a square block of wood, on
which were carved models of the Castles of Edin
burgh, Stirling, Dumbarton, and Blackness.^
Mary Queen of Scots was crowned here by
Cardinal Beaton in 1543 when scarcely nine months
old. Arran the Regent carried the crown on that
occasion, and Lennox the sceptre. A numerous
assembly of the Estates of the realm then present,
appointed the Castle to be her residence, and
committed the alternate keeping of her person and
superintendence of her education to the Lords
Graham, Lindsay, Erskine, and Livingston. After
the disastrous battle of Pinkie (loth September
1547), she was sent to a Priory on the Loch of
Menteith, and then to Dumbarton Castle. On
7th July 1548 the Estates ratified an agreement for
her marriage to the Dauphin of France (Francis
the Second), and decided that she should be im
mediately sent thither. Mary's first coin with her
1 Billings' Baronial and Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland;
The Ecclesiastical Architecture of Scotland, by MacGibbon and
Ross (Edinburgh: Douglas, 1896); The Castellated and Domestic
Architecture of Scotland, MacGibbon and Ross, 1887. 299

The Chapels Royal
effigy as a crowned infant received the popular
name of the Bawbee (Baby) : and the word is still
used in Scotland for a halfpenny.
James the Sixth, Mary's only son, was born
in Edinburgh Castle, 19th June 1566, but soon
after conveyed to Stirling; where, on 13th December,
he was baptized with much solemnity in the Chapel
of James the Third. Great preparations were made
for the occasion. Couriers were despatched to the
Courts of England, France, and Savoy (the Duke
of Savoy was uncle to Mary's first husband, Francis
the Second) ; and ambassadors arrived from each
to do honour to the occasion. A convention of
the Estates granted ;^iooo to defray the expense.
The Earl of Bedford arrived with a vast retinue
as ambassador from Elizabeth, and brought as a
gift a font of gold, weighing two stone, to be used
on the occasion. M. du Croc was deputed to
represent the Duke of Savoy ; the Count of Brienne
represented the King of France.
On the day appointed for the baptism, the
Prince was carried at five in the evening from his
chamber into the Chapel by the French Ambassador,
through a passage lined on either side by nobleS
and gentlemen. The ambassador was followed by
four lords of the Roman persuasion, namely, the
Earl of Atholl bearing the great wax-cloth, the
Earl of Eglinton carrying the salt. Lord Sempill
300

Stirling Castle
the Cude or face-cloth. Lord Ross the basin and
ewer. At the door of the Chapel the Prince was
received by Hamilton, Archbishop of St. Andrews,
accompanied by Bishops Crichton of Dunkeld,
Chisholm of Dunblane, and Lesley of Ross. Next
followed the Prior of Whithorne, and several Deans
and Archdeacons, with the officers and singers of
the Chapel. After the ceremony there followed a
great supper, at which the Queen presided, with
de Brienne on her right, Bedford on her left, and
du Croc at the other end.
Next year, 1567, came the Coronation. "On
29th July, at about two in the afternoon, towns
men of Stirling and soldiers gathered on the
castle hill ready for a sudden outbreak or attack.
Then Lady Mar issued out of the Castle with the
prince in her arms, and went towards the Chapel.
She was followed by her husband, and by Morton,
Atholl, Glencairn, Hume, Lindsay, Ruthven, San
quhar, and some undistinguished barons. When
they reached the Chapel, Adam, Bishop of Orkney,
delivered an exhortation ; and then he anointed
the prince, on whose head Atholl placed the crown.
The little procession returned to the Castle ; Atholl
with the crown, Morton with the sceptre, Glencairn
with the sword, and Mar who carried the newly
made King." '
1 Royal Palaces of Scotland, p. 188.
301

The Chapels Royal
In 1616 preparations were made for a visit
from King James from England. The Bishop of
Galloway was to hold a commission of persons
who claimed the right to conduct the services of
the Chapel, the canons, singers, and others. It
had been found that some were ignorant of music,
others had abandoned their posts. The Bishop
was to examine them, keep only those who were
fit, and charge them to dwell either at Stirling or
Holyrood. The last appearance of Stirling Castle in history
was the part it played in the Jacobite risings of
1 7 15 and 1745. In neither of these does the Chapel
emerge. Since that time the Castle has been a
barrack and a centre for visitors.

l(.Fimx^

302

XVII
THE CHAPEL IN LINLITHGOW PALACE

THE CHAPEL IN LINLITHGOW PALACE
HEN, in 1538, Mary of Guise,
the Queen of James the Fifth
and mother of Mary Queen
of Scots, visited Linlithgow,
_____ before she made her entry
into Edinburgh^ she declared that she had never
seen "a more princely palace." It was always
regarded with admiration. In 1570 Leslie the
historian dilates on the great charm of the town
"decorated with the King's palace, a beautiful
temple (the Parish Church of Linlithgow which
adjoins the Palace), and a pleasant loch swarming
full of fine perch, and other notable fish." In the
seventeenth century Sibbald describes the Palace as
"magnificently built of polished stone." And
Billings writes: "The railway traveller between
Glasgow and Edinburgh can hardly fail to be
attracted by the picturesque site and character of
u 305

The Chapels Royal
the ancient borough of Linlithgow, crowned by the
towers and clustered gables of its Palace, and the
belfry of its church ; beautiful added features which
keep well 4n harmony with its gently sloping banks,
its venerable trees, and its pellucid lake."
Some of its importance it derived from the
fact of being half-way between Edinburgh and
Stirling, an easy day's ride from either Castle, and
therefore a convenient resting-place for the Court.
It seems always to have been royal property: but
the historian of "the Royal Palace of Linlithgow"
tells us that "it was not till the accession of the
Stewart family to the throne, that it became a fixed
Royal residence ; nor till that of James the Fourth
that it became a favourite one. James the First,
though he minted some of his coins at Linlithgow,
never resided in the Palace; nor does it seem to
have been particularly fayoured in any way by
either the Second or Third James. It was, how
ever, named in several royal settlements, as a
jointure house for Scottish Queens." During the
reigns of James the Fourth, James the Fifth, Mary
Queen of Scots, James the Sixth, Charles the First,
and George the Second, it was the scene of many
varied and stirring events. To record these, how
ever, is not to the present purpose.
" It is evident that the Palace is divided into
two distinct eras of architecture. Towards the
306

Linlithgow Palace
south-west, the great square tower, the battlements
of which frown over the gateway, is the old
Scottish 'tower-house' of the thirteenth or four
teenth century, utterly devoid of ornament, but well
adapted for defence. The remainder of the building
(the work chiefly of James the Fifth and James the
Sixth), having little regard to defence, is highly
ornamental, and conveys almost less of the
characteristics of a time of war and bloodshed,
than any other ancient royal or baronial residence
in Scotland."' "When the gateway is passed, the
most striking object is a row of tall narrow circular-
arched windows, of remarkable dignity, belonging
to the Chapel of the Palace." "The buildings are
rangqd in the form of a quadrangle, and a vaulted
passage piercing the screen of edifices in front, leads
to the central court, surrounded by buildings, the
architecture of which has variety enough to be
rich without being irregular or grotesque. To
those who have travelled in Germany, the first
effect of the interior of the Quadrangle is im
mediately to recall to their minds the more colossal
ruins of Heidelberg ; and it is worth remembering
that a portion of the palace-castle of the Palatinate
was built under the eye of one who had spent part
of her earlier and happier days in Linlithgow—
^ Billings' Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland,
"»• 335-
307

The Chapels Royal
Elizabeth, daughter of James the Sixth, the un
fortunate Queen of Bohemia."
"The most remarkable objects in the interior
are the Chapel, where there are many niches, show
ing fragments of decoration still more elaborate
than those of the exterior; and the Hall or
Parliament-house, the roof of which appears to
have consisted of oaken beams, formed into open
archwork springing from ornamental brackets on
the walls." The Chapel had a gallery at the
west end.
Linlithgow was part of the dower of Margaret
Tudor, sister of Henry the Eighth and wife of
James the Fourth. Tradition says that it was in
the beautiful octagonal chamber, at the top of the
staircase of the South-West Tower, from which
she had a magnificent view over the country south
wards, that she awaited news of the army of
Scotland in that fatal campaign which ended in
Flodden. It is still called Queen Margaret's
Bower. Mary Stuart was born in Linlithgow, but was
soon carried to Stirling.
A few notices of the Chapel may be given from
the very complete and accurate account of the
Palace by Miss Helen Douglas-Irvine in Royal
Palaces of Scotland. In 1408 the Regent Albany
endowed a priest who should for ever celebrate
308

Linlithgow Palace
masses in the Castle for the souls of the Kings
of Scotland. In 141 2 payment is recorded for
the construction of a Chapel. In the reign of
James the Fourth (1488-15 13), chroniclers give
many instances of his piety in offerings in the
Chapel, and alms to the poor. In 15 12 his son,
afterwards James the Fifth, was born in the Palace,
and was probably baptized in the Chapel. " Much
was done to the Chapel (in James the Fourth's
time) : a ship of timber was used to make for it
a roof ; it was completely paved, and masons were
employed on the Choir. In the last spring of the
reign organs were placed in the Chapel, and bound
to the wall with great clasps. Sir David Lindsay
boasted that Linlithgow Palace was a pattern to
Portugal and France." ^
In 1541 "there is record of a friar who at
Linlithgow preached to the young Queen (Mary
of Guise), who was ' all papist,' a sermon to extol
the authority of the Bishop of Rome, heard by the
Bishops of Galloway, Glasgow, and Aberdeen, but
by no temporal lords." ^ The Reformation was
well on its way in Scotland by that time.
In 1746 the Palace was burned, probably by
accident, by Hawley's dragoons, a section of the
Duke of Cumberland's army, who were quartered
within its walls after the battle of Falkirk, and
1 Royal Palaces of Scotland, p. 28 1 . ^ Ibid., p. 28 3.
309

The Chapels Royal
reduced to its present ruinous position. It appears
that the weather was cold, and the soldiers raised
enormous fires on the hearths of the different
rooms in which they were quartered. Old timbers
caught fire, and the conflagration became general.
Exactly the same thing had happened at Holyrood
in the time of its occupation by the soldiers of
Cromwell. Cromwell repaired the damage, and
Charles the Second almost rebuilt Holyrood : but
Linlithgow remains a ruin. On the death of Queen
Victoria, when prominent Scotsmen were debating
the best form of memorial to her beloved and
revered memory, the patriotism and good taste
of Lord Rosebery led him to urge the complete
restoration of Linlithgow Palace, as an object
acceptable to all Scotland. The proposal seems
to have failed of acceptance because such a
memorial would be neither in Edinburgh nor
Glasgow.

310

XVIII
THE CHAPEL ROYAL, FALKLAND PALACE

THE CHAPEL ROYAL, FALKLAND PALACE
NLY one side of the quadrangle
of Falkland Palace remains, and
it is of remarkable beauty. It
begins with a double gateway
tower, like James the Fifth's
Tower at Holyrood, and continues in a long fagade
of renaissance work which combines features of the
English Perpendicular style. The two lost sides
must have been similar in character; the fourth
was an ornamented wall, with probably a low
gateway. The ancient castle of the fourteenth
century, the possession of the MacDuffs, Earls of
Fife, was probably removed for the new Palace
by James the Second, Third, Fourth, or Fifth;
for they were all concerned in the buildings of the
new Palace. Falkland lies in a hollow on the
north side of the Lomond Hills in Fifeshire, and 313

The Chapels Royal
occupies a situation of great charm, with grassy
park and spreading woods. " It was never adapted
for a place of defence, but has much of the
character of one of those sunny castles of Touraine,
Blois, Amboise, or Chambord, in which Mary of
Guise may have passed her youth."' "The lover
of art who can tolerate the northern renovation of
classical architecture, in the blending of the
Palladian with the Gothic and the stunted baronial
architecture of Scotland, will find much to enjoy
in this fragment." ^
In 1 37 1, Isobel, Countess of Fife, whose second
husband was Walter Stewart, second son of King
Robert the Second, having no surviving children
by any of her four husbands, acknowledged as her
heir Robert Stewart, Earl of Menteith, another
son of King Robert the Second, and brother to
her second husband. Robert, Earl of Menteith,
became Duke of Albany, Regent under his feeble
brother Robert the Third, and a prominent figure
in Scottish history. He is best known to English
readers as responsible for the arrest, imprisonment,
and murder of his nephew David, Duke of Rothesay,
heir to the Scottish Crown, according to the tragedy
detailed in The Fair Maid of Perth. It was in
the old Castle that the Prince was starved to
^ Murray's Handbook for Scotland, p. 203.
^ Billings' Baronial and Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland, ii.
314

Falkland Palace
death. On the attainder and execution of Albany's
son Murdoch, Duke of Albany, Governor of Scot
land during part of the time of the captivity of
James the First in England, as well as Murdoch's
two sons (1425), Falkland reverted to the Crown.
In 1453 (the time of James the Second), there
is record of wages paid to the choristers of the
Chapel of Falkland. , "This is the only docu
mentary evidence that a Chapel existed there in
the fifteenth century." ^
In 1 50 1, and throughout the next hundred
years, regular allowances of corn and barley were
received by the priest of the Chapel of the Palace,
which contained an altar of St. Thomas, and
was dedicated to that saint. The Chapel, which
was evidently built by James the Fourth, must
have superseded the older foundation. In 151 1
the payment of ;^200 for its fabric, and for that
of the vestry, was completed, and in the same year
;^35, 6s. was spent on certain " cuppills, syntreis,
and angulars in the Chapel"* (cupolas, centres,
and corners).
In 1562, Mary Queen of Scots, who had great
affection for Falkland, in the month of March, the
first spring after her return to Scotland, performed
at Falkland the Maunday Thursday service of
washing the feet of certain poor persons. In this
1 Royal Palaces of Scotland, p. 225. ^ Ibid., p. 230.
315

The Chapels Royal
case the persons washed were nineteen maidens.'
Mary herself was nineteen.
In the reign of James the Sixth, 1625, certain
parts of the Palace were said to be much out of
repair. The Master of the King's Works was
James Murray, and he was ordered thoroughly
to repair the Chapel. Miss Douglas-Irvine, the
careful authoress of Royal Palaces of Scotland,
states that the Chapel appears at this time to
have been thoroughly redecorated.^
Falkland was visited both by Charles the First
and Charles the Second, but nothing transpires
about the Chapel. Cromwell had granted the
Palace and Park to Colonel Lockhart of Lee,
but it returned to the Crown at the Restoration.
A fire in Charles the Second's time destroyed
two sides of the quadrangle.
Miss Douglas-Irvine quotes Defoe's account of
Falkland, when he visited it about 1725 on his
tour through Great Britain. " The two sides that
still stand in the inner square show a beautiful
piece of architecture. It consists of two stories
with rows of marble pillars of the Corinthian
order, set in sockets of stone between every
window; on each side of the window a bust in
basso-relievo of the emperors and empresses,
and at the top of each pillar a statue as big as
^ Royal Palaces of Scotland, p. 237. ^ Ibid., p. 257.
316

Falkland Palace
the life. There are 22 busts and 12 pillars still
remaining. You enter this palace by two stately
towers, and on the right is a Chapel, still well
preserved, with statues as big as the life in the
niches on the outside. Here were spacious
gardens, with a park well planted with oak,
and well stocked with deer, paled round for
eight miles."
After the Restoration, the Keepership of
Falkland and the rents were settled by Charles
the Second on John Murray, Earl or Marquis of
Atholl. They passed through several hands till
they came to an owner named Bruce, who sold
them to the late Lord Bute (the lineal representative
of a natural son of King Robert the Third), an
enthusiastic antiquarian and builder, who did
much to restore the Palace, and left it to his
second son. Lord Ninian Crich ton-Stuart, M.P.

317

XIX
THE CHAPEL ROYAL, DUBLIN CASTLE

THE CHAPEL ROYAL, DUBLIN CASTLE ^
HE Chapel Royal, Dublin, is
situated in the south corner of
the Lower Castle Yard, and is
built in the florid style of
pointed Gothic architecture. It
was erected at a cost of about
during the Viceroyalty of the Duke of
1807, Mr. Francis Johnston being
architect. The following dedicatory tablet is in the
Chapel : —
1 For the information in this chapter I am indebted to the
kindness of the Very Rev. R. Godfrey M. Webster, the present
Dean of the Chapel Royal, Dublin Castle.
X 321

;^42,000 Bedford,

The Chapels Royal
Hanc Aedem
Deo Optimo Maximo olim dicatam
Vetustate penitus dirutam
Denuo extrui jussit
Johannes, Bedfordiae Dux, Hiberniae Prorex,
Ipseque fundamenta posuit, anno a Christo
NATO, MDCCCVII.

The Chapel of the Castle of Dublin is men
tioned as early as 1225, in a close roll of England,
from which it appears that William de Radcliffe,
then King Henry's Chaplain, received fifty marks
as a gift from the Crown.
The present Chapel stands behind a large
round baronial tower, and has numerous pinnacles,
lofty clerestory windows, and two short towers at
the farther end. The interior is handsome, with
a lofty arcade, groined roof, and woodwork of Irish
oak. On the exterior are the heads, in dark blue
marble, of the Sovereigns of Great Britain ; over
the north door are the heads of St. Peter and Dean
Swift ; over the east those of St. Patrick and King
Brian Boroimhe.
The interior is in length seventy-three feet, and
thirty-five feet wide. The carved oak gallery is an
important architectural feature. In it, on the south
side, is placed the throne of the Lord Lieutenant,
with seats for the members of the Household on
either side, also for the Chief Secretary. On the
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Dublin Castle
opposite side are the seats for the Bishops, with
those for Peers and Peeresses on either hand, also
for the Lord Chancellor. Near the Organ Gallery
are seats for other secretaries and heads of Govern
ment offices.
A handsome white stone pulpit was erected by
Lord Carlisle when Viceroy ; a beautiful piece of
work in itself, but hardly in keeping with the rest
of the Chapel. The old pulpit was presented to
St. Werbergh's Parish Church, in which parish
the Castle is situated.
A new organ, constructed in 1900 by Messrs.
Gray & Davidson, was erected in the Viceroyalty
of Lord Cadogan. It is not large, but its tone
is particularly beautiful, and it suits the building
well. In recent years the coats of arms of the Viceroy
in stained glass have been placed in the centre
portions of the great clerestory windows.
The Chapel is possessed of most valuable plate,
presented by King William in commemoration of
his victory at the Boyne. It is silver gilt, and
consists of a very large Alms Dish (with embossed
representation of the appearance of Christ to the
Disciples at Emmaus), a smaller Dish, two Flagons,
two Patens, two Chalices, and two large Candle
sticks. The Deanery has been held in recent years by
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The Chapels Royal
Dean Tighe, Charles Graves (afterwards Bishop
of Limerick), William Connor Magee (afterwards
successively Bishop of Peterborough and Arch
bishop of York), and Hercules Dickinson, a re
markable Irish Churchman during the latter part
of the nineteenth century. He died in 1906, and
was succeeded by the present Dean, the Very Rev.
R. Godfrey M. Webster. Dean Webster was ap
pointed Sub-Dean in 1893 by the present Marquis
of Crewe, and Dean in 1906 by Lord Dudley.
The Lord Lieutenant for the time being has
a number of Honorary Chaplains, whose duty it
is to preach in the Chapel Royal once in each
year.

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