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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2022
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, less formally known as the Tower of London or simply ‘the Tower’, was the seat of royal power in England for several centuries following its construction by William the Conqueror in 1078. While now a popular tourist attraction, it remains the home of the Crown Jewels, is a working barracks and maintains many ceremonial traditions of state. Two chapels are located within its walls. Foremost of these is the late eleventh-century chapel of St John the Evangelist (St John's), located within the White Tower, noted as a rare surviving example of early Anglo-Norman ecclesiastic architecture. To the north-west, the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula (St Peter's) has an equally remarkable history and is a building of singular importance even within the Tower complex. Its origins may be traced, like many London parish churches, to a small, private house-church in the ninth century, before being subsumed within the boundaries of the fortress. The chapel, the latest of three documented iterations, was constructed between 1519 and 1520 and is the burial place of many notable figures, including the sixteenth-century queens Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Lady Jane Grey, together with Cardinal John Fisher and the former Lord Chancellor Sir Thomas More, both now venerated as martyrs and saints in the Roman Catholic Church.
The research presented in this article is the result of the work of a number of organisations including Historic Royal Palaces, Historic England, the Diocese of London, the Royal Household and the Chapels Royal. I would also like to thank Dr Lee Prosser, Dr Jane Sidell, Dr Laura Tompkins and Dr Alden Gregory, whose expertise and guidance was invaluable.
2 Crook, J, ‘St John's Chapel’ in Impey, E (ed), The White Tower (New Haven, CT, 2008), pp 95–124 at p 95Google Scholar.
3 Haslam, J, ‘Parishes, churches, wards and gates in eastern London’, in Blair, J (ed), Minsters and Parish Churches: the local church in transition 950–1200 (Oxford 1988), pp 35–45 at pp 39–41Google Scholar.
4 Keay, A, The Elizabethan Tower of London (London, 2001), p 40Google Scholar; Llewellyn, J, The Chapels in the Tower of London (London, 1987), pp 1–2Google Scholar.
5 Cameron, A, Report of the Review Group on the Royal Peculiars (London, 2001), p 9Google Scholar. While a discussion of each type of peculiar is not appropriate here, Barber, P, ‘What is a peculiar?’, (1995) 3 Ecc LJ 299–312Google Scholar, is an invaluable source in this regard.
6 Cameron, Report of the Review Group, p 7.
7 Barber, ‘What is a peculiar?’, p 305.
8 A McGregor, ‘Legal Office memorandum: Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula HM Tower of London’, Diocese of London, 2016, p 2, HRP Archive, Tower of London.
9 ‘The Dean of Her Majesty's Chapels Royal’, <https://www.london.anglican.org/about/the-dean-of-her-majestys-chapels-royal/>, accessed 23 April 2022; A Mellows, The Chapels Royal within the Tower of London (unpublished report, 2006), pp 23–24. At the time of writing, the Dean of the Chapels Royal is the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Dame Sarah Mullally DBE and the Chaplain is the Reverend Canon Roger Hall MBE.
10 Choosing Diocesan Bishops: The report of the steering group appointed to follow up the recommendation of ‘Working with the Spirit’, GS1465, available at <https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2018-10/gs1465-choosing%20diocesan%20bishops.pdf>, accessed 7 June 2022.
11 A Ashbee and J Harley, The Cheque Books of The Chapel Royal Vol 1 (Aldershot, 2000), p 197.
12 Personal communication from the Reverend Canon Roger Hall MBE and Mr Huw Lloyd (Chapels Royal Trustee); Mellows, Chapels Royal within the Tower, p 28.
13 Historic Royal Palaces and the Royal Household, Memorandum of Understanding (2018), v.3.c.
14 Ibid.
15 Archaeological Areas Act 1979. Section 61(8) includes a provision that excludes ecclesiastical buildings from being scheduled monuments; however, as both St Peter's and St John's form part of the Tower of London, they are not exempt from the legal requirement for SMC. This is in order to preserve the Tower of London as a complex group of individual buildings, the settings of each being integral to the others.
16 A burial licence may also be acquired for such works from the Ministry of Justice but was not applicable in this instance as there is no record of the burial ground of St Peter's being deconsecrated. It is therefore not discussed in detail here (see the Church of England (Miscellaneous Provisions) Measure 2014).
17 A Fairclough, ‘Ecclesiastical law and the Church of England’, 2002, available at <https://www.buildingconservation.com/articles/ecclesiasticallaw/ecclesiasticallaw.htm>, accessed 9 May 2022.
18 Burial Act 1857; Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure 2018; I Blaney, ‘The treatment of human remains under the ecclesiastical law of England’, (2021) 23 Ecc LJ 3–18 at 3–7.
19 Cameron, Report of the Review Group, p 89.
20 Care of Cathedrals Measure 2011; Heritage and Renewal: the report of the Archbishops Commission on Cathedrals (London, 1994), pp 115–123. Except, as set out in s 23(2) of the Care of Cathedrals Measure 2011, where the archaeological significance of that cathedral has been proven to not justify the appointment of a cathedral archaeologist.
21 Cameron, Report of the Review Group, p 88.
22 Professional guidance in this instance can be found through the Advisory Panel on the Archaeology of Burials in England, Guidance for Best Practice for the Treatment of Human Remains Excavated from Christian Burial Grounds in England (2017), available at <https://apabe.archaeologyuk.org/pdf/APABE_ToHREfCBG_FINAL_WEB.pdf>, accessed 7 June 2022; P Mitchell and M Brickley (eds), Updated Guidelines to the Standards for Recording Human Remains (Reading, 2017), available at <https://www.babao.org.uk/assets/Uploads-to-Web/14-Updated-Guidelines-to-the-Standards-for-Recording-Human-Remains-digital.pdf>, accessed 7 June 2022.
23 Cameron, Report of the Review Group, pp 88–89.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid, p 90.
26 Ibid, pp 90–91.
27 Ibid, p 90.
28 St Peter's and St John's benefit from the guidance of such professionals through their association with HRP but this does not replace the governing body of the chapels.
29 Ecclesiastical Commissioners Act 1836.
30 Haslam, ‘Parishes, churches, wards and gates in eastern London’, pp 35–45.
31 Llewellyn, Chapels in the Tower of London, pp 1–2.
32 H Colvin, The History of the King's Works, vol II: The Middle Ages (London, 1963), pp 708–710; Impey, White Tower, p 5.
33 Colvin, History of the King's Works: the Middle Ages, p 715.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid, p 723.
36 G Roberts, Report on the Crypt of St Peter ad Vincula (London, 2013); G Roberts, Report on the Interior Layout of St Peter ad Vincula (London, 2013).
37 Ashbee and Harley, Cheque Books of the Chapel Royal, p xii.
38 S Roper, ‘Music at the English chapels royal c. 1135–present day’, (1927–28) 54 Proceedings of the Musical Association 19–33; ‘Music at the English chapels royal’, Musical Times, 1 April 1928, pp 354–355; Bent, I, ‘The English chapel royal before 1300’, (1964) 90 Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association 75–95 at 81Google Scholar; Jones, W, ‘Patronage and administration: the king's free chapels in medieval England’, (1969) 9:1 Journal of British Studies 1–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; White, A, ‘Privilege’, (1978) 41:3 Modern Law Review 299–311CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Denton, J, English Royal Free Chapels 1100–1300 (Manchester, 1986)Google Scholar; Barber, ‘What is a peculiar?; F Kisby, ‘Officers and office-holding at the English court: a study of the chapel royal 1485–1547’, (1990) 32 Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 1–61; D Baldwin, The Chapel Royal: ancient and modern (London, 1990); Ashbee and Harley, Cheque Books of the Chapel Royal; Mellows, Chapels Royal within the Tower; McGregor, ‘Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula’.
39 Bent, ‘English chapel royal’, pp 75–79, 81.
40 Denton, English Royal Free Chapels, pp 1–15; Bent, ‘English chapel royal’, pp 75–79, 81, 89–90.
41 V Galbraith, ‘The Tower as an Exchequer record office in the reign of Edward II’, in A Little and F Powicke (eds), Essays in Medieval History Presented to Thomas Frederick Tout (Manchester, 1925), pp 231–47 at p 233; Colvin, History of the King's Works: the Middle Ages, p 714.
42 M Powicke and C Cheney, Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, Vol II: A.D. 1205–1313. Part II: 1265–1313 (Oxford, 1964), pp 1138–1147.
43 Ibid, p 1146; Denton, English Royal Free Chapels, pp 1–15; Bent, ‘English chapel royal’, p 81.
44 Denton English Royal Free Chapels, p 129; A Ashbee and J Harley, ‘Records of the English Chapel Royal’, (2007) 54:4 Fontes Artis Musicae 481–521 at 485; N Saul, St. George's Chapel, Windsor, in the Fourteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2005), p 1.
45 W Bliss and C Johnson (eds,) Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: papal letters. Vol. 3 1342–1362 (London, 1897), p 383.
46 Denton, English Royal Free Chapels, pp 119–131; personal communication from Dr Euan Roger; Saul, St. George's Chapel, p 4.
47 The National Archives (TNA), MINT 18/35.
48 D Bell, Notices of the Historic Persons Buried in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula (London, 1877), p 3; Mellows, Chapels Royal within the Tower, p 38; J Bayley, The History and Antiquities of the Tower of London: with memoirs of royal and distinguished persons, deduced from records, state-papers, and manuscripts, and from other original and authentic sources (London 1830), p 127.
49 Ashbee and Harley, Cheque Books of the Chapel Royal, p xiii.
50 Kisby, ‘Officers and office-holding at the English court’, p 5.
51 Ashbee and Harley, Cheque Books of the Chapel Royal, p xiii; Ashbee and Harley, ‘Records of the English Chapel Royal’.
52 Baldwin, Chapel Royal, p 40.
53 K Mears, The Tower of London: 900 years of English history (London, 1988), p 62.
54 Galbraith, ‘The Tower as an Exchequer record office’, pp 233–236; Impey, White Tower, p 150; TNA, E101, 469/3.
55 ‘The King's book of payments, 1519’, in J S Brewer (ed), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 3, 1519–1523 (London, 1867), pp 1533–1539, available at <http://www.british-history.ac.uk/letters-papers-hen8/vol3/pp1533-1539>, accessed 23 September 2021.
56 G Parnell, ‘Ordnance storehouses at the Tower of London, 1450–1700’ (1996) 18 Château Gaillaird 171–179 at 171–173.
57 R Newcourt, Repertorium Ecclesiasticum Parochiale Londinense: comprising all London and Middlesex, with the parts of Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire to the said diocese belonging, 2 vols (London, 1708), vol i, p 530; Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Edward VI. Vol. III 1549–1551, (London, 1925), pp 171–172.
58 Ashbee and Harley, Cheque Books of the Chapel Royal, pp xviii–xix. The cheque books document various aspects of the chapel royal's activities, including the membership of the institution, alongside day-to-day liturgical functions and purchasing of Mass paraphernalia and decorative fittings and furnishings.
59 Register of the Chapel Royal of St Peter ad Vincula: marriages 1580–1752; baptisms 1587–1821; burials 1550–1821.
60 Keay, Elizabethan Tower of London, p 40.
61 Excerpt of the copy of the Hayward and Gascoyne map of 1597 made for the Society of Antiquaries of London in 1741 (HRP02178), <http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/crace/a/007zzz000000008u00042000.html>, accessed 13 June 2022.
62 Parnell, ‘Ordnance storehouses at the Tower of London’, p 171; H Colvin, The History of the King's Works, vol iii: 1485–1660 (part I) (London, 1975), p 264, n 2.
63 Llewellyn, Chapels in the Tower of London, p 16.
64 Baldwin, Chapel Royal, p 55.
65 ‘October 1646: An Ordinance for the abolishing of Archbishops and Bishops within the Kingdom of England, and Dominion of Wales, and for setling of their Lands and Possessions upon Trustees, for the use of the Commonwealth’, in C H Firth and R S Rait (eds), Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660 (London, 1911), pp 879–883, available at <http://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/acts-ordinances-interregnum/pp879-883>, accessed 23 September 2021.
66 M Harmes, Bishops and Power in Early Modern England (London, 2015), p 86; M Harmes, ‘The universality of discipline: restoration of the English episcopacy 1660–1688’, (2010) 33:1 Renaissance and Reformation/Renaissance et Réforme 55–79; A Whiteman, ‘The re-establishment of the Church of England, 1660–1663’, (1955) 5 Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 111–131.
67 H Colvin, The History of the King's Works, vol V: 1660–1782 (London, 1976), p 383.
68 TNA, Work 5/25.
69 TNA, MPH 1/893/6.
70 G Keevill, HM Tower of London: the Parade Ground: a report on its archaeological potential, 2018; Oxford Archaeological Unit, TOL 6 (Oxford, 1995); Pre-Construct Archaeology, TOL 101 (London, 2006); Historic Royal Palaces, TOL 157 (London, 2016), all in HRP Archive, Tower of London. An Iron Age burial was discovered in the Inner Ward to the north of the Lanthorn Tower in the twentieth century but this was excluded from this assessment due to its considerable age.
71 TNA, MPH 1/893/6.
72 HRP Archive, Tower of London, HRP21183.
73 TNA, MPH 1/910/5.
74 McGregor, ‘Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula’, p 3.
75 Order in Council, 8 August 1845, TNA, PC 2/227 (emphasis added). See also Barber, ‘What is a peculiar?’, pp 304–305.
76 Mellows, Chapels Royal within the Tower, pp 33, 111.
77 Ecclesiastical Exemption (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Order 1994.
78 Mellows, Chapels Royal within the Tower, pp 111–112.
79 McGregor, ‘Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula’, pp 3–5.
80 Ibid, p 4.
81 Ibid, p 4–5.
82 Ibid, p 5.
83 TNA, Work 14/1/16.
84 Mellows, Chapels Royal within the Tower, p 38, citing Lord Chamberlain's Memorandum of 17 September 1965.
85 McGregor, ‘Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula’, p 5. This is an important distinction as, while the same individual may be invested with both of these titles, that individual cannot issue authority in one role while acting in the capacity of the other.
86 McGregor, ‘Chapel of Saint Peter ad Vincula’, p 5.
87 Mellows, Chapels Royal within the Tower, p 32.
88 Historic Royal Palaces and the Royal Household, Memorandum of Understanding.
89 Cameron, Report of the Review Group, p 77.
90 Order in Council, 8 August 1845, TNA, PC 2/227.
91 Cameron, Report of the Review Group, p 78.
92 Mellows, Chapels Royal within the Tower, p 32.
93 Cameron, Report of the Review Group, p 97.
94 Ibid, pp 77, 79.
95 Ibid p 89; Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Care of Churches Measure 2018.