Dear Friends,
This Sunday, I am preaching at HM Chapel Royal. A small number of parishioners and I have been invited to some events at St. James’s Palace, Westminster Abbey, and Windsor Castle to learn more about the history of the choral tradition here, and to prepare for the historic visit of the choristers from the Chapel Royal to New York in April this year. I say historic because the choristers have never before visited the United States. The first mention of the choristers in a written record dates back to 1135, during the reign of King Henry I, so they have waited a long time to visit! The choir of the Chapel Royal has a fascinating history and, for hundreds of years, was a choir ‘on the move’ travelling with the Royal Court to wherever the monarch was in residence. They travelled with chaplains so that the court could worship appropriately.
During the time of King Henry VI, the choir had grown larger. In 1455, the Chapel Royal consisted of one Dean, twenty Chaplains and Clerks, seven Children, one Chaplain Confessor for the household, and one Yeoman. However, the clerks petitioned the King asking that their number be increased to twenty-four singing men, due to “the grete labour that thei have daily in your chapel”.
The choir travelled extensively over several hundred years, and participated in some significant historical events such as the ‘Field of the Cloth of Gold’ when King Henry VIII and King Francis I of France met together with their courtiers and politicians. There was also a separate children’s theater company that travelled with the choir to perform secular work and entertain the court.
From the 17th century, the choir had its own building in London not far from Westminster Palace and St. James’s Palace. After a disastrous fire in 1698, the choir moved to St. James’s palace where it has remained ever since. There are several Chapels Royal in London and they include a chapel at Hampton Court that still has a resident choir, two at the Tower of London (a beautiful Norman chapel dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, and a church named St. Peter ad Vincula), the King’s Chapel at the Savoy that also has a resident choir of men and boys. All of them have close connections with Westminster Abbey and its choral tradition. Unlike Westminster, that still has a choir school exactly like ours at Saint Thomas, the boys of the other choirs are educated at different schools; the choristers of the Chapel Royal at the City of London School, the boys of the Savoy Chapel at St. Olave’s Grammar School, Orpington, and the boys of the Chapel Royal at Hampton Court Palace are drawn from a number of local state and independent schools. St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, is also a Chapel Royal, but it has a very different relationship to the London Chapels. There are also three Chapels Royal in Canada where, of course, King Charles is Head of State.
We will welcome the choristers of the Chapel Royal after Easter where they will take part in what the Sub Dean Canon Paul Wright, a former Army Chaplain, describes as ‘boot camp!’ They will sing with our own choristers on Friday, April 19 at 5:30pm, and Sunday, April 21 at 11am and 4pm, so mark your calendars for this extraordinary celebration. You will be able to tell which choristers are which because the boys of the Chapel Royal do not wear cassocks and surplices, rather, a glorious red and gold uniform created after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660.
The Chapel Royal continues to be a place of spiritual support for the Royal Family, offering pastoral care as well as regular worship. It is also a place that is steeped in the history of the great choral tradition of Anglicanism; a painted board outside the chapel bears witness to the presence of so many great musicians whose repertoire we still sing today in Saint Thomas, including a whole multitude of extraordinary composers such as William Byrd, Thomas Tallis, Orlando Gibbons, Henry Purcell, and George Frederick Handel.
This afternoon, the group will visit Handel’s House in London, recently restored, and from where Handel composed his momentous work, Messiah; appropriately, we’ll be visiting on the anniversary of Handel’s birth. Completely by chance, the Trust that owns and curates Handel House also owns the house next door where it has its offices. When the Trust purchased the property, it discovered that it had bought the apartment of Jimi Hendrix! The Trust is now known as the Handel Hendrix Trust, and his apartment has also been restored. There is a delightful synergy in that these two musicians were neighbors, albeit separated by two hundred years. The home page of the Trust is quite remarkable!
Your Priest and Pastor,
Carl
