Church Heritage Record 823005

History

There are perhaps few other chapels that have a history so intertwined with that of England’s most notorious king, Henry VIII, than St Peter ad Vincula. Although this chapel, nestled in a corner of the great fortress of the Tower of London, served many medieval kings before Henry, and before even then had its origins as an Anglo-Saxon parish church, it was Henry VIII who was responsible for the edifice we see today. Despite Henry’s famously large personality, St Peter ad Vincula seems somewhat modest and understated. However, a look at the names on the nineteenth-century memorial plaques in front of the altar begins to reveal the chapel’s royal and bloody history.

The most famous of those buried there is Anne Boleyn, the woman for whom Henry broke with Rome to create the Church of England. Their romance has almost become legend, with Anne being ‘mine own sweetheart’ in a letter written by Henry, but St Peter ad Vincula is a testament in stone to its tragic ending. After a seven-year courtship and a three-year marriage, Anne had not borne Henry the male heir he desired, and he took drastic steps to end their relationship. Henry had Anne arrested on charges of infidelity and incest (with her brother, Lord Rochford, who is buried next to her), and she was executed on Tower Hill on 19 May, 1536.

The macabre turmoil of court life under Henry VIII is further illustrated here by the final resting places of many nobles who had fallen out of favour, but most noticeably by the bodies of Thomas Cromwell and Queen Katharine Howard. Cromwell had been instrumental in both the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn, but even his political acumen could not keep him safe from Henry forever. In 1540 he was arrested for associating with non-conformist religious groups and as a traitor, and he too was executed nearby. As if to cruelly exemplify Henry’s unpredictable temperament, he had rewarded Cromwell with the offices of Earl of Essex and Lord Great Chamberlain only three months before his death. Katharine Howard’s fate was truly tragic, as a young girl caught up in the machinations of the Tudor court. She was executed in 1541 for adultery against the King, aged less than 20 years old.

Being in a royal palace, the royal connections of this chapel are not, however, restricted to Henry VIII. Buried under the altar is James Scott, duke of Monmouth. Although his tale may not be as famous as that of his Tudor forebears, it is equally steeped in royal familial intrigue and conflict. Monmouth was the oldest son of Charles II, although he, like his siblings, was illegitimate and thus the throne passed to Charles’ brother, James II. In 1685, Monmouth led a rebellion against his uncle, in opposition to the King’s Catholic beliefs. Captured and condemned for treason, Monmouth became yet another royal beheaded on Tower Hill at a time of intense religious turmoil.

The distinctive position that the chapel of St Peter ad Vincula has held for hundreds of years at the heart of the English and British royalty means that it has been afforded special significance by virtue of the people who are buried by its altar. It attests some of the most crucial episodes in the history of the monarchy, the Church and society.

Archaeology

The end of the century saw a flurry of architectural work to improve the state of the chapel, which led to the discovery of the bodies of people executed during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The most striking thing about St Peter ad Vincula is its relative plainness, despite its status as a royal chapel. Externally, its most decorative feature is its modest eighteenth-century tower, upon which is the ‘pretty lantern’ described by Pevsner. Canon Clarke notes that it is ‘of little interest architecturally’, but it is not, perhaps, as dismal as it once was. Thomas Babington Macaulay declared, in his The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, originally published in 1848, that there was ‘no sadder spot on earth than this little cemetery’. Physically, the building was in bad repair: defects such as ‘broken and uneven’ pavements and ‘walls and columns disfigured with whitewash and unimportant tablets’ were retrospectively recorded.