Chapel Royal

A chapel royal is an establishment in the British and Canadian royal households serving the spiritual needs of the sovereign and the royal family. Historically, the chapel royal was a body of priests and singers that travelled with the monarch. The term is now also applied to the chapels within royal palaces. In the Church of England, some of these royal chapels may also be referred to as royal peculiars, an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the monarch. The dean of His Majesty's chapels royal is a royal household office in the United Kingdom that, in modern times, is usually held by the Bishop of London. In Canada, the three chapels royal are affiliated with some of the country' First Nations. A British chapel royal's most public role is to perform choral liturgical service. The British chapels royal have played a significant role in the musical life of the nation, with composers such as Tallis, Byrd, Bull, Gibbons, and Purcell all having been members of the choir. The choir consists of gentlemen of the chapel royal singing the lower parts alongside the boy choristers known as the children of the chapel. In its early history, the English Chapel Royal travelled, like the rest of the court, with the monarch and performed its functions wherever he or she was residing at the time. The earliest written record of the Chapel dates from 1135, in the reign of Henry I. Specified in this document of household regulations are two gentlemen and four servants; although, there may have been other people within the Chapel at that time. An ordinance from the reign of Henry VI sets out the full membership of the Chapel as of 1455: one dean, 20 chaplains and clerks, seven children, one chaplain confessor for the household, and one yeoman. However, in the same year, the clerks petitioned the King asking that their number be increased to 24 singing men, due to "the grete labour that thei have daily in your chapell". The master of the children of the Chapel Royal had, until at least 1684, the power to impress promising boy trebles from provincial choirs for service in the Chapel.