Chapel Royal
The double-height chapel was begun by Wolsey and completed under Henry VIII. Its timber and plaster ceiling, a Gothic vault with Renaissance pendants completed by trumpeting boys, is considered the "most important and magnificent in Britain". The altar is framed by a massive oak reredos in Baroque style carved by Grinling Gibbons during the reign of Queen Anne. Opposite the altar, at first-floor level, is the royal pew where the royal family would attend services apart from the general congregation seated below. Queen Catherine Howard was painfully dragged down this gallery pleading to Henry not to be executed.
Read more about this topic: Hampton Court Palace
Famous quotes containing the words chapel and/or royal:
“The religion of England is part of good-breeding. When you see on the continent the well-dressed Englishman come into his ambassador’s chapel and put his face for silent prayer into his smooth-brushed hat, you cannot help feeling how much national pride prays with him, and the religion of a gentleman.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“When other helpers fail and comforts flee, when the senses decay and the mind moves in a narrower and narrower circle, when the grasshopper is a burden and the postman brings no letters, and even the Royal Family is no longer quite what it was, an obituary column stands fast.”
—Sylvia Townsend Warner (1893–1978)