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:
“I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And ‘Thou shalt not’ writ over the door;”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“Because humans are not alone in exhibiting such behavior—bees stockpile royal jelly, birds feather their nests, mice shred paper—it’s possible that a pregnant woman who scrubs her house from floor to ceiling [just before her baby is born] is responding to a biological imperative . . . . Of course there are those who believe that . . . the burst of energy that propels a pregnant woman to clean her house is a perfectly natural response to their mother’s impending visit.”
—Mary Arrigo (20th century)