A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Chapels Royal
CHAPELS ROYAL. Bodies of clergy and lay-clerks who minister at the courts of Christian monarchs; and also the places in which they worship. There are several in England—viz., at St. James's Palace, Whitehall, and St. George's, Windsor, etc. From the 'Liber Niger Domus Regis' (1461), the earliest known record on the subject, we learn that in Edward IV's reign there was a well-established Chapel Royal, consisting of a dean; a confessor to the household; 24 chaplains and clerks variously qualified—by skill in descant, eloquence in reading, and ability in organ-playing; 2 epistlers, ex-chorister-boys; 8 children; a master of the grammar school; and a master of the children, or master of song.
The term Chapel Royal is now usually applied to that at St. James's Palace. The chapel is between the Colour Court and the Ambassadors' Court. The establishment consists of the Dean, the Lord High Almoner; the Clerk of the Closet, and 2 deputies; the sub-dean; 48 chaplains; 8 priests in ordinary, a master of the children; one lay composer; one lay organist and chapel-master or choir-master; 8 lay gentlemen and 10 boys; 1 sergeant of the vestry; 1 groom of ditto; and other attendants.
The service is a full choral one, at 10 a.m., 12 noon, and 5.30 p.m. on Sundays, and at 11 a. m. on feast-days. The boys are educated at the cost of the chapel, and as a rule sing there only. The chief musical posts of the establishment are at present held as follows:—Master of the Children, Rev. Thos. Helmore, one of the priests in ordinary; Composer, Sir John Goss; Organist and Choir-master, Mr. C. S. Jekyll.
The Chapel Royal at Whitehall (Banqueting House) is under the same chief officers as St. James's—but is now attended only once a year by the choir of that establishment in the special service of Maundy Thursday, on the afternoon of Thursday in Holy Week, when gifts called 'Benevolences' are distributed by the Lord High Almoner to certain poor people, as many in number as the sovereign is years old. The ceremony is a relic of a service which included washing the feet of the poor, of the same nature with that performed by the Pope on the same day. That pan of it, however, as well as the distribution of fish and bread before the second lesson, has long been discontinued.
The following special anthems were formerly eung in the course of the service:—'Hide not thou thy face from us, O Lord' (Farrant), 'Prevent us, O Lord' (Byrd), 'Call to remembrance, O Lord' (Farrant), 'O praise the Lord all ye heathen' (Croft). They are now varied each year.
The Chapel Royal of the Savoy (Strand) is a Chapel Royal in name only. The appointment of minister is in the gift of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the service is dependent on the taste or ability of the minister, as in any other ordinary chapel.