Savoy Chapel

Part of the old Savoy Hospital (top) and the 'Church of St Mary Savoy' (bottom) in 1753.

The chapel was founded as part of Peter of Savoy's palace which was destroyed during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The present chapel building commenced in the 1490s (being completed in 1512) by Henry VII as a side chapel off the Savoy Hospital's 200-foot (61 m) long nave (the nave was secular rather than sacred, held 100 beds and was demolished in the 19th century).

The Savoy Chapel has hosted various other congregations, most notably that of St Mary-le-Strand whilst it had no church building of its own (1549–1714). Also the German Lutheran congregation of Westminster (now at Sandwich Street and Thanet Street, near St Pancras[3]) was granted royal permission to worship in the chapel when it separated from Holy Trinity (the City of London Lutheran congregation now at St Mary-at-Hill).[4] The new congregation's first pastor, Irenaeus Crusius (previously an associate at Holy Trinity), dedicated the chapel on the 19th Sunday after Trinity 1694 as the Marienkirche or the German Church of St Mary-le-Savoy. Archibald Cameron of Lochiel, the last Jacobite leader to be executed for treason, was buried there in 1753.

The Savoy Chapel c. 1890

An Anglican place of worship, the chapel was noted in the 18th and 19th centuries as a place where marriages without banns might occur outside of the usual parameters of ecclesiastical law of that time.[5] The Rev. Henry White was the chaplain of Savoy Chapel from 1860 to 1890 and might have set a record for officiating at the marriages of actors and actresses.[6] It was referred to in Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited as "the place where divorced couples got married in those days—a poky little place".[7] In 1755 Joseph Vernon married Jane Poitier here and the curate and vicar were transported for fourteen years for carrying out an unlicensed wedding.[8]

In 1908 it was the scene of a suffragette wedding between Victor and Una Duval. The wedding was attended by leading suffragettes and the wedding caused much debate because the bride refused to say "and obey", despite the intervention of the Archbishop of Canterbury.[9]

In 1939, it was announced by the office of the Duchy of Lancaster that the Savoy Chapel would be known as The King's Chapel of the Savoy.

Many of the chapel's stained glass windows were destroyed in the London Blitz during the Second World War. However, a triptych stained glass memorial window survives which depicts a procession of angelic musicians. It is dedicated to the memory of Richard D'Oyly Carte (who was married at the chapel in 1888) and was unveiled by Sir Henry Irving in 1902; after their deaths, the names of Rupert D'Oyly Carte[10] and Dame Bridget D'Oyly Carte were added.[11]

Diamond Jubilee window

Savoy Chapel nave in 2012

The chapel has been Crown property for centuries as part of the Savoy Hospital estate and remains under the aegis of the monarch as part of the Duchy of Lancaster and thereby is a Royal Peculiar. It was inaugurated as a Chapel Royal in November 2016.[12] The chaplain is appointed by the Duchy (and since 1937 as ex-officio chaplain of the Royal Victorian Order) and effectively it is the "parish church" of the Savoy Estate, the Duchy of Lancaster's principal London landholding. Armorial plates commemorating GCVOs past and present are displayed throughout the chapel; the Royal Victorian Order's present Honorary Genealogist is David White, Somerset Herald.

Most of the chapel's costs and maintenance are met by the Duchy of Lancaster, with recent works including landscaping of its garden in honour of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II in 2002 and restoration of the chapel ceiling in 1999. The chapel was further refurbished and a new stained-glass window commemorating the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II was unveiled by the Queen in November 2012.

The Savoy Chapel uses the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and the King James Bible for worship. Services are held each Sunday, to which members of the public are welcomed, excepting occasional special events.[13] The chapel is open for visitors from Monday to Thursday.[14]

The Savoy Chapel is mentioned in Evelyn Waugh's 1946 novel Brideshead Revisited where the venue for the marriage of Julia Flyte and Rex Mottram is discussed: "Oh, Charles, what a squalid wedding! The Savoy Chapel was the place where divorced couples got married in those days—a poky little place not at all what Rex had intended. I wanted just to slip into a registry office one morning and get the thing over with a couple of char-women as witnesses, but nothing else would do but Rex had to have bridesmaids and orange blossom and the Wedding March. It was gruesome." [20]