One of the most opulent sites in early modern London,
Henry VII’s Chapel
(CORA 700002991) still stands in the eastern wing of
Westminster Abbey. Often referred to as the
Lady Chapel,
Henry VII Lady
Chapel,
Chapel of Henry
VII,
and
Chapel of the
Order of the Bath,
the structure was initially intended
to monumentalize
Henry VI, who was ultimately not
canonized (
Condon 60). The
Henry VII Lady Chapel is the resting place of
Henry VII himself and his wife,
Elizabeth of York. Additionally, it houses the tombs
of
Anne of Cleves;
Edward
VI;
Mary I;
Elizabeth I;
Mary, Queen of Scots;
Anne of Denmark;
James VI
and I; and other key figures of the English Royalty (
Weinreb 1007). The political significance of this
burial place was mobilized by
James I when the body
of
Elizabeth I was disinterred in 1606 to make room
for the tomb of
Mary, Queen of Scots.
0 With
relevance to the history of the location, Barbara Harvey notes that the history
of the
Henry VII Lady Chapel branches back at
least to the thirteenth century:
King Henry
III, who was then a boy of thirteen, laid the foundation stone of
the old Lady chapel on 16 May 1220.... The chapel was a necessity of the
worship of St Mary the Virgin.... [T]he existing altar in the abbey church
no longer seemed adequate for this purpose
(
Harvey 5). Toward the end of
Henry VII’s reign, on 24 January, 1503, the first stone was laid for
the new Lady chapel, which, as Tim Tatton-Brown and Richard Mortimer write,
was literally fitted over an existing building, and over an existing
institution nearly three hundred years old
(
Tatton-Brown and Mortimer 2). In the following
centuries,
Henry VII’s Chapel would remain the
primary location for royal burials (
Weinreb
1007).
