Erected in the reign of Edward the First, the little chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula (the parochial church—for the Tower, it is almost needless to say, is a parish in itself), is the second structure occupying the same site and dedicated to the same saint. The earlier fabric was much more spacious, and contained two chancels, with stalls for the king and queen, as appears from the following order for its repair issued in the reign of Henry the Third, and recorded by Stow:—“The king to the keepers of the Tower work, sendeth greeting: We command you to brush or plaster with lime well and decently the chancel of St. Mary in the church of St. Peter within the bailiwick of our Tower of London, and the chancel of St. Peter in the same church; and from the entrance of the chancel of St. Peter to the space of four feet beyond the stalls made for our own and our queen’s use in the same church; and the same stalls to be painted. And the little Mary with her shrine and the images of St. Peter, St. Nicholas, and Katherine, and the beam beyond the altar of St. Peter, and the little cross with its images to be coloured anew, and to be refreshed with good colours. And that ye cause to be made a certain image of St. Christopher holding and carrying Jesus where it may best and most conveniently be done, and painted in the foresaid church. And that ye cause two fair tables to be made and painted of the best colours concerning the stories of the blessed Nicholas and Katherine, before the altars of the said saints in the same church. And that ye cause to be made two fair cherubims with a cheerful and joyful countenance standing on the right and left of the great cross in the said church. And moreover, one marble font with marble pillars well and handsomely wrought.”
Thus much respecting the ancient edifice. The more recent chapel is a small, unpretending stone structure, and consists of a nave and an aisle at the north, separated by pointed arches, supported by clustered stone pillars of great beauty. Its chief interest is derived from the many illustrious and ill-fated dead crowded within its narrow walls.
Here rested, for a brief season, the body of John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, beheaded in 1535, for denying the king’s supremacy—“a prelate,” says Holinshed, “of great learning and of very good life. The Pope had elected him a cardinal and sent his hat as far as Calais. But his head was off before his hat was on, so that they met not.” Next to Fisher was interred his friend, the wise, the witty, the eloquent Sir Thomas More, whom Hall, the chronicler, hesitates whether he shall describe as “a foolish wise man, or a wise foolish man,”—and who jested even on the scaffold. His body was afterwards removed, at the intercession of his daughter, Margaret Roper, to Chelsea. Here also was interred the last of the right line of the Plantagenets, Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the mother of Cardinal Pole. The venerable countess refused to lay her head upon the block, saying (as Lord Herbert of Cherbury reports),—“‘So should traitors do, and I am none.’ Neither did it serve that the executioner told her it was the fashion:—so turning her grey head every way, she bid him, if he would have it, to get it as he could: so he was constrained to fetch it off slovenly.”