The first chapel on this site was built during the reign of Henry I (1100–35). A major fire in 1512 destroyed the old building, and the oldest parts of the present chapel therefore date from the sixteenth century. As the Tower of London was at first a residence of the sovereigns, the first chapel probably had stalls for the royal family (though their normal place of worship would have been the Chapel of St John the Evangelist in the White Tower.) However, as the Tower from earliest times was a prison for persons accused of offences against the crown, St Peter-ad- Vincula came to be used by the warders and soldiers on duty and their families.
It also became the burial place of a number of the more important prisoners who paid the extreme penalty. The site of the block is only a few yards from its door.
The history of executions at the Tower is closely linked to the history of England itself and, in particular, of the English Reformation. Most of those who died on the block were famous, and some were of noble or royal blood. Some were truly guilty, others merely the unfortunate victims of circumstance. In several cases the facts are still a mystery. As Carlyle says,
‘In this little Golgotha are interred mighty secrets now never to be solved; for half the crimes of our English monarchs were wrought out on the little plot outside the church-door of St Peter-ad-Vincula’.
The roster of execution victims from the Reformation period interred in St Peter’s includes:
- Anne Boleyn, second queen of Henry VIII (1536)
- Margaret, Countess of Salisbury
- Catherine Howard, fifth queen of Henry VIII ( I 542);
- Sir Thomas More
- Bishop John Fisher
- Thomas Cromwell, the Earl of Essex; (all of whom were put to death under HenryVIII)
- Thomas, Lord Seymour of Dudley, the Lord Admiral
- Seymour, the Protector Somerset (both of whom died during the reign of Edward VI)
- Lady Jane Grey; Earl of Essex
- John Dudley, earl of Warwick and duke of Northumberland (who were executed under Mary I)
As St Peter-ad-Vincula was not affected by the Great Fire and not seriously damaged by the bombing, a number of fine monuments to various officers of the Tower have survived from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A comparison with an old print of 1547 indicates that at that time the building had battlements and the porch was on the south side. But despite various changes and inevitable modernization, this royal chapel has, in a small way, much in common with Westminster Abbey as a church of great historic interest.