The literary works of the Gentlemen of the Elizabethan Chapel Royal: politics, religion, and print

Elizabeth I’s Chapel Royal is most famous for its material conservatism, its music, and the crypto-Catholicism of its two most famous members, William Byrd and Thomas Tallis. However, further investigation into this institution reveals a complex vision of royal household worship beyond the conservatism famously attacked by contemporary Protestant nonconformists. Developing part of my DPhil research into the Elizabethan and Jacobean Chapel, this paper will examine the surviving publications of Elizabethan gentlemen to point toward a more distinctly Protestant culture. 
Comprised of Catholic conformists and converts, ‘hot’ Protestant Nicodemites, and one religious radical, this cross-section of the Elizabethan Chapel Royal, from 1558 to 1603, will reveal that the development of Elizabethan courtly religious culture travelled much closer to national trends than has been previously assumed. By comparing and investigating the views of these six men on the sacraments, the royal supremacy, covenant theology, charity, and anti-Catholicism, the often impressive literary efforts of the Elizabethan Gentlemen will demonstrate the theological vibrancy (alongside the musical excellence) of an influential and important courtly institution. 


Henry Oscar Davies Patton is a DPhil candidate at Merton College, Oxford.