Music and musicians in the Catholic chapel of James II at Whitehall, 1686–1688.

Described by the architectural historian Simon Thurley as ‘the most lavish ecclesiastical building built by an English monarch since the Reformation’, the Catholic chapel designed by Sir Christopher Wren for King James II and constructed at Whitehall between 1685 and 1687 was destroyed by fire, along with most of the adjoining palace, in 1698. The physical removal of the chapel and its environs (viewed as something of an embarrassment by King William III and Queen Mary II) from the centre of government in London, and dispersal of many of its associated cultural artefacts, symbolized the passing into oblivion of the last, brief, period of open Catholic worship by royalty in England. This article sets in context the careers of musicians, clergy, artists and craftsmen involved with the daily life of the chapel, shedding new light on polychoral music composed by its Italian maestro di cappella Innocenzo Fede, and demonstrating that, as an outpost of Counter-Reformation Europe built in the heart of Protestant London, the chapel and its religious infrastructure acted as an important centre for the generation and circulation of printed and manuscript Catholic liturgical music. The article suggests that, as a specifically Catholic cultural and religious nucleus supported by the king, around which English Catholic recusant networks revolved, the Catholic chapel of James II, in its day, was very far from being a peripheral phenomenon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]