KING’S COLLEGE

CAMBRIDGE

A SEQUENCE OF WORDS AND MUSIC TO MARK

THE 500TH

ANNIVERSARY OF THE COMPLETION

OF THE STONE FABRIC OF THE CHAPEL

Sung by the College Choir and King’s Voices

Organ Prelude

Wild Mossy Mountains Judith Weir

KC 1976

Hon. Fellow 2003

¶ All stand at the entrance of the Choir and clergy.

Introit The Founder’s Prayer

Domine, Jesu Christe, qui me creasti, redemisti, et preordinasti ad hoc

quod sum; tu scis quæ de me facere vis; fac de me secundum

voluntatem tuam cum misericordia. Amen.

O Lord Jesus Christ, who hast created and redeemed me and hast

foreordained me unto that which now I am; thou knowest what thou

wouldst do with me; do with me according to thy will, in thy mercy.

Amen.

Words: King Henry VI

Music: Henry Ley (Precentor of Eton College 1926-1945)

¶ All remain standing.

The Dean reads the Bidding

We gather this evening to begin together our commemoration of the

500th

anniversary of the completion of this Chapel. In words and

with music we trace the story of five centuries, beginning with the

piety and will of our beloved Founder, King Henry VI.

For half a millennium this wonderful building has stood at the heart

of Cambridge. Envisaged as a house of prayer and music for

scholars, it has become an internationally recognised icon for the

College, the University and the City. A place where people have

gathered for ceremonies of admission to the College and the election

of Provosts, it has become a destination for thousands of tourists

from all over the world.

On the inside the great windows, unrivalled vault, and the majestic

screen from which the great organ rises as a ‘harmonious

anachronism’ feed the heart as well as the eye. From the outside, the

sheer elevations and glorious pinnacles raise minds and aspirations

upwards. It is no accident, perhaps, that a good number of major

developments in human knowledge and thought have happened

within quarter of a mile of this transcending structure. Just as the

Chapel speaks of Cambridge to the world, so it speaks to Cambridge

of the holy ambition for truth, beauty and wisdom.

And because this place is consecrated and dedicated to common

prayer, let us speak from our hearts the prayer taught by Christ

himself, and which has been said here countless times these past five

hundred years: Our Father,

All

Our Father, which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy

kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Give

us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, As we

forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into

temptation; But deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom,

the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

May God bless us, may St Mary and St Nicolas be our companions,

and may we open our hearts to the history of this place and, in our

own way, contribute worthily to its future.

All Amen.

¶ The congregation sits.

From the Will of King Henry VI 1448.

In the name of the blessed Trinity, the Father, the Sonne, and the

Holy Ghost, oure Lady St Marie mother of Christ, and all the holy

companie of heaven: I, Henry by the grace of God King of England,

and of France, and lorde of Ireland, after the conquest of England the

Sixt, for divers great and notable causes moving me at the making of

theise presents, have do my will and mine intent to be written in

manner that followeth:

As touching the dimensions of the church of my said college of our

Lady and St. Nicholas at Cambrige, I have devised and apointed that

the same church shall containe 288 feete of assise in length, without

any yles, and all of the wideness of 40 feete, and the length of the

same church from the west end to the altare at the quier doore, shall

containe 120 feete, and from the provosts stall unto the greece called

Gradus Chori 90 feete, for 36 stalles on either side of the same quire,

answering to 70 fellowes and ten priests conducts, which must be de

prima forma. And from the said stalles unto the est end of the said

church 72 feete of assize: also a reredost bearing the roodelofte

departing the quier and the body of the church, containing in length

40 feete, and in breadth 14 feete; the walles of the same church to be

in height 90 feete, imbattelled, vawted, and chare roffed, sufficiently

butteraced, and every butterace finished with finials; and in the east

end of the said church shall be a windowe of nine dayes, and betwixt

every butterace a windowe of five dayes, and betwixt every of the

same butteraces in the body of the church, on both sides of the same

church, a closet with an altare therein, containing in length 20 feete,

and in breadth 10 feete, vawted and finished undre the soyle of the

yle windows.

And I will that both my said colleges be edified of the most

substantiall and best abiding stuffe of stone, lead, glasse, and yron,

that may best be had and provided thereto: and that the church of St.

John (Zachary), which must be taken to the enlarging of my said

college, be well and sufficiently made againe in the grounde in

which the provost and schollars abovesayd now be lodged, or nigh

by where it may be thought most convenient, to the intent that

Divine service shall now be done therein worshipfully to the honour

of God, our Blessed Lady Christes mother, St. John Baptist, and all

saints.

Anthem

Laudate nomen Domini, vos servi Domini,

Ab ortu solis usque ad occasum eius.

Decreta Dei justa sunt, et cor exhilarant.

Laudate Deum, principes et omnes populi.

O come, ye servants of the Lord, and praise his holy name:

from early morn to setting sun, his might on earth proclaim.

His laws are just, and glad the heart: he makes his mercies known:

ye princes, come, ye people too, and bow before his throne.

Words: Psalm 113: 1,3

Music: Christopher Tye (Chorister c 1510)

From King’s College Chapel 1515 – 2015.

Austen Leigh suggests that by the early seventeenth century the

Chapel had become ‘the Cathedral of Cambridge’. He notes the

1619 regulation of James I concerning the maintenance of services in

the Cambridge College Chapels, and the prohibition against women

attending services at any of them, with the exception of ordinary

prayers in King’s Chapel. From an early period, it seems that there

were few limitations on visiting the Chapel and, perhaps more

surprisingly, on going up to the Chapel roof. For Samuel Pepys, the

Chapel was part of an itinerary of Cambridge sites (along with

Trinity College and St John’s Library) to be visited with his wife and

friends. John Evelyn toured Caius College and Ling’s Chapel, and

in 1697 Celia Fiennes took in a number of colleges, reporting most

extensively on Trinity College and King’s Chapel. The Chapel was

not only visited by Elizabeth I and James I, but also by Charles I and

Queen Henrietta Maria (1631), Charles II (1641, 1671 and 1681) and

King William (1689). In 1669, no less than Cosimo de Medici

observed the schools, ‘& and from thence went to King’s College

Chappell where they had a music divertisement’. A University

correspondent wrote to Matthew Prior that the social season of 1700

took its toll on the inhabitants of Cambridge: ‘while the season lasted

at Newmarket I was plagued with visitants from thence who came to

see King’s College Chapel, etc. When I thought this fatigue over,

Mr Boyle (I thank him) sent me Captain Delval with a brace of

Mahometans from Mechanes, to whom I was obliged to show our

University (or rather them to it).’ The eighteenth century historian

of Cambridge, Edmund Carter, is explicit that the Chapel is ‘the only

Public Chapel in Town, and …. On a Sunday afternoon (especially

in the Summertime and fine Weather) you may see it well filled, and

amongst them Numbers of ladies’. In the early nineteenth century,

the anonymously published Alma Mater, a text partly written in the

‘university wit’ tradition, notes that there was a service in the Chapel

every afternoon at 3.00 pm:

To hear the chanting and anthem of which many gownsmen and

other attend, promenading the spacious antechapel. On Sundays,

like the Chapel at Trinity, we have also a pretty sprinkling of the

lady-snobbesses (university slang for townspeople), who likewise go

(emphatically be it understood) to see and be seen.

Nicolette Zeeman

Fellow 1995

Anthem

O clap your hands together, all ye people: O sing unto God with the

voice of melody. For the Lord is high, and to be feared: he is the

great King of all the earth, he is the great King upon all the earth.

He shall subdue the people under us: and the nations under our feet.

He shall choose out an heritage for us: ev’n the worship of Jacob,

whom he loved.

Words, Psalm 47, vv 1-4

Music, Orlando Gibbons (Chorister 1596)

1820 Inside of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.

Tax not the royal Saint with vain expense,

With ill-matched aims the Architect who planned—

Albeit labouring for a scanty band

Of white-robed Scholars only—this immense

And glorious Work of fine intelligence!

Give all thou canst; high Heaven rejects the lore

Of nicely-calculated less or more;

So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense

These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof

Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,

Where light and shade repose, where music dwells

Lingering—and wandering on as loth to die;

Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof

That they were born for immortality.

What awful perspective! While from our sight

With gradual stealth the lateral windows hide

Their Portraitures, their stone-work glimmers, dyed

In the soft chequerings of a sleepy light.

Martyr, or King, or sainted Eremite,

Who’er ye be, that thus, yourselves unseen,

Imbue your prison-bars with solemn sheen,

Shine on, until ye fade with coming Night!

But from the arms of silence – list! O list!

The music bursteth into second life;

The notes luxuriate, every stone is kissed

By sound, or ghost of sound, in mazy strife;

Heart-thrilling strains, that cast, before the eye

Of the devout, a veil of ecstasy!

Ecclesiastical Sonnets 43-44

William Wordsworth

Anthem

Silence, come first. I see a sleeping swan,

Wings closed and drifting where the water leads,

A winter moon, a grove where shadows dream,

A hand out-stretched to gather hollow reeds.

The four winds in their litanies can tell

All of earth’s stories as they weep and cry,

The sea names all the treasure of her tides,

The birds rejoice between the earth and sky.

Voices of grief and from the heart of joy;

So near to comprehension do we stand

That wind and sea and all of winged delight

Lie in the octaves of man’s voice and hand

And music wakes from silence, where it slept.

Words: Ursula Vaughan Williams

Music: Ralph Vaughan Williams

From a paper written during the First World War.

Thought upon the services of the Chapel takes its colour from the

use to which we desire to put the building.

For instance, at one extreme, it can be regarded almost entirely from

the point of view of serving the College, its Fellows and

Undergraduates.

At the other, it can be regarded as the typical Church, not only of the

College, not only of Cambridge University, but of the English

University world. So it is vaguely but quite commonly regarded by

people outside.

These two aims do not for one moment conflict. But within the

College the first view perhaps is most easily and naturally held.

None of us would consent for a moment to any use that would

impoverish the religious provision for the College.

On the other hand, the second aim is more ambitious, and naturally

would not especially appeal or even occur to those of us who have

no intimate touch upon the larger problems and life of the Church of

England. Usually therefore it falls into the background; the

extraordinary potentialities of our Chapel for the whole religious life

of England tend to be forgotten. At the present moment of utter

chaos, and of superb hope in Church, as in State, we have a chance

which, boldly taken, might make Kings one of the most important

churches in the land.

The particular moment affords us opportunity. There can be no

doubt that we are on the threshold of, are witnessing – a second

Reformation. The practices and policies of the Church are called in

question, not by unsympathetic critics who may be disregarded, but

by the keenest of the clergy and laity alike. The Bishops are asking

for experiments. The administrative side of the Church is to be

drastically overhauled, the connection with the State modified,

relations with separated bodies have changed out of recognition,

party spirit is dying fast. The reform of the public worship of the

Church is demanded on all sides, the lectionary has already been

revised, and the Prayer-book at a slower pace is yet following.

I suggest that in the matter of public worship, no Church in the land

is more fitted than ours to take a lead. We are free from the

ecclesiastical authority which governs even the most ‘live’

cathedrals. We have, I hope, both the learning and the sober sense

which will prevent the extravagances either of ignorance or of one-

sided enthusiasms – both of them serious dangers at the moment.

We have unrivalled musical resources. It is my passionate

conviction that if we could catch and crystallise the wisest principles

of liturgical reform in the worship of our Chapel, we should be doing

a great work, not only for the college and university, but also for the

Church and for the Empire.

Cambridge exists to exercise such leadership in the purely

intellectual sphere. It does not seem to be an unreasonable ambition

that Kings Chapel should seek to do this in its own religious sphere;

the teaching that might issue from its services would not be less

influential than that which issues from lecture-rooms.

Eric Milner-White

Fellow and Dean 1918-1941

Anthem

’Twas in the year that King Uzziah died,

A vision by Isaiah was espied;

A lofty throne, the Lord was set thereon;

And with his glory all the temple shone.

Bright seraphim were standing round about.

Six wings had ev’ry of that quire devout;

With twain he awesome veil’d his face, and so

With twain he dreadful veil’d his feet below.

With twain did he now hither, thither fly:

And thus aloud did one to other cry:

Holy is God, the Lord of Sabaoth,

Full of his glory are earth and heav’n, both.

And at their cry the lintels moved apace,

And clouds of incense fill’d the holy place.

Alleluia.

Words: G.R. Woodward

Music: George Benjamin

KC 1981

Hon. Fellow 2014

1954 ‘Sunday Morning, King’s Chapel, Cambridge’.

File into yellow candle light, fair choristers of King’s

Lost in the shadowy silence of canopied Renaissance stalls

In blazing glass above the dark glow skies and thrones and wings

Blue, ruby, gold and green between the whiteness of the walls

And with what rich precision the stonework soars and springs

To fountain out a spreading vault – a shower that never falls.

The white of windy Cambridge courts, the cobbles brown and dry,

The gold of plaster Gothic with ivy overgrown,

The apple-red, the silver fronts, the wide green flats and, high,

The yellowing elm-trees circled out on islands of their own –

Oh, here behold all colours change that catch the flying sky

To waves of pearly light that heave along the shafted stone.

In far East Anglian churches, the clasped hands lying long

Recumbent on sepulchral slabs or effigied in brass

Buttress with prayer this vaulted roof so white and light and strong

And countless congregations as the generations pass

Join choir and great crowned organ case, in centuries of song

To praise Eternity contained in Time and coloured glass.

A Few Late Chrysanthemums

John Betjeman

Anthem

Fair daffodils, we weep to see

You haste away so soon;

As yet the early-rising sun

Has not attain'd his noon.

Stay, stay

Until the hasting day

Has run

But to [the] evensong,

And, having pray'd together, we

Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,

We have as short a spring;

As quick a growth to meet decay,

As you, or anything.

We die,

As your hours [do,] and dry

Away,

Like to the summer's rain,

Or as the pearls of morning's dew,

Ne'er to be found again.

Words: Robert Herrick

Music: Benjamin Britten

From the University Sermon of 1984.

I believe that for lovers of painting the speed and sureness of

Rubens’s invention and execution contained in this picture are

breath-taking. I believe that for those who care for this royal Chapel,

and who savour its history as a marvellous growth through more than

five centuries of change since the Founder planned it, the changes

wrought the coming of the Rubens in the 20th

century are as

assimilable as the no less monumental changes wrought to its late

Gothic strangeness in the early 16th

century gallery of Antwerp

glaziers’ work, or in the late 17th

century by a fully baroque organ-

case, or indeed in the early 18th

century by marble flooring in the

style used by the Antwerp Jesuits. I believe that for those who come

to worship in a place dedicated to Our Lady and St Nicholas, this

magniloquent display of the Epiphany to the Gentiles, an

unforgettable moment in the story of Mary and her son, can by its

carnality and by its charm, as well as by its grandeur and its grace,

warm their devotions and guide them like a star. The vision

vouchsafed beyond the altar and beneath the window’s show of

gnarled and awesome cruelty, lightens us. Through the wisdom ,

through the journey, through the adoration of the magi those

sacrificial mysteries were first seen to be open to the apprehension of

any who would be Christian. The story told by our picture is that

Christendom is to be worldwide and wonderful, not just the cult of a

chosen tribe.

Michael Jaffé

Fellow 1952 - 1997

Te Deum Collegium Regale

We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge thee to be the Lord.

All the earth doth worship thee, the Father everlasting.

To thee all angels cry aloud, the heavens and all the powers therein.

To thee cherubin and seraphin continually do cry;

Holy, Holy, Holy: Lord God of Sabaoth;

Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of thy glory.

The glorious company of the apostles praise thee.

The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise thee.

The noble army of martyrs praise thee.

The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee;

The Father of an infinite majesty;

Thine honourable, true and only Son;

Also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter.

Thou art the King of glory O Christ.

Thou art the everlasting Son of the Father.

When thou tookest upon thee to deliver man, thou didst not abhor the

Virgin’s womb.

When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou didst open

the kingdom of heaven to all believers.

Thou sittest at the right hand of God in the glory of the Father.

We believe that thou shalt come to be our Judge.

We therefore pray thee, help thy servants, whom thou hast redeemed

with thy precious blood.

Make them to be numbered with thy Saints, in glory everlasting.

O Lord, save thy people and bless thine heritage.

Govern them and lift them up for ever.

Day by day we magnify thee;

And we worship thy Name, ever world without end.

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.

O Lord, have mercy upon us, have mercy upon us.

O Lord, let thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in thee.

O Lord, in thee have I trusted, let me never be confounded.

Words: Matins, Book of Common Prayer

Music: Herbert Howells

¶ All stand to sing the Hymn.

Rex Henricus, sis amicus

Nobis in angustia;

Cujus prece nos a nece

Salvemur perpetua.

Lampas morum, spes aegrorum,

Ferens medicamina,

Sis tuorum famulorum

Ductor ad caelestia.

Ut jucundas cervus undas

Aestuans desiderat,

Sic ad rivum Dei vivum

Mens fidelis properat.

Pax in terra: non sit Guerra

Orbis per confinia

Virtus crescat, et fervescat

Caritas per Omnia

Non sudore vel dolore

Moriamur subito:

Sed vivamus et plaudamus

Caelis sine termino

King Henry, be a friend

To us in time of trouble;

By your prayer may we be saved

From everlasting death.

Light of morals, hope of the sick

Bringing them medicines,

Be for your band of servants

Leader to heavenly things.

As the hart, heated in the chase,

Desires refreshing waters,

So to the living stream of God,

The faithful heart hastens.

Peace on earth: let there be no

war

Within the bounds of the world:

Let virtue grow, and charity

Glow through everything.

Let us not, through toil or pain,

Meet with sudden death:

But let us live and clap our hands,

In heaven without end.

Trans., Patrick Wilkinson

Fellow 1932 – 1985

¶ The congregation remains standing.

Dean Let us pray.

A Prayer of Brooke Foss Westcott, Professorial Fellow c1882-1901

We beseech thee, O God, the God of Truth, that what we know not

of things we ought to know, thou wilt teach us. That what we know

of Truth, though wilt keep us therein. That in what we are mistaken,

as we must be, thou wilt correct. That at whatsoever things we

stumble, thou wilt yet establish us. And from all things that are false,

and from all knowledge that would be hurtful, thou wilt evermore

defend us; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

All Amen.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to

shine upon you, and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up the

light of his countenance upon you, and give you peace. And the

blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and the Holy

Spirit be among you and remain with you always.

All Amen.

Organ voluntary

Alleluyas Simon Preston

Chorister 1949

Organ Scholar 1958