When the Reformed Faith ousted Popery the jurisdiction of the Bishop of London over this chapel ceased, and it has ever since remained a benefice donative over which the Bishop has no power of visitation or deprivation, since the Tower itself is extra-parochial. Private marriages could be solemnised at St Peter’s, and in Ben Jonson’s “Every Man in his Humour,” this privilege is alluded to. One unlucky curate of the chapel, however, was sent to prison in James the First’s reign for having performed marriages and christenings in the chapel, and only secured his liberty through the influence of Sir William Waad, the Lieutenant of the Tower. Another clergyman named Hubbock and his son were excommunicated in 1620 by Laud for committing the same offence. Later on, however, the right of solemnising marriages and christenings in this chapel was allowed, and still continues. Samuel Pepys has described in one of his vivid word pictures a visit he paid to the chapel after the Restoration, when he occupied one of the hideous pews that then choked the floor, and which were only removed a few years ago. “February 28, 1663–4. Lord’s Day. The Lieutenant of the Tower, Sir J. Robinson, would needs have me by coach home with him; where the officers of his regiment dined with him. I did go and dine with him, his ordinary table being very good, and his lady a very high carried, but a comely big woman, I was mightily pleased with her. After dinner to chapel in the Tower with the Lieutenant, with the keys carried before us; and I sat with the Lieutenant in his pew in great state. None it seems of the prisoners in the Tower that are there now, though they may, will come to prayers there.” With a monstrous gallery built in the reign of George II. for the use of the troops of the garrison, with the ugly square wooden pews, in one of which Pepys sat “in great state”; with the pavement all broken and defaced, with walls and columns whitewashed, and with the handsome carved Tudor ceiling coated with lath and plaster, it is no wonder that to any one with a respect for antiquity or love of beauty, St Peter’s in the Tower must have presented a sad spectacle before its restoration. And it was not until 1862 that any steps were taken to remove what was nothing less than a public disgrace. The improvements were commenced by re-opening the old doorway at the west end, which had been bricked up, the window of Edward I.’s time was also restored, the broken fragments having been collected and replaced in their original position. The lath and plaster which for a century or more had disfigured the ceiling were removed, and the finely carved old chestnut beams once more uncovered.