The ante-chapel was once furnished with box-pews, but it now contains ordinary bench-pews, allegedly because Queen Victoria's Consort, Prince Albert, thought that the soldiers who used to guard the Palace made too much noise with their boots on the floor of the Chapel Royal! In the main part of the Chapel Royal the stalls and box-pews face inwards, avoiding the impropriety of worshippers' turning their backs to the altar or to the Holy Day Closet, symbols respectively of the presence of God and the Sovereign.
