Christmas Carols and Their Stories
Puzzle 20 · Carols of the Nativity Story · Page 36 in print
Angels from the Realms
In the United States and Canada, Angels from the Realms of Glory is most often sung to Henry Smart’s tune Regent Square, named after Regent Square Church in London.
Jump to a word
The words
Ayrshire
The Scottish county of Montgomery’s birth.
Bastille
The Paris fortress whose fall was the subject of a song Montgomery printed.
Christmas Eve
24 December 1816, when the carol first appeared in print.
Cotterill
Thomas Cotterill, whose 1819 hymn book first included the carol.
Fulneck
The Moravian settlement in Yorkshire where Montgomery was educated.
Henry Smart
The organist who composed the tune Regent Square.
Irvine
The Ayrshire town where Montgomery was born in 1771.
Montgomery
James Montgomery, the Sheffield editor who wrote the carol.
Natal Star
The star of the child’s birth that the sages have seen.
Presbyterian
The church of Regent Square, called the cathedral of English Presbyterianism.
Regent Square
Henry Smart’s tune for the carol, named after a London church.
Royal Pension
The £200 a year granted to Montgomery in 1833.
Sages
The wise men called to worship in the carol’s third verse.
Sheffield Iris
Montgomery’s newspaper, which first printed the carol in 1816.
York Castle
The prison where Montgomery was twice held for what he printed.
Sources
- James Moffatt (ed.), Handbook to the Church Hymnary (London: Oxford University Press, 1927), full text via Internet ArchiveInternet Archive
- Hymnology Archive (James Cheesman with Chris Fenner, 2023), article ‘Angels, from the realms of glory’Hymnology Archive
- James Montgomery, The Christian Psalmist (Glasgow: Chalmers and Collins, 1825), full text via Internet ArchiveInternet Archive
- John Julian, A Dictionary of Hymnology, revised edition (London: John Murray, 1907), vol. 1, full text via Internet ArchiveInternet Archive