Places: St. George's Chapel, Windsor

Orders of Chivalry existed for a variety of reasons, both military and political.  However, they were by nature highly religious institutions.  They were dedicated to a saint, usually St. George or one of the other military saints, such as St. Michael.  Investitures and yearly commemorative services included masses and a dedication to the saint as well as to the order in question.  And, orders often had a church as their particular headquarters or Mother Church.  For the Order of the Garter, found by Edward III in 1348, the Mother Church was St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle, where it still is today.

King Edward was busy in 1348.  In addition to founding the Order of the Garter, he founded two religious colleges, St. Stephen's in Westminster and St. George's at Windsor.  A college in a religious sense isn't an institution of higher learning.  It's a body of secular clergy with its own dean and administrative officers which aren't under the control of a religious order.  There was a chapel already in existence at Windsor, dedicated to St. Edward the Confessor.  Edward III had it rededicated to the Virgin Mary, St. Edward and St. George, as the collegiate church and Mother Church of the Order of the Garter.  Investitures of new Knights took place there, as did a yearly mass commemorating the Order's founding.  After Edward died, later kings remodeled and embellished the original structure.  Though called a chapel, under the direction of Richard Beauchamp, Bishop of Salisbury, it became more like a cathedral, with its own cloister, choir and chantries.

St. George's Chapel has served as a place of worship, marriage, baptism and burial for generations of English kings and queens but it isn't a chapel royal.  It's known as a Royal Peculiar, which means that it's under the direction of the monarch in consultation with its own dean and canons of Windsor.  Henry VI was the first important king buried there.  At one time, there was talk of making Henry a saint and the Chapel was a place of pilgrimage prior to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.  Henry VIII remained partial to knighthood, St. George and the Garter, even after he'd thrown off the yoke of the Catholic Church.  He is buried at St. George's Chapel, along with his most beloved of queens, Jane Seymour.  The church was heavily damaged during the English Civil War, but when Cromwell needed a place to put Charles I's body, he chose four noblemen, including a Seymour descendant, the then-Earl of Hertford, the widower of Arabella Stuart, to take Charles body to Henry VIII's crypt in the chapel. 

The annual Garter Service takes place at St. George's each June.  The banners of the 24 Knights of the Garter hang in the Chapel and each has his or her own stall or pew to attend services there.  Numerous royal weddings, including those of several of Victoria's children and grandchildren, took place at St. George's.  The last high-profile weddings were that of Prince Edward and Sophie Rhys Jones, 1999, Peter Phillips and Autumn Kelly in 2008.  Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles had a blessing service after their civil wedding there in 2005.