"Angels from the Realms of Glory" is a Christmas carol written by Scottish poet and hymnwriter James Montgomery, as an adaptation of the old French hymn Les Anges dans nos campagnes. It was first printed in the Sheffield Iris on Christmas Eve 1816 under the title, The Nativity. It was then published as a hymn in Sheffield and Manchester in 1819.
By 1916, the hymn had been set to more than fifty different tunes, including "St. Werbergh's" by Samuel Webbe, "Tamworth" by Charles Lockhart, "Helmsley" by Thomas Oliver, "Greenville" by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, "Regent Square" by Henry Smart, "Lewes" by John Randall, and "Wildersmouth" or "Feniton Court" by Edward Hopkins. In the United Kingdom the hymn has nowadays come to be sung invariably to the same tune as the original French carol, "Iris" (as published in the Oxford Book of Carols). A variation of this tune, "Gloria", is used for the carol "Angels We Have Heard on High". Sometimes the original "Gloria in excelsis Deo" refrain from the French carol is sung in place of Montgomery's lyric: "Come and worship Christ the new-born King".
In the United States, "Regent Square" is the most common tune for this carol. The name for the "Regent Square" tune is reportedly an association with the publisher of the first hymnal to contain it, James Hamilton, who was the minister of the Regent Square Church situated in London.