In a recently discovered contemporary Spanish chronicle, translated
by Mr. Martin Sharpe Hume, it seems that the servants of the "Blessed
lady" (Queen Katherine) were all dressed in mourning, and the funeral
was a fairly handsome one. More than three hundred masses were said
during the day at Peterborough, for all the clergy for fifteen miles
round came to the various services. Chapuy, the Spanish Ambassador to
the Court of King Henry, in a letter to his master Charles V., however,
informs him that the funeral of Queen Katherine was mean and shabby in
the extreme, quite unworthy even of an ordinary baroness. Jane Seymour
fared better after death than any other of the wives of Henry VIII.,
and was buried with considerable solemnity at Windsor. The first royal
Protestant state funeral mentioned as taking place in this country
was that of Queen Catherine Parr, at Sudeley Castle. The ceremony was
of the simplest description: psalms were sung over the remains, and a
brief discourse pronounced. The Lady Jane Grey was chief mourner.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--_Lying in State of Queen Elizabeth of York,
Consort of Henry VII._]
The author of the Spanish chronicle just mentioned, who evidently
witnessed the interment of Henry VIII., assures us that the waxen
effigy of the King was carried in a chair to Windsor, and was an
astonishing likeness. It was followed by 1,000 gentlemen on horseback,
the horses all being draped with black velvet. Many masses were said in
St. George's Chapel for the rest of the King's soul, but the obsequies
do not appear to have been exceptionally splendid.
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--_Tomb of Henry V._]
The funeral of Anne of Cleves, who had become a Catholic, took place
at Westminster, under the special supervision of Queen Mary. It was a
plain but handsome function, conducted with good taste, but without
ostentation. The unpopular Mary Tudor's funeral was the last Catholic
state ceremony of the kind which ever took place in Westminster Abbey.
Queen Elizabeth attended her sister's funeral, which was a simple one,
and listened attentively to the funeral oration preached by Dr. White
Bailey, of Winchester, who, when he spoke of poor Mary's sufferings,
wept bitterly, and exclaimed, looking significantly at her successor,
_Melior est canis vivis leone mortuo_. Elizabeth understood her Latin
too well not to be fired with indignation at this elegant simile,
which declared a "living dog better than a dead lion," and ordered the
bishop to be arrested as he descended from the pulpit, and a violent
scene occurred between him and the Queen, which, Her Majesty prudently
permitted him to have the best of, by withdrawing with her train from
the Abbey.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--_Departure of the body of Queen Elizabeth from
Greenwich Palace, for Interment at Westminster._]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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