This was a mournful hour for those noblemen and friends and relatives who surrounded his bed. At length, having given all necessary directions for the government of his kingdom and his family,[233] he fixed his thoughts wholly on another world. He urged the physicians to tell him the real state of his disease; but they evaded any direct answer. Very soon he required them to tell him how long, in all human probability, he had to live. After some consultation, one of them, speaking for the rest, knelt down and said, "Sir, think of your soul; for, without a miracle, in our judgment you cannot survive two hours." His confessor and other ministers of religion then surrounded his bed, and administered the parting rite of the Roman church, as it was at that time and is still practised. He next desired them to join in the seven penitential psalms; and when in the 51st psalm they read, "Build thou the walls of Jerusalem," caught by the words, Henry bade them stop awhile; and with a loud voice declared to them, on the faith of a dying person, that it verily had been his fixed purpose, after settling peace in France, to proceed against the infidels, and rescue Jerusalem from their tyranny, if it had pleased his Creator to (p. 307) lengthen out his days. He then requested them to proceed; and when they had finished their devotions, between two and three o'clock in the morning, he breathed his last. [Footnote 233: Elmham says, Henry added several codicils to his Will, leaving large sums to discharge the debts not only of himself, but also of his father, and also to reward many of his faithful servants.] Henry of Monmouth died 31st August 1422; and when he resigned his soul into the hands of his Redeemer, he seemed to fall asleep rather than to expire.[234] [Footnote 234: Elmham.] Such a Christian end of his mortal existence is not surprising when we remember (a point on which his own chaplain will not suffer us to doubt,) that every day of his life he read and meditated upon the word of God, for the express purpose of learning how best to fear and serve him; a daily exercise (says the chaplain) from which, when he was engaged in it, no one even of his chief nobles and the great men of his state[235] could withdraw him.[236] [Footnote 235: Sloane, 64.]