"And for my body," wrote Henry in his will,[1166] "which when the soul is departed, shall then remain but as a _cadaver_, and so return to the vile matter it was made of, were it not for the crown and dignity which God hath called us unto, and that We would not be counted an infringer of honest worldly policies and customs, when they be not contrary to God's laws, We would be content to have it buried in any place accustomed to Christian folks, were it never so vile, for it is but ashes, and to ashes it shall return. Nevertheless, because We would be loth, in the reputation of the people, to do injury to the Dignity, which We are unworthily called unto, We are content to will and order that Our body be buried and interred in the choir of Our college of Windsor." On the 8th of February, in every parish church in the realm, there was sung a solemn dirge by night, with all the bells ringing, and on the morrow a Requiem mass for the soul of the King.[1167] Six days later his body "was solemnly with great honour conveyed in a chariot towards Windsor," and the funeral procession stretched four miles along the roads. That night the body lay at (p. 426) Sion under a hearse, nine storeys high. On the 15th it was taken to Windsor, where it was met by the Dean and choristers of the Chapel Royal, and by the members of Eton College. There in the castle it rested under a hearse of thirteen storeys; and on the morrow it was buried, after mass, in the choir of St. George's Chapel. [Footnote 1166: The original is in the Record Office; a copy of it was made for each executor, and it has been often printed; see _England under Protector Somerset_, p. 5 n.] [Footnote 1167: Wriothesley, _Chron._, i., 181.] Midway between the stalls and the Altar the tomb of Queen Jane Seymour was opened to receive the bones of her lord. Hard by stood that mausoleum "more costly than any royal or papal monument in the world,"[1168] which Henry VII. had commenced as a last resting-place for himself and his successors, but had abandoned for his chapel in Westminster Abbey. His son bestowed the building on Wolsey, who prepared for his own remains a splendid cenotaph of black and white marble. On the Cardinal's fall Henry VIII. designed both tomb and chapel for himself _post multos et felices annos_.[1169] But King and Cardinal reaped little honour by these strivings after posthumous glory. The dying commands of the monarch, whose will had been omnipotent during his life, remained unfulfilled; the memorial chapel was left incomplete; and the monument of marble was taken down, despoiled of its ornaments and sold in the Great Rebellion. At length, in a happier age, after more than three centuries of neglect, the magnificent building was finished, but not in Henry's honour; it was adorned and dedicated to the memory of a prince in whose veins there flowed not a drop of Henry's blood.