Happily ignorant of what he did, the dying father resigned himself to the end which was now inevitable. At four o'clock on New Year's morning, 1670, he insisted on being removed to his sitting-room. Just ten years ago in the fulness of his strength he had risen from his uneasy couch at Coldstream to order his vanguard to cross the Tweed on their eventful march. Now as then, it was freezing bitterly, and no fire was alight. Gumble hurried to his side. He saw death in the smile which greeted him, and hastened to read the service for the Visitation of the Sick. Later in the day the Sacrament was administered, and the world knew the great man was in extremity. All Sunday they flocked to take their leave of him in such numbers that it was impossible to keep the room clear for a minute. It was the anniversary of the great day of his life, the Second of January, when he himself at the head of his army had crossed the Rubicon of the English Revolution, and like Cromwell's, his victories seemed to cluster round his head even as Death laid his hand upon it. All night he lingered clinging to life. Erect in his chair, as the people loved to remember, he defied even Death to make him bend, and at the last received him sitting like a king. To the end he maintained that he would live if only the bitter frost would loose its grip, and till dawn he obstinately held his enemy at bay. Then as the sun rose warm and bright and the frost began to break, the faithful Coldstreamers, who were watching in the silent chamber, heard "a single small groan," and the brave spirit of their chief was free at last. With his George and Garter they hurried to the King. He received the news with genuine feeling as one that had lost a father. All that he owed to the stout heart that was still seemed to rush upon him like a loud warning from Heaven, and for a moment to rouse the magnanimity in which Monk had always believed. As though he could never reward enough the ungrudging service of his most faithful subject, he immediately despatched his Garter to Christopher, and announced that he should personally arrange the funeral. It was conducted in almost royal magnificence. After lying in state for some weeks in his armour as Captain-General, with his golden truncheon in his hand, his body was escorted to Westminster by the King in person in the midst of a procession which for splendour had only been rivalled at his own coronation, and there in Henry the Seventh's chapel it was laid with the bones of kings. And that no touch might be omitted to mark the exalted pedestal the majestic figure should occupy, the humblest of the great ones who were permitted to grace his last parade was the man on whom his cloak was to fall, the greatest of English generals, Ensign John Churchill.[16]