Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and PresentTimbs, John
History
Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present
Timbs, John
England -- Social life and customs
There are certain circumstances connected with Wolsey's death and
interment which are noteworthy. "He foretold to Cavendish that at eight
o'clock he would lose his master.... Towards the conclusion, his accents
began to falter; at the end his eyes became motionless, and his sight
failed. The abbot was summoned to administer the extreme unction, and
the yeomen of the guard were called in to see him die. As the clock
struck eight he expired."
Cavendish and the bystanders thought Wolsey must have had a revelation
of the time of his death; and from the way in which the fact had taken
possession of his mind, it is supposed that he relied on astrological
prediction.
Mr. Payne Collier observes:[67] "It is unnecessary, as well as
uncharitable, to suppose what there is no proof of--that Wolsey died of
poison, either administered by himself or others. The obvious and
proximate cause of his death was affliction. A great heart, oppressed
with indignities and beset with dangers, at length gave way, and Wolsey
received the two last charities of a death-bed and a grave, with many
circumstances affectingly told by Cavendish, in the Abbey of Leicester."
Wolsey's remains were privately interred in one of the chapels of the
Abbey at Leicester, which has long been reduced to a mass of shapeless
ruins. The Cardinal had, however, designed a sumptuous receptacle for
his remains. Adjoining the east end of St. George's Chapel at Windsor is
a stone edifice, built by King Henry VII., as a burial-place for himself
and his successors; but this Prince afterwards altering his purpose,
began the more noble structure at Westminster, and the Windsor fabric
remained neglected until Wolsey obtained a grant of it from Henry VIII.
The Cardinal, with a profusion of expense unknown to former ages,
designed and began here a most sumptuous monument for himself, from
whence this building obtained the name of _Wolsey's Tomb-house_. This
monument was magnificently built; and at the time of the Cardinal's
disgrace 4,250 ducats had been paid to a statuary of Florence for the
work already done; and 380_l_. 18_s_. sterling had been paid for gilding
only the half of this costly monument. It thus remained unfinished; in
1646 it was plundered by the rebels of its statues and figures of
gilt-copper. The Tomb-house is now in process of decoration as a
memorial to the late Prince Consort.
Wolsey had also executed for him at Rome a beautiful marble sarcophagus,
but which did not arrive in time for the burial of the Cardinal: it lay
neglected for two centuries and three-quarters, when it was removed to
the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, and in it were placed Nelson's
remains.
[Illustration: WAYNFLETE'S TOWER, ESHER PLACE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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