The passing bell, or soul bell, rang whilst persons were _passing_ from this life to that beyond, and it was rung that all who heard it might address prayers to heaven and the saints for the _soul_ then being separated from the mortal body. One of the earliest accounts of the use of bells in England is connected with this bell. Bede, in speaking of the death of the Abbess of St. Hilda, says that a sister in a distant monastery thought that she heard in her sleep the well-known sound of the passing bell. She no sooner heard it than she called all the sisters from their rest into the church, where they prayed and sang a _requiem_. To show how persistently the custom was maintained, we may quote from the "Advertisements for due Order," passed in the seventh year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth: "Item, that when anye Christian body is in passing, that the bell be tolled, and that the curate be speciallie called for to comforte the sicke person; and, after the time of his passinge, to ringe no more, but one shorte peale, and one before the buriall, and another shorte peale after the buriall." In ancient days, the bell rang at the hour of passing, whether it happened to be night or day. In the churchwardens' accounts for the parish of Wolchurch, 1526, appears the following regulation: "Item. The clerke to have for tollynge of the passynge belle for manne, womanne, or childes, if it be in the day iiijd. Item. If it be in the night, for the same viijd." Shakespeare's universal observation led him to make use of the melancholy meaning of the death bell. He says, in the second part of _King Henry IV._: "And his tongue Sounds ever after as a sullen bell Remembered knolling a departing friend." The passing bell has a place in the story of the death, in the Tower of London, of Lady Catherine Grey, sister to the unfortunate Lady Jane. The constable of the Tower, Sir Owen Hopton, seeing that the end was approaching, said to Mr. Bokeham: "Were it not best to send to the church, that the bell may be rung?" and Lady Catherine herself, hearing the remark, said to him: "Good Sir Owen, be it so," and died almost at once, closing her eyes with her own hands. This was in 1567. The tolling of the passing bell, as such, continued until the time of Charles II., and it was one of the subjects of inquiry in all articles of visitation. The form of inquiry in the Archdeaconry of Yorke by the churchwardens and swornemen, in 163-, was: "Whether doth your clark or sexton, when any one is passing out of this life, neglect to toll a bell, having notice thereof, or, the party being dead, doth he suffer any more ringing than one short peale, and before his burial one, and after the same another?" Inquiry was also to be made: "Whether, at the death of any, there be any superstitious ringing?" There is a widespread saying: "When the bell begins to toll, Lord have mercy on the soul."