The vaulted door of a spacious room is opening, and across the furthest end seems flitting a strange succession of sad scenes--a young child's[58] funeral passes, and then a burst of anguish comes remotely to the ear, as if across wide waters, from a stern man, who yet cannot hide his sorrow; then a woman's wail, but the wail soon dies away, and a death scene and a funeral pass in faint review.[59] Then the great fight of Bosworth, where a king is slain, and another takes his crown; a bridal follows and a coronation. Thus they pass; events of other days are shadows now; terrible, indeed, at the period of their reality, but when ended, how soon forgotten! yet not forgotten by the aged woman, who is resting, as in a quiet home, within that spacious room in the Abbey of Bermondsey. It is her right to be there, for the prior and monks are bound by their charter to entertain, and that most hospitably, the representative of their great founder, Clare, Earl of Gloucester. Edward VI. was the sole heir of that family, and the queen dowager is privileged to occupy the nobly panelled halls, and state-chambers, that are expressly reserved for the descendants of the founder.[60] The waves and billows of life's deepest waters have passed over that aged woman who is sitting in a richly carved chair, at the great oriel-window, watching the summer clouds as they flit over the smiling landscape, and cast their shadows on the abbey fields. Her venerable figure, beautiful even in its decrepitude, though not with the beauty of sunny youth, yet such as the bright ray of the setting sun sheds over an autumn landscape, recalls the faint remembrance of a lovely woman who once stood, with two orphan boys beneath the oak of Whittlebury, to sue for the restitution of her broad lands, from the gallant Edward. Hark to the toll of the convent bell. It is tolling for Elizabeth Woodville, late Queen Dowager of England, and the requiem is being sung, which breathes peace to the passing spirit. The moon is up, and yet the night is dark and gloomy, by reason of the heavy clouds that are rolling past, and he who looks narrowly on the deep dark waters of the river may discern a small boat gliding on, with the coffin of the queen on board, and four attendants, but when the moon shines out you can distinguish the prior of the Charterhouse by his robes, with two others in deep mourning, yet without insignia, by which to designate them, and one female figure. Now the rowers stop, and the coffin is being carried through the little park into Windsor Castle, a few torches serving to guide the bearers, which appear and disappear among the trees, like the twinkling lights of glow-worms in the grass.