The nation’s joy, which was undoubtedly deep and sincere, can hardly be said to have turned into mourning, when the news was spread that the good Queen had received the Sacraments of Penance and Extreme Unction, and was dying. It was not merely that the people had not had time to become attached to her, but the sixteenth century set no great value on human life in general, and that of a queen consort was held exceptionally cheap in England. It was a time when there might indeed be indignation for wrongs, and tears for a friend’s misfortune; but little grief was felt for bodily sufferings or death. Deeply as Katharine of Arragon was beloved by English men and women, and loudly as they expressed their sense of the injuries inflicted on her, her death would perhaps have caused little emotion, had it not been accompanied by suspicious circumstances. When Anne Boleyn went to her doom, even her friends were indifferent, although the obvious unfairness of her trial aroused pity and abhorrence. The Duke of Richmond’s funeral passed almost unnoticed; and if the executions after the Northern Rising sent a thrill of horror through the country, this was produced by butcheries such as had never before been known. That which was natural and inevitable excited little notice, and Gardiner was not more wanting in sensibility than the rest of his contemporaries, when he crudely charged the envoys to announce to the King of France, that “though the Prince is well, and sucketh like a child of his puissance, the Queen, by the neglect of those about her, who suffered her to take cold, and eat such things as her fantasy in sickness called for, is dead”.[216] He went on to say that “the King though he takes this chance reasonably, is little disposed to marry again, but some of his Council have thought it meet to urge him to it, for the sake of his realm, and he has framed his mind both to be indifferent to the thing, and to the election of any person from any part that with deliberation shall be thought meet”. Queen Jane died on the 24th October, and in a letter to Lord Lisle on the 3rd November Sir John Wallop says: “The King is in good health, and merry as a widower may be, the Prince also”.[217] By command of the Duke of Norfolk, twelve hundred Masses were ordered to be said for the repose of the Queen’s soul, and a solemn Dirge and Requiem were sung at St. Paul’s. Jane had died at Hampton Court, but was buried at Windsor, on the 12th November, Mary being chief mourner at her funeral, following the hearse on horseback at a foot’s pace. Her palfrey was in black velvet trappings and her train was held up by eight ladies of the highest rank. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 192: Sm., vol. xlvii., f. 26, 2. Hearne, p. 144.] [Footnote 193: Chapuys to Charles V., 8th July 1536, Vienna Archives. Gairdner, _Cal._, xi., 40.] [Footnote 194: Gayangos, _Cal._, vol. v., pt. ii., p. 199.] [Footnote 195: Gairdner, _Cal._, xi., 219.] [Footnote 196: Gairdner, _Cal._, xi., 221.]