Islip died on Sunday, May 12th, 1532, at his manor house of Neyte, and was buried four days later in the centre of his own chapel. So great was the public interest in his funeral that its train is said to have stretched from Neyte to Tothill Street. The Abbot of Bury officiated at the interment and pontificated at the mass of requiem on the day following, the sermon being preached by the Vicar of Croydon. The references to Islip’s work as a builder which Hacket makes in his life of Bishop Williams may be very inaccurate, but there is no reason to question his estimate of Islip’s character as “a devout servant of Christ and of a wakeful conscience.” The last great Abbot of Westminster, it may be truly said of him that he was _felix opportunitate mortis_. His latter days may well have been full of anxiety, but he did not live to see the storm break or to suffer in the vast upheavals which were so soon to follow and which assuredly would have broken his heart. But three days after his death the clergy in Convocation were forced to consent that they would neither enact nor enforce new canons without the royal initiative and assent. On the very day of his burial Sir Thomas More handed back the Great Seal to the King. Islip’s funeral was “the funeral of the Middle Ages.” CHAPTER VI. ISLIP IN PUBLIC LIFE. The personality of the Abbot of Westminster can seldom have been a matter of indifference to the reigning Sovereign. The mere proximity of Court and monastery would alone be sufficient to ensure some degree of friendship or provoke some measure of antagonism, and instances are not wanting of both. But when it is remembered that the Abbey church was the place of burial of many and the place of coronation of all the Kings; that it contained the saintly relics of one and owed its very structure to another, it is not surprising that at times Abbot and King should be brought together in intimate contact. When Islip first became Abbot every circumstance combined to bring such contact about. Henry VII. was half ready with the plans for his new chapel and Islip’s enthusiasm as a builder must already have been obvious. It may be supposed that Islip had already attracted the royal notice by his share in the matter of the proposed translation of Henry VI., and the King’s assent to his election would seem to have been given readily enough if we may judge by the relative lack of delay in issuing the royal writs that dealt with the Abbot’s temporalities.