The bishop declared that he was so astonished he scarcely knew how to reply: he, however, thought of the citizens of London, and proposed to try what he could do amongst the wealthy merchants. The king at once gave him a letter, and the good bishop had an interview that very evening with the Lord Mayor, Sir Richard Dobbs, who agreed to do all he could to carry out the boy-king's wishes. Next day there was a dinner (no doubt the dinner did it); aldermen and other citizens were present; so the matter was decided and placed before the king. In short, beside many providing several other charities, the old monastery of Grey Friars was given up for children of the poor; and thus the charitable and pious son built up a blessing out of what his church-destroying father had made all but desolate. Henry had sold all the consecrated vessels, or appropriated them to his own use; for it is said that more than one sacramental cup of precious metal, which in the last hour had been pressed to the lips of the dying, was used in the drunken revels of the brutal Defender of the Faith. Even the costly monuments and grave-stones (many of them, no doubt, the tombs of pious benefactors) were torn up and sold, to furnish supplies for the revels of this wife-killing king. It must have caused the heart of the young king to have swelled with pleasurable emotion, when those children were presented to him so shortly after the conversation which took place between himself and the bishop, and in (it is said) the very chamber of the palace where the king received him after he had preached that memorable sermon; and which event is preserved in the immense picture that still hangs in the hall of that Hospital, in which he is portrayed presenting the charter to the Lord Mayor. Stowe again says: "And, for a further relief, a petition being made to the king's majesty for a license to take in mortmain, or otherwise without license, lands to a certain yearly value, and a space left in the patent for his grace to put in what sum would please him, he, looking on the void place, called for pen and ink, and with his own hand wrote this sum in these words, 'Four thousand marks by the year;' and then said, in the hearing of his Council, 'Lord, I yield Thee most hearty thanks that Thou hast given me life thus long to finish this work, to the glory of Thy name.' After which foundation established he lived not above two days; whose life would have been wished equal to the patriarchs, if it had pleased God so to have prolonged it."