Part 3

FUNERAL services of great magnificence entered largely into the customs of this pageantic epoch; and to this day, in Catholic countries, no religious ceremonies are conducted with more pomp than those intended to commemorate the departed. Besides the religious orders, there were numerous confraternities, guilds, and brotherhoods devoted to the burying and praying for the deceased. As no newspapers existed in those days, when a person of distinction died, the "Death Crier,"--in some parts of England called the "Death Watch,"--dressed in black, with a death's-head and cross-bones painted on the back and front of his gown, and armed with a bell, went the round of the town or village, as the case might be, shouting "Of your charity, good people, pray for the soul of our dear brother, [or sister] who departed this life at such and such an hour." Upon this the windows and doors of the houses were opened, and the "good people" said an ave or a pater for the "rest" of the dead, and at the same time the passing bell was tolled. In London, when the King or Queen died, the crier, or "Death Watch," who paraded our principal thoroughfares was, of course, a very important personage. Attended by the whole brotherhood, or guild, of the Holy Souls, with cross-bearer, each carrying a lighted candle, he proceeded processionally through the streets, notably up and down Cheapside and the Strand, solemnly ringing his bell, and crying out in a lugubrious voice his sad news. These criers, both in England and France, were paid, as officials, by the civic corporation so much per day, and were obliged, in addition to their usual mournful occupation, to inspect and report on the condition of low taverns and places of ill-fame. In the course of time they added to their "cry" news of a more miscellaneous character, and after the Reformation, became, we may well imagine, those rather musty folks the "Watch," who only disappeared from our midst as late as the early half of this century.

Shakespeare, whose knowledge of Catholicism of course came to him from immediate tradition, possibly remembered a very ancient custom when, in _Richard III._, he makes the Duke of Glo'ster command the attendants who follow the body of Henry VI. to set it down,--an order which they obey reluctantly enough,--thereby giving him an opportunity to make love to Lady Anne in the presence of her murdered father-in-law's remains. In Catholic times the streets were adorned not only by many fine crosses, such as those at Charing and Cheapside, but also by numerous chapels and wayside shrines. Funerals, when they passed these, were in the habit of stopping, and the assistants, kneeling, prayed for the dead person whom they were carrying to the grave. They likewise stopped, also, and very frequently too, at certain well-known public-houses or taverns, the members of the family of the deceased being obliged by custom to "wet the lips" of the "thirsty souls" who carried the corpse. Sometimes very disorderly scenes ensued. The hired mourners and more unruly members of the guilds got drunk; and it is on record that on more than one occasion the body was pulled out of its coffin by these rascals and outraged, to the horror and indignation of honest people. It has frequently occurred to the writer, that if the attendants in the curious scene in the tragedy just mentioned, were to convey the body of the dead King to the side or back of the stage, in front of some shrine or cross, and occupy themselves with prayer, they would render the astonishing dialogue between Glo'ster and Lady Anne much more intelligible than when we hear it spoken, as is usually the case, before a number of persons for whose ears it was certainly never intended.

IMPORTANT personages in olden times in this country were usually embalmed. The poor, on the contrary, were rarely furnished even with a decent coffin, but were carried to the grave in a hired one, which, in villages, often did duty for many successive years. Once the brief service was said, the pauper's body, in its winding-sheet, was placed reverently enough in the earth, and covered up--a fact which doubtless accounts for the numerous village legends of ghosts wandering about in winding-sheets. Charitable people paid for masses to be said by the friars for their poorer brethren, and the guilds paid all expenses of the funeral, which were naturally not very considerable. On the other hand, the funeral of great personages, from king to squire, was a function which sometimes lasted a week. The bell tolled--as it still does--the moment the death became known to the bell-ringer. Then the body was washed, embalmed with spices and sweet herbs, wrapped in a winding-sheet of fine linen,--which, by the way, was often included among the wedding presents--and taken down into the hall of the palace or manor, which was hung with black, and lighted by many tapers, and even by waxen torches--sometimes as many as 300 and 400 of them--an immense expense, considering the cost of wax in those days. After three days' exposition--if the body remained incorrupt so long--the corpse was sealed up in a leaden coffin, and taken to the church, where solemn masses were sung. The clothes--we may presume the old and well-worn ones only--were then formally distributed to the poor of the parish. Finally came the funeral banquet of "baked meats," to which all those, including the clergy, who had taken part in the funeral service and procession were invited.

When the Sovereign or any person of royal rank deceased, a waxen presentment was immediately made of him as he was seen in life under the influence of sleep. This figure, dressed in the regal robes, was exposed upon the catafalque in the church, instead of the real body--a custom doubtless inspired originally by hygienic motives, for frequently the funeral rites of a king or prince of the blood were prolonged for many days. In Westminster Abbey there are still several of these grim ancient waxen effigies to be seen, by special permission of the Dean, very faded and ghastly, but interesting as likenesses, and for the fragments which time has spared of their once gorgeous attire. This custom lasted with us until the time of William and Mary. In France it disappeared in the middle of the 17th Century, the last mention of it being on the occasion of the death of Anne of Austria; for we read in a curious letter from Guy Patin to his friend Falconet, "The Queen-Mother died to-day [Jan. 21, 1666]. She was immediately embalmed, and by noon her waxen effigy was on view at the Louvre. Thousands are pressing in to see it."

In France, so long as the wax effigy was exposed in the church or palace, sometimes for three weeks, the service of the royal person's table took place as usual. His or her chair of state was drawn up to the table, the napkin, knife and fork, spoon and glass, were in their usual places, and at the appointed time the dinner was served to the household, and "the meats, drinks, and all other goodly things" were offered before the dead prince's chair, as if he were still seated therein. When, however, the coffin took the place in the church of the wax figure, and the body was put into the grave, then the banqueting-hall was hung with black, and for eight days no meals were served in it of any kind.

We still possess some curious details concerning the funeral of Henry V., who died at Vincennes in 1422. Juvenal des Usines tells us that the body was boiled, so as to be converted into a perfect skeleton, for better transportation into England. The bones were first taken to Notre Dame, where a superb funeral service was said over them. Just above the body they placed a figure made of boiled leather, representing the king's person "as well as might be desired," clad in purple, with the imperial diadem on its brow and the sceptre in its hand. Thus adorned, the coffin and the effigy were placed on a gorgeous chariot, covered with a "coverture" of red velvet beaten with gold. In this manner, followed by the King of Scots, as chief mourner, and by all the princes, lords, and knights of his house, was the body of the illustrious hero of Agincourt conveyed from town to town, until it reached Calais and was embarked for England, where it was finally laid at rest in Westminster Abbey, under a new monument erected by Queen Katherine de Valois, who eventually caused a silver-plated effigy of her husband, with a solid silver gilt head, to be placed on the tomb, which was unfortunately destroyed at the time of the Reformation.

The funeral of Eleanor of Castile, the adored consort of Edward I., was exceptionally sumptuous. This amiable Queen died at Hardbey, near Grantham, of "autumnal" fever, on November 29, 1290. The pressing affairs of Scotland were obliterated for the time from the mind of the great Edward, and he refused to attend to any state duty until his "loved ladye" was laid at rest at Westminster. The procession, followed by the King in the bitterest woe, took thirteen days to reach London from Grantham. At the end of every stage the royal bier surrounded by its attendants, rested in some central place of a great town, till the neighbouring ecclesiastics came to meet it in solemn procession, and to place it upon the high altar of the principal church. A cross was erected in memory of King Edward's _chère reine_ at every one of these resting-places. Thirteen of these monuments once existed; now only two of the originals remain, the crosses of Northampton and Waltham. The fac-simile at Charing Cross, opposite the Railway Station, though excellent, is of course modern, and does not occupy the right spot, which was, it is said on good authority, exactly where now stands the statue of Charles II. The Chronicler of Dunstable thus describes the ceremony of marking the sites for these crosses: "Her body passed through Dunstable and rested one night, and two precious cloths were given us, and eighty pounds of wax. And when the body of Queen Eleanor was departing from Dunstable, her bier rested in the centre of the market-place till the King's Chancellor and the great men there present had marked a fitting place where they might afterwards erect, at the royal expense, a cross of wonderful size,--our prior being present, who sprinkled the spot with holy water."

Perhaps the most magnificent funeral which took place before the Reformation was that of Elizabeth of York, consort of Henry VII. It was one of the last great Roman Catholic state funerals in England, for the obsequies of Henry VII. himself were conducted on a much diminished scale; and those of the wives of Henry VIII., and of that monster himself, were not accompanied by so much pomp, owing to the religious troubles of the time. Queen Elizabeth of York was the last English Queen who died at the Tower. Her obsequies took place in the chapel of St. Mary, which was, until quite lately, the Rolls Office, and which was magnificently hung on this occasion with black brocade. The windows were veiled with crape. The Queen's body rested on a bed of state, in a _chapelle ardente_, surrounded by over 5,000 wax candles. High Mass was said during the earlier hours of the morning, and in the afternoon solemn Vespers were sung. When the Queen's body was nailed up in its coffin, the usual waxen effigy took its place. The procession left St. Mary's, in the Tower, at noon, for Westminster Abbey, and was of exceeding length. At every hundred yards it was met by the religious corporations, fraternities, and guilds, and by the children attached to sundry monastic and charitable foundations, some of them dressed as angels, with golden wings, and all of them singing psalms. There were over 8,000 wax tapers burning between Mark Lane and the Temple; and the fronts of all the churches were hung with black, and brilliantly illuminated. The people in the streets held candles, and repeated prayers. At Temple Bar the body was received by the municipal officers of the City of Westminster, who accompanied it to the Abbey, where the Queen's effigy was exhibited with great state for two days, and on the morning of the third she was buried in what is since known as "Henry VII.'s Chapel."

The funeral of the unfortunate Katherine of Arragon took place, as all the world knows, in Peterborough Cathedral.

In a recently discovered contemporary Spanish chronicle, translated by Mr. Martin Sharpe Hume, it seems that the servants of the "Blessed lady" (Queen Katherine) were all dressed in mourning, and the funeral was a fairly handsome one. More than three hundred masses were said during the day at Peterborough, for all the clergy for fifteen miles round came to the various services. Chapuy, the Spanish Ambassador to the Court of King Henry, in a letter to his master Charles V., however, informs him that the funeral of Queen Katherine was mean and shabby in the extreme, quite unworthy even of an ordinary baroness. Jane Seymour fared better after death than any other of the wives of Henry VIII., and was buried with considerable solemnity at Windsor. The first royal Protestant state funeral mentioned as taking place in this country was that of Queen Catherine Parr, at Sudeley Castle. The ceremony was of the simplest description: psalms were sung over the remains, and a brief discourse pronounced. The Lady Jane Grey was chief mourner.

The author of the Spanish chronicle just mentioned, who evidently witnessed the interment of Henry VIII., assures us that the waxen effigy of the King was carried in a chair to Windsor, and was an astonishing likeness. It was followed by 1,000 gentlemen on horseback, the horses all being draped with black velvet. Many masses were said in St. George's Chapel for the rest of the King's soul, but the obsequies do not appear to have been exceptionally splendid.

The funeral of Anne of Cleves, who had become a Catholic, took place at Westminster, under the special supervision of Queen Mary. It was a plain but handsome function, conducted with good taste, but without ostentation. The unpopular Mary Tudor's funeral was the last Catholic state ceremony of the kind which ever took place in Westminster Abbey. Queen Elizabeth attended her sister's funeral, which was a simple one, and listened attentively to the funeral oration preached by Dr. White Bailey, of Winchester, who, when he spoke of poor Mary's sufferings, wept bitterly, and exclaimed, looking significantly at her successor, _Melior est canis vivis leone mortuo_. Elizabeth understood her Latin too well not to be fired with indignation at this elegant simile, which declared a "living dog better than a dead lion," and ordered the bishop to be arrested as he descended from the pulpit, and a violent scene occurred between him and the Queen, which, Her Majesty prudently permitted him to have the best of, by withdrawing with her train from the Abbey.

QUEEN ELIZABETH died in the seventieth year of her age and the forty-fourth of her reign, March 24, on the eve of the festival of the Annunciation, called Lady Day. Among the complimentary epitaphs which were composed for her, and hung up in many churches, was one ending with the following couplet:--

"She is, she was--what can there be more said? On earth the first, in heaven the second maid."

It is stated by Lady Southwell that directions were left by Elizabeth that she should not be embalmed; but Cecil gave orders to her surgeon to open her. "Now, the Queen's body being cered up," continues Lady Southwell, "was brought by water to Whitehall, where, being watched every night by six several ladies, myself that night watching as one of them, and being all in our places about the corpse, which was fast nailed up in a board coffin, with leaves of lead covered with velvet, her body burst with such a crack that it splitted the wood, lead, and cere-cloth; whereupon, the next day she was fain to be new trimmed up."

Elizabeth was most royally interred in Westminster Abbey on the 28th of April, 1603. We subjoin a rare contemporary engraving of the funeral procession, by which it will be seen with what pomp and ceremony the remains of the great Queen were escorted to their last resting-place. "The city of Westminster," says Stow, "was surcharged with multitudes of all sorts of people, in the streets, houses, windows, leads, and gutters, who came to see the obsequy. And when they beheld her statue, or effigy, lying on the coffin, set forth in royal robes, having a crown upon the head thereof, and a ball and a sceptre in either hand, there was such a general sighing, groaning, and weeping as the like hath not been seen or known in the memory of man; neither doth any history mention any people, time, or state to make such lamentation for the death of a sovereign." The funereal effigy which, by its close resemblance to their deceased sovereign, moved the sensibility of the loyal and excitable portion of the spectators at her obsequies in this powerful manner, was no other than the faded waxwork effigy of Queen Elizabeth preserved in Westminster Abbey.

Elizabeth was interred in the same grave with her sister and predecessor in regal office, Mary Tudor. Her successor, James I., has left a lasting evidence of his good feeling and good taste in the noble monument he erected to her memory in the Abbey, and she was the last sovereign of this country to whom a monument has been given.

We have very minute details of how royal personages were buried in France, in a curious book published in the 17th Century, from a MS. of the time of Louis XI. In it we learn that King Louis XI. wore scarlet for mourning on the death of his father, Charles VII. Up to the time of Louis XIV. the Queens of France, if they became widowed, wore white; and this is the reason that Mary Tudor was called "_La Reine Blanche_," when she clandestinely married the Duke of Suffolk in the chapel of that most interesting place, the Maison Cluny, now a museum, which still retains its name of _La Reine Blanche_. The Queen had been but a very short time the widow of Charles VIII., and still wore her weeds when she gave her hand to the lusty English duke. Mary Stuart wore white for her husband, Francis II. of France; and when she arrived in Scotland she still retained, for some months, her white robes, and was called the "White Queen" in consequence. But this illustrious and ill-fated princess throughout the greater part of her life wore black, and we have many minute details of her dresses, especially of the stately one she wore on the day of her execution, which was of brocaded satin, having a train of great length; a ruffle of white lawn, edged with lace; and a veil (which still exists) made of drawn threads, in a check-board pattern, and edged with Flemish lace. From her girdle was suspended a rosary, and in her hand she carried a crucifix. Her under garments, we know, were scarlet; for, when she removed her dress upon the scaffold, the bodice at least, all contemporaries agree, was flame-coloured. Queen Elizabeth ordered her Court to go into mourning for the Queen of Scots, whose sad and "accidental" death she hypocritically decreed should be regarded as a very great misfortune.

King James ordered the deepest mourning to be worn for his royal mother--a requisition with which all his nobles complied, except the Earl of Sinclair, who appeared before him clad in steel. The King frowned, and inquired if he had not seen the order for a general mourning. "Yes," was the noble's reply; "this is the proper mourning for the Queen of Scotland." James, however, whatever his inclinations might have been, was unprovided with the means of levying war against England, and his Ministers were entirely under the control of the English faction, and, after maintaining a resentful attitude for a time, he was at length obliged to accept Elizabeth's "explanation" of the murder of his mother.