Now his faithful Boswell gives elaborate details of Hugh’s long dying, not knowing that his work would speak to a generation which measures a man’s favour with God by the oily slipperiness with which he shuffles off his clay coil. It was a case of hard dying, redoubled paroxysms, fierce fever, and bloody flux, and dreadful details. He would wear his sackcloth, and rarely change it, though it caked into knots which chafed him fiercely. But, though the rule allowed, he would not go soft to his end, however much his friends might entreat him to put off the rasping hair. “No, no, God forbid that I should. This raiment does not scrape, but soothe; does not hurt, but help,” he answered sternly. He gave exact details of how he was to be laid on ashes on the bare earth at the last with no extra sackcloth. No bishops or abbots being at hand to commend him at the end, the monks of Westminster were to send seven or eight of their number and the Dean of St. Paul’s a good number of singing clerks. His body was to be washed with the greatest care, to fit it for being taken to the holy chapel of the Baptist at Lincoln, and laid out by three named persons and no others. When it reached Lincoln it was to be arrayed in the plain vestments of his consecration, which he had kept for this. One little light gold ring, with a cheap water sapphire in it, he selected from all that had been given him. He had worn it for functions, and would bear it in death, and have nothing about him else to tempt folk to sacrilege. The hearers understood, foolishly, from this that he knew his body would be translated after its first sepulture, and for this reason he had it cased in lead and solid stone that no one should seize or even see his ornaments when he was moved. “You will place me,” he said, “before the altar of my aforesaid patron, the Lord’s forerunner, where there seems fitting room near some wall, in such wise that the tomb shall not inconveniently block the floor, as we see in many churches, and cause incomers to trip or fall.” Then he had his beard and nails trimmed for death. Some of his ejaculations in his agonies are preserved. “O kind God, grant us rest. O good Lord and true God, give us rest at last.” When they tried to cheer him by saying that the paroxysm was over he said, “How really blessed are those to whom even the last judgment day will bring unshaken rest.” They told him his judgment day would be the day when he laid by the burden of the flesh. But he would not have it. “The day when I die will not be a judgment day, but a day of grace and mercy,” he said. He astonished his physicians by the robust way in which he would move, and his manly voice bated nothing of its old power, though he spoke a little submissively. The last lection he heard was the story of Lazarus and Martha, and when they reached the words, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died,” he bade them stop there. The funeral took up the tale where the reader left off, “I am the Resurrection and the Life.”
They reminded him that he had not confessed any miscarriages of justice of which he had been guilty through private love or hate. He answered boldly, “I never remember that I knowingly wrested the truth in a judicial sentence either from hate or love, no, nor from hope or fear of any person or thing whatsoever. If I have gone awry in judgments it was a fault either of my own ignorance or assuredly of my assistants.”
The leeches hoped much from meat, and, though the Order forbade it, his obedience was transferred to Canterbury. His friends posted off and got not only a permit, but a straight order enjoining this diet upon him. He said that neither for taste nor for medicine could he be prevailed upon to eat flesh. “But to avoid offending so many reverend men, and, too, lest, even in the state of death, we should fail to follow in the footsteps of Him who became obedient even unto death, let flesh be given to us. Now at the last we will freely eat it, sauced with brotherly love.” When he was asked what he would like he said that he had read that the sick fathers had been given pig’s trotters. But he made small headway with these unseasonable viands or with the poor “little birds” they next gave him. On the 16th of November, at sunset, the monks and clerks arrived. Hugh had strength to lay his hand upon Adam’s head and bless him and the rest. They said to him, “Pray the Lord to provide a profitable pastor for your church,” but their voices were dim in his ears, and only when they had asked it thrice he said, “God grant it!” The third election brought in great Grosseteste.
The company then withdrew for compline, and as they ended the xci. Psalm, “I will deliver him and bring him to honour,” he was laid upon the oratory floor on the ashes, for he had given the sign; and while they chaunted Nunc Dimittis with a quiet face he breathed out his gallant soul, passing, as he had hoped, at Martinmas-tide “from God’s camp to His palace, from His hope to His sight,” in the time of that saint whom he greatly admired and closely resembled.
They washed his white, brave body, sang over it, watched it all night in St. Mary’s Church, ringed it with candles, sang solemn Masses over it, embalmed it with odours, and buried the bowels near the altar in a leaden vessel. All London flocked, priests with crosses and candles, people weeping silently and aloud, every man triumphant if he could even touch the bier. Then they carried him in the wind and the rain, with lads on horseback holding torches (which never all went out at once), back to his own children. They started on Saturday[30] for Hertford, and by twilight next day they had reached Biggleswade on the Ivell, where he had a house, wherein the company slept. The mourning crowds actually blocked the way to the church. The bier was left in the church that Sunday night.
By Monday they got to Buckden, and on the Tuesday they had got as far as Stamford, but the crowds were so great here that hardly could they fight their way through till the very dead of the night. The body, of course, was taken into the church; and a pious cobbler prayed to die, and lo! die he did, having only just time for confession, shrift, and his will; and way was made for him in death, though he could not get near the bier in life. The story recalled to Adam’s mind a saying of his late master when people mourned too immoderately for the dead—“What are you about? What are you about? By Saint Nut” (that was his innocent oath), “by Saint Nut, it would indeed be a great misfortune for us if we were never allowed to die.” He would praise the miraculous raising of the dead, but he thought that sometimes a miraculous granting of death is still more to be admired. At Stamford they bought horn lanterns instead of wax torches, for these last guttered so in the weather that the riders got wax all over their hands and clothes. Then they made for Ancaster, and on Thursday they came to Lincoln. Here were assembled all the great men of the realm, who came out to meet the bier. The kings of England and Scotland, the archbishops, bishops, abbots, and barons were all there. No man so great but he thought himself happy to help carry that bier up the hill. Shoulders were relieved by countless hands, these by other hands. The greatest men struggled for this honour. The rains had filled the streets with mud above the ankles, sometimes up to men’s knees. All the bells of the town tolled and every church sang hymns and spiritual songs. Those who could not touch the bier tossed coins upon the hearse which held the body. Even the Jews came out and wept and did what service they could.
The body was taken to a bye place off the cathedral[31] and dressed as he had ordered—with ring, gloves, staff, and the plain robes. They wiped the balsam from his face, and found it first white, but then the cheeks grew pink. The cathedral was blocked with crowds, each man bearing a candle. They came in streams to kiss his hands and feet and to offer gold and silver, and more than forty marks were given that day. John of Leicester laid a distich at his feet, much admired then, but “bald as his crown” to our ears:
“Staff to the bishops, to the monks a measure true,
Counsel for schools, kings’ hammer—such behold was Hugh!”
The next day at the funeral his cheap vestments were torn in pieces by the relic-hunting, which it must be confessed he had done nothing to check; and he was buried near the wall not far from the altar of St. John Baptist, and, as seemed more suitable for the crowds who came there, on the northern side of the building itself.[32]
This tremendous funeral long lived in men’s memory, and there is a far prettier verse about it than the old distich of John—