“Then was the corps in the chest had into the midds of the privy chamber, and set upon tressels, with a rich pall of cloth of gold, and a cross thereon, with all manner of lights thereto requisite.” Ibid.
“In the said chappel was ordained a goodly, formal herse, with four-score square tapers; every light containing two foot in length, poising in the whole eighteen hundred weight of wax, garnished about with pensils and escutcheons, banners and bannerols of descents. And, at the four corners, four banners of saints, beaten in fine gold upon damask, with a majesty thereover,” &c., &c. Ibid. 290.
“The second day of the month of February, being Wednesday and Candlemas day, betwixt eight and nine of the clock at night, the herse being lighted, and all other things appointed and prepared, the said most royal corps was reverendly taken and removed from the chambers, &c., and so brought to the chappel, &c., and there it was honorably set and placed within the said herse under a pall of rich cloth of tissue, garnished with escutheons, and a rich cloth of gold, set with precious stones.” Ibid. 292.
“And the herse, standing in the midst of said choir, was of a wonderful state and proportion; that is to say formed in the compass of eight panes and thirteen principals, double storied, of thirty-five foot high, curiously wrot, painted and gilded, having in it a wonderful sort of lights, amounting, in price, of wax, to the sum of four thousand pound weight, and garnished underneath with a rich majesty, and a doome double vallanced: on the which, on either side, was written the King’s word, in beaten gold, upon silk, and his arms of descents. And the whole herse was richly fringed with double fringes of black silk and gold on either side, both within and without very gorgeous and valiant to behold.” Ibid. 295.
It does not appear, that, in those days any single English word was employed, to express the vehicle, which we call a hearse, at the present day, unless the word bier may suffice: and this, like the Roman feretrum, which I take to be much like our common graveyard article with legs, will scarcely answer the description of a four-wheeled car. I infer, that the feretrum was a thing, which might be taken up, and set down, from the word posito in Ovid’s Fasti, iv., 851—
Osculaque applicuit posito suprema feretro.
The feretrum and the capulus, among the Romans, were designed mainly, for the poor. Citizens of any note were borne, as was our own practice, not very many years ago, on the shoulders of their friends.
The funeral car of Henry VIII. was a noble affair:—
“There was ordained for the corps a sumptuous and valuable chariot of four wheels, very long and large, with four pillars, overlaid with cloth of gold at the four corners, bearing a pillow of rich cloth of gold and tissue, fringed with a goodly deep fringe of blew silk and gold; and underneath that, turned towards the chariot, was a marvellous excellent cloth of majesty, having in it a doom artificially wrought, in fine gold upon oyl: and at the nether part of the said Chariot was hanged with blew velvet down to the ground, between the wheels, and at other parts of the chariot, enclosed in like manner with blew velvet.” Ibid. 295.
“The next day early, the 14 February, the chariot was brought to the court hall door; and the corps with great reverence brought from the herse to the same, by mitred prelats and others, temporal lords.” Ibid. 598.