Fig. 25.—Gentleman in Mourning, time of Henry VII. The costume is entirely black, edged with black fur.—From a contemporary MS.
The funeral of the unfortunate Katherine of Arragon took place, as all the world knows, in Peterborough Cathedral.
Fig. 26.—Richard I. and his Queen attending the Requiem Mass for the fallen Crusaders, in the Cathedral of Rhodes.
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.
Fig. 27.—Lying in State of Queen Elizabeth of York, Consort of Henry VII.
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.