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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ. Queens of England. Vol.1.

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FRANCIS LANCELOTT, ESQ.
Queens of England. Vol.1.
page 279



cession through London was highly imposing. First came the clergy, chaunting the service for the dead, then succeeded the magnificent funeral car, followed by princes, nobles, knights, banner-bearers, taper-bearers, the Mayor and the Aldermen of London, and a host of less significant personages. On reaching St. Paul's, where the body rested for that night, a solemn service was performed in the presence of the whole parliament. On the following morning the procession again set out for Westminster, and to heighten the effect of the scene, every householder, from St. Magnus' church to Temple Bar, stood at his door with a lighted torch in his hand. Here, after the performance of the solemn obsequies, were interred, near the shrine of Edward the Confessor, the remains of Henry the Fifth; "a monarch," says Walsingham, "who was goodly in heart, sober in speech, sparing of words, resolute in deeds, wise in council, prudent in judgment, magnanimous in action, constant in undertaking, a great alms-giver, and a warrior so brave and energetic, that he never entered the battle-field but to triumph over his foes." Thus ended the earthly career of the renowned Henry the Fifth, in the fiveand-thirtieth year of his age, and the tenth year of his reign. On his grave the widowed Katherine placed, at her sole expense, his silver-plated effigy, large as life and an exact likeness, reclining on a tomb of grey marble, which was long visited by the people with feelings of veneration and sorrow. For more than a century the effigy remained in excellent preservation ; but at the period of the Reformation, when the hammers of destruction sounded in almost every church, the head, being of solid silver, was broken off, and together with the silver plates that covered the body, carried away, leaving only the uncovered oaken trunk behind. The rude Latin epitaph, of which the following is a translation, was at the same time defaced : " Here Normandy's duke, so styled by conquest just, True heir of France, great Hector, lies in dust." The obsequies of her husband concluded, Katherine retired to Windsor, where she mourned his loss in quiet seclusion. Meanwhile, her son, Henry, a babe not yet twelve months old, was proclaimed King of England and France. "The pretty hands," says one of our quaint chroniclers, "which could not feed himself, were vet made capable to wield a sceptre, and he who was beholding to nurses for milk, did nevertheless distribute the sustenance of law and justice to the two greatest nations in Europe." On the meeting of parliament, the baby king was conducted by his mother from Windsor to London. Katherine seated on a chair of state, and with her infant on her lap, passed through the city in great pomp to Westminster, where she took her scat on the throne, with the King on her knees. For reasons nowhere clearlv explained, the council took the King, when he was about two years old, from the keeping of his mother, and placed him under the guardianship of the Earl of Warwick, with Alice Botelcr for his governess, and Joanna Astley for his nurse. That his governess might discharge her duty without restraint, the infant King was made to grant her authority, by special warrant, and, with the advice of his council, to reasonably chastise him from time to time as the case might require, without being subsequently called to account. In the seventh year of his age, Henry was taken out of female dominion, and consigned wholly to the charge of the Earl of Warwick, who was directed to educate him in morals, manners, virtue, literature, languages, and all other befitting acquirements, and to properly chastise his neglect or disobedience. In his infancy, the conduct of Henry not a little annoyed and embarrassed his lords and council. When his presence was needed in parliament or the council chamber, instead of being grave and silent, he would sometimes shriek and cry, sometimes laugh and play at roU ball with the royal orb, or amuse the assembly by soundly thrashing his guardian, who usually carried him on state occasions with his toy sceptre ; whilst more than once, his childish whims and antics


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