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See + <a href="https://archive.org/details/historyofmournin00daveuoft"> + https://archive.org/details/historyofmournin00daveuoft</a> + </td> + </tr> +</table> +<p> </p> +<div class="transnote"> +<h3>Transcriber's note.</h3> + +<p>A <a href="#Corrections">list</a> of the changes made can be found at the end of the +book. In the text, the corrections are underlined by a red dotted line +"<span class="err" title="underlined error">like this</span>". Hover the cursor +over the underlined text and an explanation of the error should appear.</p> +</div> +<p> </p> +<hr class="pg" /> +<p> </p> + +<div class="page"> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_front_coverc.jpg" width="500" height="628" alt="History of Mourning" /> +</div> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="figcenter" > +<img src="images/i001.jpg" width="400" height="560" alt="Mary Queen of Scots" /> +<p class="caption">MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS,</p> + +<p class="caption"><em>As Widow of Francis II. of France, a facsimile +of the original drawing by Clouet, preserved in the Bibliothèque +Nationale, Paris.</em>—Reproduced expressly for this +Publication.</p> </div> + +</div> +<div class="title"> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h1> +A +HISTORY OF +MOURNING.</h1> +<p class="center p4"> +<small>BY</small></p> +<p class="center p2"> +RICHARD DAVEY.</p> +<hr class="small" /> +<p class="center">JAY'S,<br /> +REGENT STREET, W.</p> + +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i002.jpg" width="400" height="648" alt="A +History of Mourning by Richard Davey, Jay's Regent Street" /> +<p class="caption"><em>Wreath composed of the flowers mentioned in +Shakespeare's dirges</em></p> +</div> + +<p class="p2"> +ENTERED AT STATIONERS' HALL.] <span class="copyright">[COPYRIGHT.</span></p> +<p class="center p2"> +PUBLISHED AT JAY'S, REGENT STREET, W.</p> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="full" /> +<p class="center"> +<small>LONDON</small></p> +<p class="center"> +M<sup>c</sup>CORQUODALE & CO., <span class="smcap">Limited</span></p> +<p class="center"> +<small>CARDINGTON STREET, N.W.</small> +</p> +</div> +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_004.jpg" width="500" height="295" alt="A History of Mourning by Richard Davey" /> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_004a.jpg" width="200" height="16" alt="decoration" /> +</div> +<p class="p2"> +<img src="images/lettera.jpg" width="100" height="103" alt="A" class="floatl" /> +LTHOUGH tradition has not informed us whether our first +parents made any marked change in their scanty garments on +the death of their near relatives, it is certain that the fashion of +wearing mourning and the institution of funereal ceremonies and +rites are of the most remote antiquity. Herodotus tells us that +the Egyptians over 3,000 years ago selected yellow as the +colour which denoted that a kinsman was lately deceased. +They, moreover, shaved their eyebrows when a relative died; +but the death of a dog or a cat, regarded as divinities by this +curious people, was a matter of much greater importance to them, for then they not only +shaved their eyebrows, but every hair on their bodies was plucked out; and doubtless this +explains the reason why so many elaborate wigs are to be seen in the various museums +devoted to Egyptian antiquities. It would require a volume to give an idea of the +singular funereal ceremonials of this people, with whom death was regarded, so to speak, as +a "speciality;" for their religion was mainly devoted to the <em>cultus</em> of the departed, and +consequently innumerable monumental tombs still exist all over Egypt, the majority of which +are full of mummies, whose painted cases are most artistic.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_005.jpg" width="500" height="516" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap"> +Fig. 1.</span>—<em>An Egyptian Lady preparing to go into Mourning +for the death of her pet Cat.</em>—From a picture by +<span class="smcap">J. R. Weguelin</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p>The cat was worshipped as a divinity by the Egyptians. Magnificent tombs were +erected in its honour, sacrifices and devotions were offered to it; and, as has already +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">4</a></span> +been said, it was customary for the people of the house to shave their heads and eyebrows +whenever Pussy departed the family circle. Possibly it was their exalted position in Egypt +which eventually led to cats being considered the "familiars" of witches in the Middle +Ages, and even in our own time, for belief in witchcraft is not extinct. The kindly +Egyptians made mummies of their cats and dogs, and it is presumable that, since Egypt is +a corn growing, and hence a rat and mouse producing country, both dogs and cats, as killers +of these vermin, were regarded with extreme veneration on account of their exterminating +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">5</a></span> +qualities. Their mummies are often both curious and comical, for the poor beast's quaint +figure and face are frequently preserved with an indescribably grim realism, after the lapse +of many ages.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_006.jpg" width="500" height="417" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 2.</span>—<em>Egyptian Maiden presenting Incense to the new-made Mummy of a Cat.</em></p> +</div> + +<p>The funeral processions of the Egyptians were magnificent; for with the principal +members of the family of the deceased, if he chanced to be of royal or patrician rank, walked +in stately file numerous priests, priestesses, and officials wearing mourning robes, and, +together with professional mourners, filling the air with horrible howls and cries. Their +descendants still produce these strident and dismal lamentations on similar occasions.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">6</a></span> + +<img src="images/lettert.jpg" width="100" height="106" alt="T" class="floatl" /> +HE Egyptian Pyramids, which were included among the seven wonders of +the world, are seventy in number, and are masses of stone or brick, with +square bases and triangular sides. Although various opinions have prevailed +as to their use, as that they were erected for astronomical purposes, for +resisting the encroachment of the sand of the desert, for granaries, reservoirs, +or sepulchres, the last-mentioned hypothesis has been proved to be correct, in recent times, by +the excavations of Vyse, who expended nearly £10,000 in investigating their object. They +were the tombs of monarchs of Egypt who flourished from the Fourth to the Twelfth Dynasty, +none having been constructed later than that time; the subsequent kings being buried at +Abydos, Thebes, and other places, in tombs of a very different character.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> <img src="images/i_007.jpg" width="500" +height="386" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 3.</span>—<em>The +Pyramids and Great Sphinx.</em>—From a pen-and-ink sketch by +<span class="smcap">Horace Vernet</span>.</p> +</div> + +<p>The first, or Great Pyramid, was the sepulchre of the Cheops of Herodotus, the Chembes, +or Chemmis, of Diodorus, and the Suphis of Manetho and Eratosthenes. Its height was +480 feet 9 inches, and its base 764 feet square. In other words, it was higher than St. Paul's +Cathedral, and built on an area the size of Lincoln's Inn Fields. It has been, however, much +spoiled, and stripped of its exterior blocks for the building of Cairo. The original sepulchral +chamber, called the Subterranean Apartment, 46 feet by 27 feet, and 11 feet 6 inches high, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">7</a></span> +has been hewn in the solid rock, and was reached by the original passage of 320 feet long, +which descended to it by an entrance at the foot of the pyramid. A second chamber, with +a triangular roof, 17 feet by 18 feet 9 inches, and 20 feet 3 inches high, was entered by a +passage rising to an inclination of 26° 18', terminating in a horizontal passage. It is called +the Queen's Chamber, and occupies a position nearly in the centre of the pyramid. The +monument—probably owing to the long life attained by the monarch—still progressing, a third +chamber, called the King's, was finally constructed, by prolonging the ascending passage of +the Queen's Chamber for 150 feet farther into the very centre of the pyramid, and, after a +short horizontal passage, making a room 17 feet 1 inch by 34 feet 3 inches, and 19 feet 1 inch +high. The changes which took place in this pyramid gave rise to various traditions, even in +the days of Herodotus, Cheops being reported to lie buried in a chamber surrounded by the +waters of the Nile. It took a long time for its construction—100,000 men being employed +on it probably for above half a century, the duration of the reign of Cheops. The operations +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a></span> +in this pyramid by General Vyse gave rise to the discovery of marks scrawled in red ochre +in a kind of cursive hieroglyph, on the blocks brought from the quarries of Tourah. These +contained the name and titles of Khufu (the hieroglyphic form of Cheops); numerals and +directions for the position of materials, etc.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_008.jpg" width="500" height="440" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 4.</span>—<em>Mummies +of Cats and Dogs.</em>—British Museum and Museum of the +Louvre.</p> + </div> + +<p>The second Pyramid was built by Suphis II., or Kephren, who reigned 66 years, +according to Manethro, and who appears to have attained a great age. It has two sepulchral +chambers, and must have been broken into by the Calif Alaziz Othman Ben-Yousouf, +<small>A.D.</small> 1196. Subsequently it was opened by Belzoni. The masonry is inferior to that of the +first Pyramid, but it was anciently cased below with red granite.</p> + +<p>The third Pyramid, built by Menkara, who reigned 63 years, is much smaller than the +other two, and has also two sepulchral chambers, both in the solid rock. The lower chamber, +which held a sarcophagus of rectangular shape of whinstone, had a pointed roof, cut like an +arch inside; but the cedar coffin, in shape of a mummy, had been removed to the upper or +large apartment, and its contents there rifled. Amongst the debris of the coffin and in the +chambers were found the legs and part of the trunk of a body with linen wrapper, supposed +by some to belong to the monarch, but by others to an Arab, on account of the anchylosed +right knee. This body and fragments of the coffin were brought to the British Museum; +but the stone sarcophagus was unfortunately lost off Carthagena, by the sinking of the vessel +in which it was being transported to England.</p> + +<p>There are six other Pyramids of inferior size and interest at Gizeh; one at Abou Rouash, +which is ruined, but of large dimensions; another at Zowyet El Arrian, still more ruined; +another at Reegah, a spot in the vicinity of Abooseer, also much dilapidated, and built for the +monarch User-en-Ra, by some supposed to be Busiris. There are five of these monuments +at Abooseer, one with a name supposed to be that of a monarch of the Third Dynasty; and +another with that of the king Sahura. A group of eleven Pyramids remains at Sakkara, and +five other Pyramids are at Dashour, the northernmost of which, built of brick, is supposed to +be that of the king Asychis of Herodotus, and has a name of a king apparently about the +Twelfth Dynasty. Others are at Meydoon and Illahoon, Biahmo and Medinat El Fyoum, +apparently the sepulchres of the last kings of the Twelfth Dynasty.</p> + +<p>In Nubia, the ancient Æthiopia, are several Pyramids, the tombs of the monarchs of +Meroë and of some of the Ethiopian conquerors of Egypt. They are taller in proportion to +their base than the Egyptian Pyramids, and generally have a sepulchral hall, or propylon, with +sculptures, which faces the east. The principal groups of these Pyramids are at Bege Rauie, or +Begromi, 17º N. lat., in one of which, gold rings and other objects of late art, resembling that +of the Ptolemaic period, were found.</p> + +<p>The numerous Pyramids of Mexico are of vast size and importance, but their purpose is +not yet fully ascertained. Completely covered as they are with dense vegetation, filled with +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a></span> +venomous reptiles, they are difficult to investigate, but they were evidently much the same +in shape and structure as the Egyptian, and their entrances were richly sculptured.</p> + +<p>The art of preserving the body after death by embalming was invented by the Egyptians, +whose prepared bodies are known by the name of mummies. This art seems to have derived +its origin from the idea that the preservation of the body was necessary for the return of the +soul to the human form after it had completed its cycle of existence of three or ten thousand +years. Physical and sanitary reasons may also have induced the ancient Egyptians; and the +legend of Osiris, whose body, destroyed by Typhon, was found by Isis, and embalmed by +his son Anubis, gave a religious sanction to the rite, all deceased persons being supposed +to be embalmed after the model of Osiris in the <em>abuton</em> of Philæ. One of the earliest +embalmments on record is that of the patriarch Jacob; and the body of Joseph was thus +prepared, and transported out of Egypt. The following seems to have been the usual rule +observed after death. The relations of the deceased went through the city chanting a wail for +the dead. The corpse of a male was at once committed into the charge of undertakers; if a +female, it was detained at home until decomposition had begun. The <em>paraschistes</em>, or flank-inciser +of the district, a person of low class, conveyed the corpse home. A scribe marked with +a reed-pen a line on the left side beneath the ribs, down which line the paraschistes made a +deep incision with a rude knife of stone, or probably flint. He was then pelted by those +around with stones, and pursued with curses. Then the <em>taricheutes</em>, or preparer, proceeded to +arrange the corpse for the reception of the salts and spices necessary for its preservation, and +the future operations depended on the sum to be expended upon the task. When Herodotus +visited Egypt, three methods prevailed: the first, accessible only to the wealthy, consisted in +passing peculiar drugs through the nostrils, into the cavities of the skull, rinsing the body in +palm wine, and filling it with resins, cassia, and other substances, and stitching up the incision +in the left flank. The mummy was then steeped in natron for 70 days, and wrapped up in linen +cemented by gums, and set upright in a wooden coffin against the walls of the house or tomb. +This process cost what would now amount in our money to about £725. The second process +consisted in injecting into the body cedar oil, soaking it in a solution of natron for 70 days, +which eventually destroyed everything but the skin and bones. The expense was a <em>mina</em>, +relatively, about £243. In the third process, used for the poorer classes, the corpse was +simply washed in myrrh, and salted for 70 days. When thus prepared the bodies were ready +for sepulture, but they were often kept some time before burial—often at home—and were even +produced at festive entertainments, to recall to the guests the transient lot of humanity. All +classes were embalmed, even malefactors; and those who were drowned in the Nile or killed +by crocodiles received an embalmment from the city nearest to which the accident occurred.</p> + +<p>The Ethiopians used similar means of embalming to preserve the dead, and other less +successful means were used by nations of antiquity. The Persians employed wax, the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a></span> +Assyrians, honey; the Jews embalmed their monarchs with spices, with which the body of +Our Lord was also anointed; Alexander the Great was preserved in wax and honey, and some +Roman bodies have been found thus embalmed. The Guanches, or ancient inhabitants of the +Canary Isles, used an elaborate process like the Egyptian; and dessicated bodies, preserved +by atmospheric or other circumstances for centuries, have been found in France, Sicily, +England, and America, especially in Central America, and Peru. The art of embalming was +probably never lost in Europe, and De Bils, Ruysch, Swammerdam, and Clauderus boast of +great success in it. During the present century it has been almost entirely discarded, except +under very exceptional circumstances.</p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_011.jpg" width="300" height="94" alt="decoration" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a></span> +<img src="images/i_012.jpg" width="500" height="401" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 5.</span>—<em>Tomb of Runjeet Singh at +Lahore.</em> +</p></div> + +<p> +<img src="images/letterl.jpg" width="100" height="145" alt="L" class="floatl" /> +EAVING the Oriental and remotely ancient nations aside, we will now consider the +history of mourning as it was used by those peoples from whom we immediately +derive our funereal customs. In ancient times, even amongst the Greeks and +Romans, it was the custom to immolate victims—either slaves or captives—on the +tomb of the departed, in order to appease the spirit, or that the soul might +be accompanied by spirits of inferior persons to the realms of eternal bliss; and in +India we have some difficulty even now in preventing the +burning of a widow on the funeral pyre of her husband, +instances of this barbarous custom occurring almost every year, +notwithstanding the vigilance of our Government.</p> + +<p>It would be extremely interesting to trace to their sources all the various +rites and ceremonies connected with our principal subject, of every nation, savage or civilised, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a></span> +ancient or modern; but the task would be quite beyond my limits. A thorough investigation +of the matter, assisted very materially by a systematic investigation of that mine of curious +information, Picard's famous "<cite>Cérémonies et coutumes religieuses de tous les peuples</cite>", which contains +so many original letters from missionaries of the 16th and 17th Centuries, obliges me to come +to the conclusion that there is, after all, not so much variety in the funereal ceremonies of the +world as we imagine. Those of the Chinese and Japanese resemble in many ways, very +strikingly too, the ceremonies which the Roman Catholics employ to this day: there are the +same long processions of priests and officials; and Picard shows us a sketch of a very grand +burial at Pekin, in 1675, in which we behold the body of the Emperor of the Celestials +stretched upon a bier covered with deep violet satin, and surrounded by many lighted candles; +prayers were said for the repose of the soul; and, as all the world knows, the costumes of the +priests of Buddha are supposed to have undergone, together with their creed and ritual, a +great change in the early part of the 17th Century, owing to the extraordinary influence of +the Jesuit missionaries who followed St. Francis Xavier into India and Japan. The Japanese +cremated their dead and preserved the ashes; the Chinese buried theirs; but the Cingalese, +after burning the body, scattered the ashes to the winds; whilst a sect of Persians exposed +their dead upon the top of high towers, and permitted the birds of prey to perform the +duty which we assign to the gravedigger.</p> + +<p>Cemeteries existed in the East at a remote epoch, and were rendered so beautiful with +handsome mausoleums, groves of stately cypresses and avenues of lovely rose bushes, that they +are now used as public promenades. On certain days of the year multitudes resort to them for +purposes of prayer, and the Armenian Christians illuminate theirs with lamps and tapers on the +annual feast of the commemoration of the departed. Perhaps India possesses the most +elegant tombs in the world, mainly built by the sovereigns of the Mongol dynasty. None +among them is so sumptuous as the mausoleum of Taj Mahal, situated about a mile outside +the port of Agra. It was built by Shah Jehan for himself and his wife Arjimand Banoo, +surnamed Mumtaz Mahal; 20,000 men were employed for 20 years erecting it. It is +constructed of the purest white marble, relieved with precious stones. In the interior is the +sepulchral apartment, which is chiefly decorated with lapis lazuli. The tombs of the Emperor +and Empress, which stand under the dome, are covered with costly Indian shawls of green +cashmere, heavily embroidered with gold.</p> + +<p>Another most beautiful specimen of Mahometan sepulchral architecture is the tomb of +Runjeet Singh, near Lahore, which, though less known, is externally as magnificent as the +mausoleum above described.</p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/13.jpg" width="200" height="53" alt="decoration" /> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a></span> +<img src="images/letterm.jpg" width="200" height="162" alt="M" class="floatl" /> +OSES prohibited the immolation of human victims on the +tombs of the dead, and decreed that relatives should signify +their sorrow by the manner in which they tore their +garments. They rent them according to the degrees of +affinity and parentage. Sometimes the tears were horizontal, +and this indicated that a father, mother, wife, brother, or +sister had died; but if the tear was longitudinal, it +signified that some person had departed who was not a +blood relation. An idea can be formed of the appalling destruction of clothing which must +have occurred on certain occasions amongst the ancient Jews, when we remember that +on the death of a king everybody was expected to tear their garments longitudinally, and +to go about with them in tatters for nine days. This curious custom possibly explains +Solomon's proverb, "There is a time to rend and a time to mend."</p> + +<p>The High Priest among the Jews was exempted from wearing mourning. The French, +when they embraced Christianity, added many Jewish customs to their own: up to the time +of the Revolution of 1789, their Grand Chancellor, or Chief Magistrate, was not bound to +wear mourning even for his own father.</p> + +<p>The Greeks, doubtless, derived their funereal ceremonies from the Egyptians, and +it is from this ancient people that we obtain the custom of wearing black as mourning. +When a person in Greece was dangerously ill and not expected to recover, branches of +<em>laurestinus</em> and <em>achanthus</em> were hung up over the door, and the relatives hurried round the +bed and prayed to Mercury, as the conductor of souls, to have mercy upon the invalid, and +either to cure him completely or else help his soul to cross the river Styx. If the death +really occurred, then the house was filled with cries and lamentations. The body was washed +and perfumed, and covered with rich robes; a garland of flowers was placed on its head, and +in its hand a cake made of wheat and honey, to appease Cerberus, the porter of Hell; +and in the mouth a purse of money, in order to defray the expenses of Charon, the ferryman +of Styx. In this state the deceased was exposed for two days in the vestibule of the house. +At the door was a vase full of water, destined to purify the hands of those who touched +the corpse.</p> + +<p>Visitors to Paris will remember how often they have seen a coffin exhibited in the +doorway of a house, elaborately covered with flowers, having at its head a crucifix, and many +lights surrounding it, everybody as they passed saluting it—the men by taking off their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a></span> +hats, and the women by making the sign of the cross, often using for this purpose holy +water offered to them on a brush by an acolyte. Now, the Greeks used blessed water +when they exposed their dead in front of their dwellings; possibly the French custom is +derived from the Grecian. The funeral in Greece took place three days after the exhibition +of the remains, and usually occurred before sunrise, so as to avoid ostentation. Many women +surrounded the bier, weeping and howling, and not a few, being professionals, were paid for +their trouble. The corpse was placed on a chariot, in a coffin made of cypress wood. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a></span> +male relatives walked behind, those who were of close kinship having their heads shaved. +They usually cast down their eyes, and were invariably dressed in black. A choir of musicians +came next, singing doleful tunes. The procession, as a rule, had not far to go, for the body +of a wealthy person was usually buried in his garden—if his city house did not possess one, +in that of his villa residence.</p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_015.jpg" width="500" height="821" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 6.</span>—<em>A Greek Tomb: the Monument +of Themistocles, Athens.</em></p> + </div> + +<p>The Greeks, it will thus be seen, buried their dead, and did not cremate them as did the +Romans; but in the latter years of the Republic both forms of disposing of the body were +common. After the burial, libations of wine were poured over the grave, and all objects of +clothing which had belonged to the deceased were solemnly burnt. The ninth and fourteenth +days after the funeral, the parents, dressed in white, visited the grave, and a ceremony was +gone through for the repose of the soul. The anniversary of the death was also observed, +and the Greeks, moreover, had a general commemoration of the dead in the month of March. +And here let us make a digression to see how very closely the Greeks must have influenced +the early Christians, and consequently their more immediate descendants, the Roman Catholics, +in the matter of religious ceremonies; for it is usual among Catholics to hear a Mass for the +Dead a week after the death, and also another on the anniversary. The universal feast of +the dead is observed by them, however, not in the month of March, but in that of November. +People who have lived in Paris will know how very largely these funereal ceremonies enter +into the manners and customs of that gay city, so that it is not unfrequent for foreign +residents to observe that their time is passed in perpetually going to funerals; for, if you have +a large acquaintance, you are sure to receive at least twenty or thirty invitations to +funerals and funereal commemorations in the course of the year. Of course, everybody +will remember how on the Continent the first day of November is devoted to visiting the +cemeteries and decorating the tombs of relatives and friends.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_016.jpg" width="500" height="191" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 7.</span>—<em>Gallo-Roman bas-relief—found in Paris about fifty years ago—representing a family surrounding +the body of a woman who has recently died.</em>—Museum of the Louvre.</p> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a></span> +To return to the Greeks, it should be observed that their respect for the dead was +remarkable, even amongst the ancients. If a man accidentally found a body on the high-road, +he was obliged to turn aside and bury it. When the people saw a funeral procession pass, +they uncovered their heads and murmured a prayer. The laws against the violation of the +sepulchres of the dead were most severe, and any one who was caught damaging a tomb was +usually flogged for his trouble, but if he overthrew it and disturbed the body, he was burnt +alive.</p> + +<p>If a person died at sea, all the people on board the ship assembled at sunset, and +cried out three times the name of the departed, who was usually thrown overboard. In the +morning they repeated these calls, and so forth until the ship entered port. This was done +in order to recall the names of the deceased, or at any rate to keep them propitious.</p> + +<p>When an illustrious person died in Greece, the ceremonies were on a most elaborate +scale, and even accompanied by games, which lasted for many days. Readers of Homer's +"Iliad" will remember his magnificent description of the death and funeral of Patroclus.</p> + +<p>Among the Romans the men were not obliged to wear mourning, but it was the fashion +for women to do so. Very wisely, children under three years of age were not forced to +put on black, even for their parents, and after that age, only for as many months as they +had lived years.</p> + +<p>The Roman ladies only wore mourning for their parents for one year. Men were expected +to wear it for the same period in the case of the death of a father, mother, wife, sister, or +brother. Numa fixed the period of wearing deep mourning for the nearest of kin as ten +months. People, however, were not obliged to wear mourning for any of their relatives who +had been in prison, were bankrupt, or in any way outlawed. Numa published a minute +series of laws regulating the mourning of his people. A very odd item in these included +an order that women should not scratch their faces, or make an exceptional fuss at a public +funeral. This was possibly decreed to put some stop to abuses which the hired mourners +had occasioned: scratching their faces, for instance, so as to injure themselves, and making an +over-dismal wail which was offensive to the genuine mourners.</p> + +<p>For freedmen and slaves among the Romans, the greatest mark of respect was the +erection of a monument or inscription in the tomb reserved for the family they had served. +Thousands of these inscriptions to slaves and faithful servants still exist, and lead us to hope +that the hardships of slavery in ancient Rome were often softened by mutual kindness and +respect. One of the most touching of these is in a tomb on the Appian Road, which is +supposed to have belonged to the attendants of Livia, the illustrious consort of Augustus. +It runs:—</p> + +<p>"To my beloved Julia, my slave-woman, whose last illness I have watched and attended +as if it had been that of my own mother."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a></span> + +Tombs of slaves who were martyrs to the Christian religion are very frequent, and +their inscriptions are usually of a most pathetic description.</p> + +<p>The ashes of the dead, after the solemn burning of the body, were carefully gathered +together and placed in an often very beautifully painted urn, and taken to the family tomb +on the Appian Way, where an appropriate inscription was affixed to the wall under the niche +containing the vase or urn. Little glass bottles, said to be filled with the tears of the nearest +relations, were likewise enclosed in the urn, or else hung up beside it. Thousands of these, +brilliant, after ages, with iridescent colours, are still found in the Roman tombs.</p> + +<p>It was not imperative for a man in old Rome to wear mourning at all; but it was +considered very bad taste for a male not to show some external sign of respect for his dead. +With women, on the other hand, it was obligatory.</p> + +<p>On great occasions, such as the death of an Emperor or a defeat of the army in +foreign parts, the Senate, the Knights, and the whole Roman people assumed mourning; and +the same ceremony was observed when any general of the Roman army was slain in battle. +When Manlius was precipitated from the Tarpeian rock, half the people put on mourning. +The defeat at Cannæ, the conspiracy of Catilina, and the death of Julius Cæsar were also +events celebrated in Rome with public mourning; but during the whole period of the +Republic it was not compulsory for people to notice death, either publicly or privately.</p> + +<p>The first public mourning recorded as being observed throughout the entire Roman +Empire was that for Augustus. It lasted for fifty days for the men, and the whole year +for women. The next public event which called forth a decree commanding that the entire +people of Rome and the Empire should wear mourning, was the death of Livia, mother of +Tiberius. The same thing occurred at the death of Drusus; and Caligula followed the +example, and ordered general mourning on the death of Drusilla.</p> + +<p>Private mourning, which was among the Romans, as we have already intimated, not at +all compulsory, could be broken by events such as the birth of a son or daughter, the +marriage of a child, and the return of a prisoner of war. Men wore lighter mourning than +women, but were expected to absent themselves from places of public amusement.</p> + +<p>The usual colour adopted by women for mourning, under the Roman Empire, was a +peculiar blue-black serge, and an absolutely black veil. As with us, occasionally, the wearing +of mourning brought forth some sharp remarks from the satirical poets. Thus, Macrobius tells +us, in his Saturnalia, that Crœsus on one occasion went to the Senate wearing the deepest +mourning for the largest lamprey in his tank, which had died.</p> + +<p>Women were not allowed to remarry within the year of their husband's death. Imperial +permission, however, might smooth this difficulty.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a></span> + +<img src="images/letterbiga.jpg" width="200" height="170" alt="A" class="floatl" /> +MONG the early Christians the sincerest respect for the +memory of their dead was paid; for most of them, in +the first centuries of the Church, were either martyrs +or near connections of such as had suffered for the faith. +The Catacombs are covered with inscriptions recording +the deaths of martyrs; and many of these memorials +are exceedingly pathetic, testifying to the fortitude +with which the first Christians endured any manner +of torture rather than deny the new faith which had been imparted to them +by Divine revelation. The remains of the martyrs, however mangled they might +be, were gathered together with the greatest reverence, and their blood placed in little +phials of glass, which were considered relics of a most precious nature. The Catacombs, +which served the first Christians as churches as well as places of burial, are called after the +most distinguished martyrs who were buried therein. In that of St. Calixtus, for instance—where +that early and martyred Pope was interred—about two centuries ago was found the body +of Saint Cecilia, "the sweet patroness of music." With such precaution had her remains been +transported to their place of interment, that Bernini, the most eminent sculptor of the 17th +Century, was able to take a cast of them, which he subsequently worked into a lovely statue, +representing the saint in the graceful and modest attitude in which it is said her body was +found after the lapse of a thousand years. This exquisite work of art is to be seen in the church +which bears Saint Cecilia's name, in the Trastevere; and a fine replica of it is in the chapel of +St. Cecilia, in the Oratory, Brompton.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_020.jpg" width="500" height="699" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 8.</span>—<em>Divine Service in the Catacombs of St. Calixtus</em>, +<small>A.D.</small> 50.</p> +</div> + +<p>The Catacombs are subterraneous chambers and passages usually formed in the rock, +which is soft and easily excavated, and are to be found in almost every country in which such +rocks exist. In most cases, probably, they originated in mere quarries, which afterwards came +to be used either as places of sepulchre for the dead, or as hiding-places for the persecuted +living. The most celebrated Catacombs in existence are those on the Via Appia, at a short +distance from Rome. To these dreary crypts the early Christians were in the habit of retiring, +in order to celebrate Divine worship in times of persecution, and in them were buried many +of the saints, the early Popes, and martyrs. They consist of long narrow galleries, usually +about eight feet high and five wide, which twist and turn in all directions. The graves were +constructed by hollowing out a portion of the rock, at the side of the gallery, large enough +to contain the body. The entrance was then built up with stones, on which usually the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a></span> +letters D. M. (Deo Maximo), or <span lang="el" title="CHR">ΧΡ</span>, the first two letters of the Greek name of Christ, +were inscribed. Though latterly devoted to purposes of Christian interment exclusively, it is +believed that the Catacombs were at one time used as burying-places for Pagans also, and +there are one or two which were evidently entirely devoted to the Jews. At irregular +intervals, these galleries expand into wide and lofty vaulted chambers, in which the service of +the Church was no doubt celebrated, and which still have the appearance of chapels. The +original extent of the Catacombs is uncertain, the guides maintaining that they have a length +of twenty miles, whereas about six only can now be ascertained to exist, and of these, many +portions have either fallen in or become dangerous. When Rome was besieged by the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a></span> +Lombards in the 8th Century, several of the Catacombs were destroyed, and the Popes afterwards +caused the remains of many of the saints and martyrs to be removed and buried in the +churches. The Catacombs at Naples, cut into the Capo di Monte, resemble those at Rome, +and evidently were used for the same purposes, being partially covered with remarkable +Christian symbols. At Palermo and Syracuse, there are similar Catacombs, and they are also +to be found in Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Persia, and Egypt. At Milo, one of the Cyclades, +there is a hill which is honeycombed with a labyrinth of tombs running in every direction. +In these, <span class="err" title="original: bassirilievi">bassorilievi</span> and figures in terra-cotta have been found, which prove them to be long +anterior to the Christian era. In Peru and other parts of South America, ancient Catacombs +still exist. The Catacombs of Paris are a species of charnel-house, into which the +contents of such burying-places as were found to be pestilential, and the bodies of some of +the victims of the Revolution, were cast by a decree of the Government. The skulls are +arranged in curious forms, and a visit to these weird galleries is one of the sights of Paris, +which few strangers, however, are privileged to study. The Capuchin monks have frequently +attached to their monasteries, a cloister filled with earth brought from the Holy Land. In +this the monks are buried for a time, until their bones are quite fleshless, when they are +arranged in surprising groups in the long corridors of a series of galleries, and produce +sometimes the reverse of a solemn effect.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_021.jpg" width="500" height="357" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="captionl"><span class="smcap">Fig. 9.</span>—<em>Crypt of a Chapel in the Catacomb of St. Agnes, without the walls of Rome (restored), showing +the manner in which the bodies of the early Christians were arranged one above the other. +The front of each tomb was of course walled up.</em>—From the work on the Catacombs of Rome, +by <span class="smcap">M. Perret</span>.</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i022.jpg" width="400" height="716" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 10.</span>—<em>An Anglo-Saxon Widow Lady. The upper garment is of black cloth, edged with fur, and a veil +of black gauze hangs from the head.</em>—9th Century MS., National Library, Paris.</p> +</div> + +<p> +<img src="images/letterasecond.jpg" width="100" height="106" alt="A" class="floatl" /> +S the Church emerged from the Catacombs, and was enabled to take her +position in the world, her funereal ceremonies became more elaborate and +costly. Masses for the dead were offered up in the churches, to the +accompaniment of music and singing; and the funereal ceremonies which +attended the burial of the Empress Theodolinda, <small>A.D.</small> 595, the friend and +correspondent of Pope St. Gregory the Great, lasted for over a week. The Cathedral of +Monza, where she was buried, was hung with costly black stuff, and the body of the Empress +was exhibited under a magnificent catafalque, surrounded with lights, and was visited by +pilgrims from all parts of Lombardy. Many hundreds of masses were said for her in all the +churches, and all day the great bells of the cathedral and of the various monastic establishments +tolled dolefully. At the end of the week the body of the illustrious Empress was placed in +the vault under the high altar, where it remains to this day; and above it was a shrine filled +with extraordinary relics, many of which still subsist, as, for instance, her celebrated "Hen and +Chickens"—a plateau or tray of silver gilt with some gold chickens with ruby eyes upon it—and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a></span> +the famous iron crown, which is, indeed, of gold, having one of the nails said to have +been used at the Crucifixion beaten in a single band round the inside. Napoleon I. crowned +himself, at Milan, King of Italy, with this singular relic.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i023.jpg" width="400" height="638" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 11.</span>—<em>An Anglo-Saxon Priest wearing a black Dalmatic, edged with fur, ready to say a Requiem Mass.</em>—From +an early MS., 10th Century.</p> +</div> + +<p>Our Catholic ancestors spent large sums of money upon their funerals. The pious practice +of praying for the dead, which they doubtless derived from the Hebrews, induced them to +secure the future exertions of their friends, by building chanteries and special chapels in the +churches, with a view of reminding the survivors of their demise. Guilds, which by the +way, still exist, were created for the purpose of binding people together in a holy league +of prayer for the souls of the faithful departed. We find in the laws established for the +Guild of Abbotsbury, the following regulations:—"If any one belonging to the association +chance to die, each member shall pay a penny for the good of the soul, before the body +be laid in the grave. If he die in the neighbourhood, the steward (secretary) shall enquire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a></span> +when he is to be interred, and shall summon as many members as he can, to assemble and +carry the corpse in as honourable a manner as possible to the grave or minster, and there +pray devoutly for his soul's rest." With the same view, our ancestors were ever anxious to +obtain a place of sepulchre in the most frequented churches. The monuments raised over +their remains, whilst keeping them safe from profanation, recalled them to memory, and solicited +on their behalf the charity of the faithful. The usual inscription on the earlier Christian +tombs in this country was the pathetic "Of your charity, pray for me." In the Guild of All +Souls, in London, when any member died, it was the custom of the survivors to give the poor +a loaf for the good of the soul; and the writer can perfectly remember, that some thirty years +since, in remote parts of Norfolk, when anybody died, it was the fashion to distribute loaves of +bread in the church porch as a dole. The funeral of an Anglo-Saxon was thus conducted:—The +body of the deceased was placed on a bier or in a hearse. On it lay the book of the +gospels, the code of his or her belief, and the cross, the signal of hope. A pall of silk or +linen was thrown over it till it reached the place of interment. The friends were summoned, +and strangers deemed it a duty to join the funeral procession. The clergy walked before or +on each side, bearing lighted tapers in their hands, and chanting a portion of the psalter. +If it were in the evening, the night was passed in exercises of devotion. In the morning,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a></span> +mass was sung and the body deposited with solemnity in the grave, the sawlshot paid, and +a liberal donation distributed to the poor. Before the Reformation, it was the excellent custom +for all persons who met a funeral to uncover and stand reverentially still until it had +passed. The pious turned back, and accompanied the mourners a part of the way to the +grave. It is pleasant to notice that this essentially humane habit of taking off the hat and +behaving gravely as a funeral goes by, which is universal upon the Continent, is at last +becoming more and more general here. The homage of the living to the mortal remains of +even the humblest is excellent, and one which should be earnestly encouraged, being far +more beneficial in its results than the heaping of costly flowers upon a hearse, which no one +notices as it passes, laden with its ephemeral offerings, to the cemetery.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_024.jpg" width="500" height="306" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="captionl"><span class="smcap">Fig. 12.</span>—<em>Funeral of St. Edward the Confessor, January 5th, 1066. The body, covered with a silken +pall adorned with crosses, is carried by eight men, and followed by many priests, to Westminster +Abbey, which he had founded. Under the bier are seen two small figures ringing bells.</em>—From +the Bayeux Tapestry, worked by Matilda of Flanders, Queen of William the Conqueror, and +preserved in the Cathedral at Bayeux—11th Century.</p> +</div> + +<p>The funeral of Edward the Confessor was exceedingly magnificent, and the shrine built +over his relics, behind the high altar of the glorious abbey which he founded, is still an +object of reverence with our Roman Catholic fellow-citizens, who, on St. Edward's Day, are +permitted by a tolerant age to offer their devotions before the resting-place of the last of our +Saxon Kings. But our first Norman King was buried with scant ceremony. He died 1087, +at Hermentrude, a village near Rouen, having been taken suddenly ill on his way to England. +No sooner was the illustrious king deceased, than his servants plundered the house and even +the corpse, flinging it naked upon the floor. Herleadin, a peasant, undertook at last to convey +the body to Caen, where it was to be buried in the Abbey of St. Stephen, Prince Henry and +the monks being present. Scarcely, however, was the mass of requiem begun, when the +church took fire, and everybody fled, leaving William the Conqueror's hearse neglected +in the centre of the transept. At last the flames were extinguished, the interrupted +service finished, and the funeral sermon preached. Just, however, as the coffin was about to +be lowered into the vault, Anselm Fitz-Arthur, a Norman gentleman, stood forth and forbade +the interment. "This spot," cried he, "is the site of my father's house, which this dead man +burnt to ashes. On the ground it occupied I built this church, and William's body shall not +desecrate it." After much ado, however, Fitz-Arthur was prevailed upon by Prince Henry to +allow the body to be buried, on the payment of sixty shillings as the price of the grave. In +the 17th Century the Calvinists ravaged the tomb and broke the monument. It was restored +in 1642, but finally swept away, together with that of Queen Matilda, in the Revolution of 1793.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_025.jpg" width="200" height="29" alt="illustration" /> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_026.jpg" width="500" height="706" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 13.</span>—<em>The Shrine of the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_028.jpg" width="500" height="267" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 14.</span>—<em>Funeral of an Abbess—10th Century.</em>—From a MS.</p> +</div> + +<p> +<img src="images/letterp.jpg" width="100" height="104" alt="P" class="floatl" /> +ERHAPS the most curious funeral on record occurred just at the dawn of the +<span class="err" title="original: Rennaissance">Renaissance</span>—that of the ill-fated Inez de Castro—"the Queen crowned +after death"—who was murdered in the 14th Century by three assassins in +her own apartment at Coimbra. "Being conveyed," says the Chronicle of +Fray Jao das Reglas, "to the chapel of the neighbouring convent, her +body was arrayed in spotless white and decked with roses. The nuns surrounded the +bier, and the Queen-mother of Portugal, Brittes, sat in state—her crown upon her head +and her royal robes flowing around her—as chief mourner, having given an order that +the body should not be buried until after the return of her son Don Pedro. When he did +come back, he was transported with grief and anger at the foul murder of his consort; and, +throwing himself upon the corpse, clasped it to his heart, covered its pale lips, its hands, +its feet with kisses, and, refusing all consolation, remained for thirty hours with the body clasped +in his embrace! At last, being overcome with fatigue, the unhappy Prince was carried away +senseless from the piteous remains of his most dear Inez, and they were consigned to the +grave. It was his father who had instigated the murderers to commit their foul deed, and +this determined Pedro to take up arms against him; and Portugal was desolated by civil war. +Eventually the reasoning of the Queen (Brittes) prevailed, and peace was restored. Pedro,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a></span> +however, never spoke to his father again until the hour of his death, when he forgave the +great wrong he had done him. He now ascended the throne, and his first act was to +hunt down the three murderers, two of whom were put to death, with tortures too awful +to describe, and the other escaped into France, where he died a beggar. After this +retributive act, Don Pedro assembled the Cortes at Cantandes, and, +in the presence of the Pope's Nuncio, solemnly swore that he had +secretly married Inez de Castro at Braganza, in the presence of the +bishop and of other witnesses." "Then occurred an event unique in +history," continues this naive contemporary chronicle. "The body of +Inez was lifted from the grave, placed on a magnificent throne, and +crowned Queen of Portugal. The clergy, the nobility, and the +people did homage to her corpse, and kissed the bones of her +hands. There sat the dead Queen, with her yellow hair hanging like +a veil round her ghastly form. One fleshless hand held the sceptre, +and the other the orb of royalty. At night, after the coronation +ceremony, a procession was formed of all the clergy and nobility, +the religious orders and confraternities—which extended over many +miles—each person holding a flaring torch in his hand, and thus +walked from Coimbra to Alcobaça, escorting the crowned corpse +to that royal abbey for interment. The dead Queen lay in her +rich robes upon a chariot drawn by black mules and lighted up by +hundreds of lights."</p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_029.jpg" width="200" height="517" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"><span class="smcap">Fig. 15.</span>—<em>Bird's-eye view of the +Monument (restored) of the +Queen Inez of Castro, Abbey +of Alcobaça, Portugal.</em> </p> +</div> +<p> The scene must indeed have been a weird one. The sable +costumes of the bishops and priests, the incense issuing from +innumerable censers, the friars in their quaint garments, and the +fantastically-attired members of the various hermandades, or brotherhoods—some +of whom were dressed from head to foot entirely in scarlet, or blue, or black, +or in white—with their countenances masked and their eyes glittering through small openings +in their cowls; but above all, the spectre-like corpse of the Queen, on its car, and the +grief-stricken King, who led the train—when seen by the flickering light of countless torches, +with its solemn dirge music, passing through many a mile of open country in the midnight +hours—was a vision so unreal that the chronicler describes it as "rather a phantasmagoria +than a reality." In the magnificent abbey of Alcobaça the <em>requiem</em> mass was sung, and the +corpse finally laid to rest.</p> + +<p>The monument still exists, with the statue, with its royal diadem and mantle, lying +thereon. The tomb of Don Pedro is placed foot to foot with that of Inez, so—the legend +runs—that at the Judgment Day they may rise together and stand face to face.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a></span> + +In 1810 the bodies of Don Pedro I. and Dona Inez de Castro were disturbed by the +French, at the sack of Alcobaça. The skeleton of Inez was discovered to be in a singular +state of preservation—the hair exceedingly long and glossy, and the head bound with a +golden crown set with jewels of price. Singularly enough, this crown, although very valuable, +was kicked about by the men as a toy and thrown behind the high altar, whence, as soon as +the troops evacuated the monastery, it was carefully taken and laid aside by the Abbot. +Shortly afterwards it again encircled the unhappy Queen's head, when, by order of the +Duke of Wellington, the remains were once more replaced in the tomb, with military +honours.</p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_030.jpg" width="496" height="521" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 16.</span>—<em>Funeral Service, in which are shown the Candelabra and +Incense Vessels which were deposited in the coffin.</em>—Drawing of +the 14th Century—Collection of the Rev. Father <span class="smcap">Cochet</span>. +</p> +</div> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_030b.jpg" width="500" height="438" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 17.</span>—<em>Angels praying over a Skull.</em>—Bas-relief of 16th Century. +</p> + +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a></span> + +<img src="images/letterf.jpg" width="100" height="102" alt="F" class="floatl" /> +UNERAL 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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a></span> +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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a></span> +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.</p> +<div class="page"> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_031.jpg" width="500" height="310" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Figs. 18 & 19.</span>—<em>Death Criers</em>—<em>French costumes of 17th Century. The English dress was almost identical.</em>—From a +rare print in the collection of Mr. <span class="smcap">Richard Davey</span>. Engraved expressly for this publication. +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="large" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i032.jpg" width="495" height="679" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="captionl"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 20.</span>—<em>Pall from the Church +of Folleville, France, now in the Museum at Amiens. It is of black +velvet, with stripes of white silk let in, embroidered with black and +gold thread. It was placed over the coffin. Similar palls existed +in England, and one or two are still preserved in our national +collections.</em> + +</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr class="large" /> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_033.jpg" width="500" height="460" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 21.</span>—<em>Scene from Richard III.</em>—<em>The body of Henry VI. being by chance met +by Richard on its way to Chertsey, he orders the bearers to set it down, +and then pleads his cause to the Lady Anne.</em> +</p> +</div> + +<p>Shakespeare, whose knowledge of Catholicism of course came to him from immediate +tradition, possibly remembered a very ancient custom when, in <em>Richard III.</em>, 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a></span> +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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_034.jpg" width="500" height="387" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 22.</span>—<em>Funeral of King Richard II., showing his waxen effigy.</em>—From an early MS. of <span class="smcap">Froissart</span>. +</p> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a></span> + +<img src="images/letteri.jpg" width="100" height="215" alt="I" class="floatl" /> +MPORTANT 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.</p> + +<p>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."</p> + +<div class="page"> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_036.jpg" width="500" height="690" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 23.</span>—<em>Funeral Procession of King Henry V.</em>, <small>A.D.</small> 1422. +</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a></span> +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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i038.jpg" width="400" height="583" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 24.</span>—<em>Queen Katherine de Valois in her Widow's Dress, <small>A.D.</small> 1422. The costume is of +black brocade elaborately trimmed with black glass beads, and trimmed with white +fur.</em>—MS. of the period. +</p> +</div> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <em>chère reine</em> 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."</p> + +<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a></span> +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 <em>chapelle ardente</em>, 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."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i040.jpg" width="400" height="650" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 25.</span>—<em>Gentleman in Mourning, time of Henry VII. The costume is entirely black, edged +with black fur.</em>—From a contemporary MS. +</p> +</div> + +<p>The funeral of the unfortunate Katherine of Arragon took place, as all the world knows, +in Peterborough Cathedral.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_041.jpg" width="500" height="686" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 26.</span>—<em>Richard I. and his Queen attending the Requiem Mass for the fallen Crusaders, in the +Cathedral of Rhodes.</em> +</p> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> +<div class="page"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_042.jpg" width="500" height="753" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 27.</span>—<em>Lying in State of Queen Elizabeth of York, Consort of Henry VII.</em> + +</p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a></span> + +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.</p> + +<p>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, <em>Melior est canis vivis leone mortuo</em>. 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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_043.jpg" width="500" height="529" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 28.</span>—<em>Tomb of Henry V.</em> +</p> +</div> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_044.jpg" width="500" height="442" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 29.</span>—<em>Departure of the body of Queen Elizabeth from Greenwich Palace, for Interment at Westminster.</em> + +</p> +</div> + +<p> +<img src="images/letterq.jpg" width="200" height="157" alt="Q" class="floatl" /> +UEEN 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:—</p> +<div class="center"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div class="i0">"She is, she was—what can there be more said?</div> +<div class="i0">On earth the first, in heaven the second maid."</div> +</div></div> +</div> +<p>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."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a></span> + +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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_045.jpg" width="500" height="300" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="captionl"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 30.</span>—<em>A memento mori, or death's-head timepiece, in solid silver, lately exhibited at the Stuart +Exhibition, 1888-9. On the forehead is a figure of Death standing between a palace and +a cottage: around is this legend from Horace,</em> "Pallida mors equo pulsat pede +pauperum tabernas Regum que turres." <em>On the hind part of the skull is a figure +of Time, with another legend from Ovid:</em> "Tempus Edax Rerum tuque Mirdiosa +Vetustas." <em>The upper part of the skull bears representations of Adam and Eve and +the Crucifixion; between these scenes is open work to let out the sound when the watch +strikes the hour upon a silver bell which fills the hollow of the skull and receives the +works within it when the watch is shut. On the edge is inscribed:</em> "Sicut meis sic +et omnibus idem." <em>It bears the maker's name, Moysart à Blois. Belonged formerly +to Mary Queen of Scots, and by her was given to the Seton family, and inherited thence +by its actual owner, Sir T. W. Dick Lauder.</em> +</p> +</div> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a></span>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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i046.jpg" width="600" height="679" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="captionl"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 31.</span>—<em>Funeral of Queen +Elizabeth, 18th of April, 1603.</em>—From a very rare +contemporary engraving, reproduced expressly, and for the first time, +for this work, by M. Badoureau, of Paris. No. 1 represents the wax +effigy of the Queen lying on her coffin; gentlemen pensioners carrying +the banners. The chariot is drawn by four horses. 2. Kings at Arms. 3. +Noblemen. 4. The Archbishop of Canterbury. 5. The French Ambassador and +his train-bearer. 6. The great Standard of England, carried by the Earl +of Pembroke. 7. The Master of the Horse. 8. The Lady Marchioness of +Northampton, grand mourner, and the ladies in attendance on the Queen. +9. Captain of the Guard. 10. Lord Clanricarde carrying the Standard of +Ireland. 11. Standard of Wales, borne by Viscount Bindon, followed by +the Lord Mayor. 12. Gentlemen of the Chapels Royal; children of the +Chapels. 13. Trumpeters. 14. Standard of the Lion. 15. Standard of the +Greyhound. 16. The Queens Horse. 17. Poor Women to the number of 266. +18. The Banner of Cornwall. The Aldermen, Recorders, Town Clerks, etc. + +</p> +</div> + +<p>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 "<em>La Reine Blanche</em>," 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 <em>La Reine Blanche</em>. 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a></span> +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.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i047.jpg" width="400" height="498" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 32.</span>—<em>French Lady of the 16th Century in Widow's Weeds. This costume is identical +with that worn by Mary Stuart as widow of the Dauphin, only her dress was +perfectly white.</em>—From <span class="smcap">Pietro Vercellio's</span> famous work on Costume, engraved +expressly for this publication. + +</p> +</div> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Early in March, 1587, the obsequies of Mary Stuart were solemnised by the King, +nobles, and people of France, with great pomp, in the Cathedral of Notre Dame at Paris, and +a passionately eloquent funeral oration was pronounced by Renauld de Beaulue, Archbishop +of Bourges and Patriarch of Acquitaine, which brought tears to the eyes of every person in +the congregation.</p> + +<p>After Mary's body had remained for nearly six months apparently forgotten by her +murderers, Elizabeth considered it necessary, in consequence of the urgent and pathetic +memorials of the afflicted servants of the unfortunate princess and the remonstrances of her +royal son, to accord it not only Christian burial, but a pompous state funeral. This she +appointed to take place in Peterborough Cathedral, and, three or four days before, sent some +officials to make the necessary arrangements for the solemnity. The place selected for the +interment was at the entrance of the choir from the south aisle. The grave was dug by the +centogenarian sexton, Scarlett. Heralds and officers of the wardrobe were also sent to +Fotheringay Castle to make arrangements for the removal of the royal body, and to prepare +mourning for all the servants of the murdered Queen. Moreover, as their head-dresses were +not of the approved fashion for mourning in England, Elizabeth sent a milliner on purpose to +make others, in the orthodox mode, proper to be worn at the funeral, and to be theirs +afterwards. However, these true mourners coldly, but firmly declined availing themselves of +these gifts and attentions, declaring "that they would wear their own dresses, such as they had +got made for mourning immediately after the loss of their beloved Queen and mistress."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a></span> + +On the evening of Sunday, July 30, Garter King of Arms arrived at Fotheringay Castle, +with five other heralds and forty horsemen, to receive and escort the remains of Mary Stuart to +Peterborough Cathedral, having brought with them a royal funereal car for that purpose, covered +with black velvet, elaborately set forth with escutcheons of the arms of Scotland, and little +pennons round about it, drawn by four richly-caparisoned horses. The body, being enclosed in +lead within an outer coffin, was reverently put into the car, and the heralds, having assumed +their coats and tabards, brought the same forth from the castle, bare-headed, by torchlight, +about ten o'clock at night, followed by all her sorrowful servants.</p> + +<p>The procession arrived at Peterborough between one and two o'clock on the morning of +July 30, and was received ceremoniously at the minster door by the bishop and clergy, +where, in the presence of her faithful Scotch attendants, she was laid in the vault prepared for +her, without singing or saying—the grand ceremonial being appointed for August 1. The +reason for depositing the royal body previously in the vault was, because it was too heavy to +be carried in the procession, weighing, with the lead and outer coffin, nearly nine hundredweight. +On Monday, the 31st, arrived the ceremonial mourners from London, escorting the +Countess of Bedford, who was to represent Elizabeth in the mockery of acting as chief mourner +to the poor victim. At eight in the morning of Tuesday the solemnities commenced. First, +the Countess of Bedford was escorted in state to the great hall of the bishop's palace, where +a representation of Mary's corpse lay on a royal bier. Thence she was followed into the +church by a great number of English peers, peeresses, knights, ladies, and gentlemen, in +mourning. All Mary's servants, both male and female, walked in the procession, according to +their degree—among them her almoner, De Préau, bearing a large silver cross. The +representation of the corpse being received without the Cathedral gate by the bishops and +clergy, it was borne in solemn procession and set down within the royal hearse, which had +been prepared for it, over the grave where the remains of the Queen had been silently +deposited by torchlight on the Monday morning. The hearse was 20 feet square, and 27 feet +high. On the coffin—which was covered with a pall of black velvet—lay a crown of gold, +set with stones, resting on a purple velvet cushion, fringed and tasselled with gold.</p> + +<p>All the Scotch Queen's train—both men and women, with the exception of Sir Andrew +Melville and the two Mowbrays, who were members of the Reformed Church—departed, +and would not tarry for sermon or prayers. This greatly offended the English portion +of the congregation, who called after them and wanted to force them to remain. After +the prayer and a funeral service, every officer broke his staff over his head and threw the +pieces into the vault upon the coffin. The procession returned in the same order to the +bishop's palace, where Mary's servants were invited to partake of the banquet which was +provided for all the mourners; but they declined doing so, saying that "their hearts were +too sad to feast."</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_050.jpg" width="500" height="651" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 33.</span>—<em>Shakespeare's Tomb before the present restoration.</em> + +</p> +</div> + +<p>But let us turn aside from the pageants of kings and queens, and direct our attention +for a few moments towards Stratford-upon-Avon, where, on April 23, 1616, the greatest of all +Englishmen breathed his last. A vague tradition tells us that, being in the company of +Drayton and Ben Johnson, Shakespeare partook too freely of the cup, and expired soon +after. This may be a calumny; and, if it were not, it would not diminish our gratitude and +reverence for the highest intellect our race has produced. It, however, leads us to think and +hope, that at the modest funeral of the "great Bard of Avon" the illustrious Ben Johnson as +well as Drayton were present with his sorrowing relatives and fellow-citizens. His remains rest +under the famous slab which bears the inscription due, it is said, to his own immortal pen:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div class="i0">"Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare</div> +<div class="i2">To digg T—E dust encloased here:</div> +<div class="i0">Blessed be T—E Man +<span class="combination"> +<span class="abovei0">T</span> +<span class="belowi0">y</span></span> spares T—ES Stones,</div> +<div class="i2">And curst be He +<span class="combination"> +<span class="above">T</span> +<span class="below">y</span></span> moves my bones."</div> +</div></div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a></span> +If his contemporaries have forgotten to give us details of that memorable funeral, and if +for nearly two centuries his modest grave was almost neglected, ample reparation has been +made to his memory in this enlightened age, and Shakespeare's tomb has become a +shrine visited by countless pilgrims from all parts of the earth; and a glorious monument, +more beautiful than has been generally admitted, stands not far from the church, erected to +Shakespeare only last year by a nobleman, Lord Ronald Gower, whose taste and culture would +have done honour to the epoch which produced not Shakespeare alone, but Sydney and +Raleigh.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_051.jpg" width="500" height="463" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 34.</span>—<em>Stratford-on-Avon Church.</em> +</p> +</div> + +<p>If we could discover all the particulars respecting Shakespeare's burial, we should possibly +find that, being a "gentleman," he was wrapped in his coffin in "wool," for which privilege +his survivors paid a tax of 10s. This curious habit, which we derived from our Norman +ancestors, endured until the first few years of this century. By "wool" we should read flannel. +Almost all the old parish registers in the country make a point of informing us that "the +body" was buried in wool, and the "usual tax paid." The Normans, and their descendants in +Normandy to this day, had some curious superstitions connected with "flannel," which even the +industrious bibliophile Jacob has failed to discover. This custom they introduced into England, +and it lasted for hundreds of years. I believe the coffin was also frequently filled up with fine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a></span> +sheep's wool. Another curious custom, which is now obsolete, was to put cloves, spikenard, +fine herbs, and twigs of various aromatic shrubs into the coffin, in memory of the embalming +of our Lord. Young girls and unmarried women were buried in white, and had their coffins +covered with white flowers. All the people who accompanied the funeral wore white scarves, +and before the Reformation, white dresses, and the way was strewn with box leaves, grass, and +flowers. The porch of the deceased's house was decked with flowers and garlands, and +especially with dog-roses and daisies.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_052.jpg" width="400" height="519" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 35.</span>—<em>Seal of an imaginary Bull of Pope Lucifer.</em>—From the +<em>Roi Modus</em>, a MS. of the 15th Century, Royal Library, +Brussels. The inscription is evidently cabalistic and +unintelligible.</p> +</div> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_053.jpg" width="500" height="374" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 36.</span>—<em>The Funeral of Juliet</em> ("Romeo and Juliet").—This charming engraving +from <span class="smcap">Knight's</span> splendid edition of Shakespeare gives a very fair idea +of a grand funeral procession in the 16th Century.</p></div> + +<p> +<img src="images/lettert.jpg" width="100" height="106" alt="T" class="floatl" /> +HE funeral ceremonies of the French kings and princes of the blood during +the Middle Ages and the period of the Renaissance, were, as may well be +imagined, exceedingly magnificent. As already related, the death criers +announced the decease of the sovereign in the usual manner, shouting out, +"<em>Oyez! bonnes gens de Paris</em>—listen, good people of Paris: the most high +and mighty, excellent and powerful King, our sovereign Master, by the grace of God King of +France, the most Christian of Princes, most clement and pious, died last night. Pray for the +repose of his soul."</p> + +<p>The first part of the ceremony took place at Notre Dame, where what is known as the +lying-in-state was conducted with appropriate splendour. The procession, after a solemn mass, +formed on the <em>Pavis</em>, or square, round the Cathedral, and began to move slowly over the +bridge and through the Marais to St. Denis, some miles distant from Paris. There was a +halt, however, at the convent of St. Lazaire (now covered by the railway station), and the +gentlemen in attendance mounted their horses. Before the Revolution of '93, fifteen beautiful +wayside crosses, or <em>montjoies</em>, as they were called, stood on the roadside between the Porte St. +Denis and the Abbey. At each of these prayers were said and the coffin rested. Sometimes, +as in the case of Charles VIII., the coffin and its waxen effigy were carried on the shoulders<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a></span> +of a number of noblemen; but usually, since their feet were hidden by heavy black velvet +draperies, very common men were charged with the "honourable burden." After the first half +of the 16th Century, the royal body was conducted to the grave in a chariot drawn sometimes +by as many as four-and-twenty black horses. If I err not, the last King of France whose +coffin was carried by men was Francis I., whose gentlemen of the bedchamber performed +this office, having each a halter round his neck, and a cord or rope.</p> + +<p>At St. Denis the ceremonies were very imposing. High Mass of Requiem being over, the +body was removed from the catafalque and lowered into the vaults under the altar. The Grand +Almoner of France recited the <em>De profundis</em>, all kneeling. Suddenly a voice, that of the +Herald-at-Arms, was heard, crying out from the vault below, "Kings-at-Arms, come do your +duty." The grand officers were now summoned by name, thus: "Monsieur le duc de Bourbon, +bring your staff of command over the hundred Archers of the Guard, and break it and +throw it into the grave." "Monsieur le comte de Lorges, bring your staff of office as +commander of the Scotch Guard, and break it and throw it into the grave," and so forth, +until some fifty of the grand dignitaries of the Court had in turn performed this lengthy +ceremony. The last time it occurred was in 1824, on the occasion of the funeral of Louis +XVIII., when each detail of the ancient ceremonial was punctually followed. Every staff of +office was broken and thrown into the King's grave, except the banner of France, which was +merely inclined three times to the very edge of the crypt.</p> + +<p>At the conclusion of this rather tedious ceremony, everybody knelt down, and the herald +shouted, "The King is dead; pray for his soul." A moment of silence ensued, which was +eventually broken by a blast of trumpets. Then the organ played a lively strain, and the +Herald proclaimed, "<em>Le roi est mort, vive le roi</em>—long live the King!" The banners waved, +the cannon boomed, the bells pealed forth joyously, and the procession reformed, whilst the +officiating clergy sang the <cite>Te Deum</cite>. As almost all the Kings and Queens of France, with not +more than half a dozen exceptions, from the time of Clovis to that of Louis XVIII., were +buried at St. Denis, the funeral rites were rarely if ever altered. But with us, although so many +of our most illustrious princes are interred at Westminster, still not a few were buried at +St. Paul's; many at Blackfriars and at Greyfriars, two glorious churches destroyed in the 17th +Century, at Windsor, and in various Cathedrals; so that our royal funereal ceremonies were not +always conducted with such punctual etiquette as were those of our neighbours.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/054.jpg" width="100" height="25" alt="decoration" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a></span> + +<img src="images/lettert.jpg" width="100" height="106" alt="T" class="floatl" /> +HE minute details of the funeral of Mary Stuart, at Westminster Abbey, prove +that it was conducted on the same scale and with the same ceremonies +as the one which preceded it by many years at Peterborough. King +James, her son, was present, and shortly afterwards the sumptuous monument +which we still admire marked the place where her mutilated remains, +translated from Peterborough, found a permanent place of rest.</p> + +<p>The great changes in religion which occurred at the time of the Reformation, although +they took much longer to permeate the habits and customs of the people than is usually +imagined, nevertheless were so radical, that of the ancient ritual little soon remained, and the +beautiful funeral service of the Church of England, which is so full of faith and hope, and +mainly selected from passages of Holy Scripture adapted to the requirements of a religion +which abolished belief in an intermediary state, and therefore in the necessity of prayers for +the dead, was introduced, and little by little the pompous ceremonies of the Roman Church +were forgotten. The lying-in-state of the corpse, for instance, which up to the close of the +reign of Mary was general, even with poor people, was now only in use among those of +the very highest rank. The increase in the use of carriages, too, and of course the abolition +of the monastic orders and brotherhoods, diminished the splendour of the street processions +which used to follow the bier. Still, much that was quaint remained in fashion, and it is +only, as already said, a few years since that ladies ceased wearing a scarf and hood of black +silk, and gentlemen "weepers" on their hats and arms, which were black or white according +to the sex of the deceased. In Norfolk, until the end of the first quarter of the present +century, it was the custom to give the mourners at a funeral black gloves, scarves, and +bunches of herbs. Indeed, it is but a short time since a very old lady told me that so rich, +broad, and beautiful was the silk of the scarves presented to each lady at a funeral, when she +was a girl, that ladies were wont to keep the pieces by them until they were sufficient in +number to form a dress. A bill of the funeral expenses of a very rich gentleman who died +at Brandon Hall, in Norfolk, early in this century,—Mr. Denn, of Norwich,—and who left +over half a million of money, enables us to form some idea of the expense to which our +grandfathers of the upper class were put in order to be buried with what they considered +proper respect. It would seem that in those days the hearse and funeral carriages had to be +hired from London, and they took three days to perform the journey from the metropolis—a +distance of about three hours by rail. No fewer than 40 persons figure as accompanying +these vehicles, and as they had to be put up at inns along the road, going both to and from +London to Brandon Hall, their expenses were £180. The hire of horses and carriages was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a></span> +£106, and what with the distribution of loaves to the poor at the grave, and the expense of +bringing relatives from far parts of the country, and of providing them with silk scarves, +gloves, etc., and the housing and entertaining of them all, the worthy Mr. Denn's funeral cost +his survivors not less than £775.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_056.jpg" width="500" height="357" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 37.</span>—<em>Interment in a Church in the first quarter of the 18th Century.</em>—From <span class="smcap">Picard's</span> +great work on the Religions of all Nations.</p> +</div> + +<p>In Picard, there is a very beautiful engraving by Schley, representing a funeral procession +in 1735, entering the church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. It occurs by night, and a number +of pages in black velvet walk in it, carrying lighted three-branched silver candlesticks. It +seems that until 1775 women in England only attended the funerals of their own sex, and +that men in the same manner only followed men to the grave. Possibly as a disinfectant +against the plague, at all English funerals a branch of rosemary was handed to all who +attended, which they threw into the open grave. This fashion endured, to the writer's +knowledge, in Norfolk up to 1856.</p> + +<p>The French Revolution cannot be described as an unmitigated blessing—far from it; but +it certainly did away with many superstitious practices, and shed a flood of light upon civilisation. +Before that event it was the universal custom throughout Europe to bury in churches, +a practice which was most detrimental to health. By one of the earliest decrees passed by the +Convention of Paris, 1794, intramural interments were abolished, although, to be sure,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a></span> +cemeteries already existed of considerable extent, possibly suggested by those which for ages +the Mahometans have used in all the principal cities of Asia and Asiatic Europe. That of +Père la Chaise, so called after the confessor of Madame de Maintenon, who founded it, is one +of the earliest. With the counter-Reformation, as the movement is called in history, the +ceremonial of the Roman Church became, on the Continent, even more elaborate than +heretofore, and nothing can be imagined more theatrically splendid than the church decorations +on occasions of funerals of eminent personages.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_057.jpg" width="500" height="482" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 38.</span>—<em>The Cemetery of Père la Chaise, Paris.</em></p> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="large" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_058.jpg" width="500" height="287" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="captionl"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. +39.</span>—<em>Funeral of the Grand Duke Albert VII., surnamed +"the Pious," Archduke of Austria, at Brussels, 11th March, 1622. +The coffin, covered with a pall of cloth of gold, is carried under +a canopy by the Ambassador of his Catholic Majesty, by the Duke +d'Aumale, the Marquis of Baden, and other great nobles, followed +by the Archbishop of Patras and two Cardinals. The horse of the +deceased is seen led immediately behind, by grooms and officers of +the household.</em>—From the exceedingly rare work by <span +class="smcap">Francquart</span>, printed at Antwerp in 1623. (From +the collection of Mr. <span class="smcap">Richard Davey</span>, and +engraved expressly for this publication.)</p> </div> + +</div> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a></span> +From the last half of the 16th Century down to the Revolution of 1789, possibly the most +extraordinary funeral recorded in history was that of the Emperor Charles V. It was +celebrated with almost identical pomp simultaneously, at Madrid and at Brussels. The +procession at Brussels took six hours to pass any one point, and it is estimated that 80,000 +persons walked in it, the participants being supplied from every city of Belgium and Holland. +In this extraordinary function figured cars on floats, representing certain striking events in +the life of the Emperor, and one of these we reproduce, since it will best afford an idea of +the supreme magnificence of the spectacle. It represents a ship, and is intended to illustrate +the maritime progress made in the reign of this enterprising monarch. The float on which +this clever model of a vessel of the period was arranged was dragged through the streets by +24 black horses, covered with black velvet, and followed by representatives of the navies both +of Belgium and Spain, and by some 300 lads dressed as sailors of all nations.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i060.jpg" width="600" height="448" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="captionl"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 40.</span>—<em>Float carried in the Funeral Procession of Charles V. at Brussels, December 29, 1558, +and intended to illustrate his maritime greatness. The vessel was the size of a real +ship, and the persons who appear upon its deck were living.</em>—From the "Magnificent +and Sumptuous Funeral of the Very Great Emperor Charles V." (Antwerp, +published by Plantin, 1559.) Collection of <span class="smcap">M. Ruggieri</span>, Paris.</p> +</div> + +<p>We also reproduce a little sketch from the funeral procession of Philip II., son of +Charles V., which gives us an excellent idea of the costumes worn on such an important +occasion. The large full-page engraving represents a portion of the funeral procession which +took place at Brussels, of the Archduke Albert VII. of Austria, surnamed "the Pious." It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a></span> +was almost as sumptuous as that of Charles V., and, fortunately a complete record of it has +been preserved by Francovoart, who published a book in the following year, containing no +less than 49 plates illustrating this pageantic procession, which was of enormous length, and +must have cost a great sum of money. The great engraver Cochin has left us one of his most +beautiful plates, representing the interior of the Church of Notre Dame as arranged for the +funeral of the Infanta Theresa of Spain, Dauphiness of France, in 1746. It gives us rather +the idea of a scene in a court ball-room than of a grave ceremony. Literally, thousands of +lights blazed in all directions, and there was nothing of a sombre character present, excepting +the catafalque, which was of black velvet, and in a certain sense produced an admirable +effect by showing off to still greater advantage the illuminations. The funeral of Louis XIV., +was fabulously gorgeous, and so complete an apotheosis of that vain monarch, it brought about +a sort of reaction, and made most persons observe that it was of little use praying for the soul +of one who evidently must already be in glory. In order to put some bounds to these +extravagant services, many people of a devout character have in all ages prayed in their wills +that they should be carried to the grave in the simplest manner, sometimes in the habit of +a Franciscan, or mendicant friar, and that only a few pounds should be expended upon their +burial.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i061.jpg" width="1000" height="355" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="captionl"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 41.</span>—<em>Costumes worn by King Philip II. of Spain and his attendants in the funeral +procession of his father, Charles V. The group consists of the King; the Herald of Spain, +of the Order of the Golden Fleece, who walks in front; of the Duke of Brunswick, the +Duke of Arcos, Don Ruy Gomez, Count of Milito, and finally the Duke Emmanuel +Philibert of Savoy. Mark that the hood was only worn by the heirs of the deceased.</em>—From +the "Sumptuous Funeral of Charles V. at Brussels." (Antwerp, 1559.) +Collection of <span class="smcap">M. Ruggieri</span>, Paris.</p> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="large" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a></span> +<img src="images/i_062.jpg" width="500" height="724" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 42.</span>—<em>Funeral of the Infanta Theresa of Spain, Dauphiness of France, at Notre Dame, 1746.</em>—From +the original engraving of <span class="smcap">Cochin</span>.</p> +</div> +</div> +<p>The Italians, and especially the Venetians, spent enormous sums upon their funeral +services, which were exceedingly picturesque; but as the members of the brotherhoods who + +<span class="pagenum"> +<a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a></span>walked in the procession wore pointed hoods and masks, so that, by the glare of the torches, +only their eyes could be seen glittering, and as it was the custom, also, for the funeral to take +place at night, the body being exposed upon an open bier, in full dress, the scene was +sufficiently weird to attract the attention of travellers, perhaps more so than anything else which +they saw in the land <em>par excellence</em> of pageant. Horace Mann, in one of his letters, thus +amusingly describes the funeral of the daughter of Cosmo III., Grand Duke of Tuscany:—</p> + +<p>"There was nothing extraordinary in the funeral last night. All the magnificence +consisted in a prodigious number of torches carried by the different orders of priests, the +expense of which in lights, they say, amounted to 12,000 crowns. The body was in a sort of +a coach quite open, with a canopy over her head; two other coaches followed with her ladies. +As soon as the procession was passed by Madame Suares's, I went a back way to St. Laurence, +where I had been invited by the master of the ceremonies; here was nothing very particular +but my being placed next to Lady Walpole, who is so angry with me that she would not +even give me the opportunity of making her a bow, which for the future, since I see it will +be disagreeable to her, I will never offer to do again."</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_063.jpg" width="500" height="137" alt="decoration" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a></span> +<img src="images/lettern.jpg" width="100" height="105" alt="N" class="floatl" /> +OTHING could be imagined more picturesque than a Venetian funeral in +bygone days. The state gondola of the family, containing the body, and also +the attendant priests and friars, was covered with black velvet, and blazed +with candelabra full of lighted candles; and from the stern of the boat hung +an immense train of black velvet, which was permitted to touch the water, +but prevented from sinking underneath it by golden tassels, which were held by members of +the family in the gondolas which followed close behind. All those persons who took part +in the funeral of course carried lights in their hands. If the individual happened to belong +to one of the numerous confraternities, or <em>scuole</em>, which existed in Venice up to the end of the +last century, a grand musical mass was celebrated in the chapel belonging to the order; and +on these occasions some of the finest music ever composed was heard for the first time, such, +for instance, as Paesiello's Requiem, an infinitely beautiful one by Marcello, and the majestic +mass for four voices, by Lotti.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_064.jpg" width="500" height="577" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 43.</span>—<em>Tomb of Hamlet.</em></p> +</div> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i065.jpg" width="400" height="428" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="captionl"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 44.</span>—<em>Death devouring Man and Beast. A singular, illuminated document on parchment, of +the 12th Century, measuring over fifty feet by one yard wide. The figure above is +intended to represent the letter T.</em>—From the Mortuary Roll of the Abbey of Savingy, +Avranches, France. The original is preserved among the French National Archives.</p> +</div> + +<p><img src="images/lettert.jpg" width="100" height="106" alt="T" class="floatl" />HE funeral of a Pope is attended by many curious ceremonies, not the least +remarkable of which is, that so soon as His Holiness' death is thoroughly +assured, the eldest Cardinal goes up to the body, and strikes it three times +gently on the breast, saying in Latin, as he does so, "The Holy Father has +passed away." The body is then lowered into the Church of St. Peter's, +where it is exhibited—as was the case when Pope Pius IX. died in '78—for three days to the +veneration of the faithful, after which it is conveyed in great state to the church which the +Pope has selected for his burial-place. As it passed along the streets of Rome in the good +old times, the members of the nobility assembled at the entrance of their houses, each<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a></span> +carrying a lighted taper in his hand, and answering back the prayers of the friars and clergy +in the procession. It will be remembered that it was this sort of spontaneous illumination +which so offended a rabble of freethinkers, on the occasion of the funeral of the late +Pope, that they stoned the coffin, and created a riot of a most disgraceful character. After +the Pope is buried, it is usual for his successor or his family to build a stately monument +over his remains, and this custom accounts for the amazing number of fine Papal monuments +in the Roman basilicas and churches.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_066.jpg" width="500" height="461" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 45.</span>—<em>Lying-in-State of Pope Pius IX.</em></p> +</div> + +<p>At a time when everybody is talking about the Stuart dynasty, owing to the great success<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a></span> +of the recent exhibition of their relics (1888-9), the following curious account of the interment +of the Old Pretender will prove of interest:—</p> + +<p>"On the 6th of January, <span class="err" title="read: 1766">1756</span>, the body of his 'Britannic Majesty' was conveyed in great +state to the said Church of the Twelve Apostles," says a correspondent from Rome of that +date, "preceded by four servants carrying torches, two detachments of soldiers; and by the +side of the bier walked twenty-four grooms of the stable with wax candles; the body of the +deceased was dressed royally, and borne by nobles of his household, with an ivory sceptre at +its side, and the Orders of SS. George and Andrew on the breast.</p> + +<p>"On the 7th, the first funeral service took place, in the Church of the Twelve Apostles. +The <em>façade</em> of the church was hung with black cloth, lace, and golden fringe, in the centre of +which was a medallion, supported by skeletons with cypress branches in their hands, and +bearing the following inscription:</p> + +<ul class="center"> +<li>'Clemens XIII. Pont. Max.</li> +<li>Jacobo III.</li> +<li>M. Britanniæ, Franciæ, et Hiberniæ Regi.</li> +<li>Catholicæ fidei Defensori,</li> +<li>Omnium urbis ordinum</li> +<li>Frequentia funere honestato.</li> +<li>Suprema pietatis officia</li> +<li>Solemni ritu Persolvit.'</li> +</ul> + +<p>"On entering the church, another great inscription to the same purport was to be seen; +the building inside was draped in the deepest black, and on the bier, covered with cloth of +gold, lay the corpse, before which was written in large letters:</p> + +<ul class="center"> +<li>'Jacobus III. Magnæ Britanniæ Rex.</li> +<li>Anno <span class="smcap">MDCCLXVI</span>.'</li> +</ul> + +<p>"On either side stood four silver skeletons on pedestals, draped in black cloth, and holding +large branch candlesticks, each with three lights. At either corner stood a golden perfume +box, decorated with death's-heads, leaves and festoons of cypress. The steps to the bier were +painted in imitation marble, and had pictures upon them representing the virtues of the +deceased. Over the whole was a canopy ornamented with crowns, banners, death's-heads, +gilded lilies, etc.; and behind, a great cloth of peacock colour with golden embroidery, and +ermine upon it, hung down to the ground. Over each of the heavily draped arches down the +nave of the church were medallions with death's-head supporters, and crowns above them, +representing the various British orders and the three kingdoms of England, Ireland, and +Scotland; and on the pilasters were other medallions, supported by cherubs, expressing virtues +attributed to the deceased, each with an inscription, of which the following is an instance:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>'Rex Jacobus III. vere dignus imperio, quia natus ad imperandum: dignus quia ipso regnante +virtutes imperassent: dignissimus quia sibi imperavit.'</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>"On the top of the bier, in the nave, lay the body, dressed in royal garb of gold brocade, +with a mantle of crimson velvet, lined and edged with ermine, a crown on his head, a sceptre +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a></span>in his right hand, an orb in his left. The two Orders of SS. George and Andrew were +fastened to his breast.</p> +<div class="page"> +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_068.jpg" width="500" height="391" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 46.</span>—<em>Funeral of his late Holiness Pope Pius IX., Feb.</em> 13, 1878. <em>The lowering of the body into St. Peter's.</em></p> +</div></div> +<p>"Pope Clement regretted his inability to attend the funeral, owing to the coldness of the +morning, but he sent twenty-two cardinals to sing mass, besides numerous church dignitaries.</p> + +<p>"After the celebration of the mass, Monsignor Orazio Matteo recited a funeral oration of +great length, recapitulating the virtues of the deceased, and the incidents of the life of exile +and privation that he had led. After which, the customary <em>requiem</em> for the soul of the +departed was sung, and they then proceeded to convey his deceased Majesty's body to the +Basilica of St. Peter.</p> + +<p>"The procession which accompanied it was one of those gorgeous spectacles in which the +popes and their cardinals loved to indulge. Every citizen came to see it, and crowds poured +in to the Eternal City from the neighbouring towns and villages, as they were wont to do for +the festivals at Easter, of Corpus Domini.</p> + +<p>"All the orders and confraternities to be found in Rome went in front, carrying amongst +them 500 torches. They marched in rows, four deep; and after them came the pupils of the +English, Scotch, and Irish College in Rome, in their surplices, and with more torches.</p> + +<p>"Then followed the bier, around which were the gaudy Swiss Papal Guards. The four +corners of the pall were held up by four of the most distinguished members of the Stuart +household.</p> + +<p>"Then came singers, porters carrying two large umbrellas, such as the Pope would have +at his coronation, and all the servants of the royal household, in deep mourning, and on foot. +After them followed the papal household; and twelve mourning coaches closed the procession.</p> + +<p>"The body was placed in the chapel of the choir of St. Peter's, and after the absolution, +which Monsignor Lascaris pronounced, it was put into a cypress-wood case, in presence of the +major-domo of the Vatican, who made a formal consignment of it to the Chapter of St. Peter's, +in the presence of the notary of the 'Sacred Apostolic Palace,' who witnessed the consignment, +whilst the notary of the Chapter of St. Peter's gave him a formal receipt.</p> + +<p>"The second funeral was fixed for the following day, when everything was done to make +the choir of St. Peter's look gorgeous. A large catafalque was raised in the midst, on the +top of which, on a cushion of black velvet embroidered with gold, lay the royal crown and +sceptre, under a canopy adorned with ermine; 250 candles burnt around, and the inscription +over the catafalque ran as follows:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>'Memoriæ æternæ Jacobi III., Magnæ Britanniæ Franciæ et Hyber, regis Parentis optimii +Henricus Card. Dux Eboracensis mœrens justa persolvit.'</p> +</blockquote> + +<p>"Then the cardinals held service, thirteen of whom were then assembled; after which, the +Chapter of St. Peter's and the Vatican clergy, with all the Court of the defunct king who had +assisted at the mass, accompanied the body to the subterranean vaults beneath St. Peter's, where +the bier was laid aside until such times and seasons as a fitting memorial could be placed over it."</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a></span> + +<img src="images/letterasecond.jpg" width="100" height="106" alt="A" class="floatl" /> +MONG the Jews, according to Buxtorf (who published, in the 17th Century, +perhaps the most valuable work upon the Jewish ceremonies which still +existed in various parts of Europe in his time, many of which have been +modified or have entirely disappeared since), it was the fashion when a person +died, after having closed the eyes and mouth, to twist the thumb of the +right hand inward, and to tie it with a string of the <em>taled</em>, or veil, which covered the face, and +was invariably buried with the corpse. The reason for this doubling of the thumb was that, +when it was thus turned inward, it represented the figure Schaddai, which is one of the names +of God. Otherwise, the fingers were stretched out so as to show that the deceased had given +up all the goods of this world. The body was most carefully washed, to indicate that the dead +was purified by repentance. Buxtorf tells us that in Holland, with the old-fashioned Jews, it +was the custom to break an egg into a glass of wine, and to wash the face therewith. The +more devout persons were dressed in the same garments that they wore on the last feast of +the Passover. When the body is placed in the coffin, it is the habit even now, among the +Polish and Oriental Jews, for ten members of the family, or very old friends, to walk processionally +round it, saying prayers for the repose of the soul. In olden times, for three days +after the death, the family sat at home in a darkened room and received their friends, who +were indeed Job's comforters; for they sought to afflict them in every way by recalling the +virtues of the dead person, and exaggerating the misery into which they were thrown by his +or her departure. Seven days afterwards, they were employed in a less rigorous form of +mourning, at the end of which the family again went to the synagogue and offered up prayers, +after which they followed the customs of the country in which they lived, retaining their +mourning only so long as accorded with the prevailing fashion of the day.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_071.jpg" width="200" height="96" alt="decoration" /> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_072.jpg" width="500" height="652" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="captionl"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 47.</span>—<em>The Knight of Death on a +White Horse</em>—After <span class="smcap">Albert Durer</span>. +From a fac-simile of the original engraving, dated 1513, by one of the +Wiericx (1564). This famous engraving, which so perfectly characterises +the weird genius of the Middle Ages, passing into the Renaissance, +represents a knight armed, going to the wars, accompanied by terrible +thoughts of Death and Sin, whose incarnations follow him on his dismal +journey.</p> + +</div> +</div> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a></span> + +<img src="images/lettero.jpg" width="100" height="110" alt="O" class="floatl" /> +NE of the saddest, and certainly the simplest of royal funerals, was that of +King Charles I. After his lamentable execution, his body lay at Whitehall +from January 28, 1649, to the following February 7, when it was conveyed +to Windsor, placed in the vault of St. George's Chapel, near the coffins of +Henry VIII. and Jane Seymour. The day had been very snowy, and the +snow rested thick on the coffin and on the cloaks and hats of the mourners. The remains +were deposited without any service whatever, and left inscriptionless, save for the words +"Charles Rex, 1649," the letters of which were cut out of a band of lead by the gentlemen +present, with their penknives, and the lead fastened round the coffin. In this state it +remained until the year 1813, when George IV. caused it to be more fittingly interred. +In striking contrast were the obsequies of the unfortunate King's great rival and enemy, +Cromwell, "who lay in glorious state" at Somerset House, all the ceremonial being copied +from that of the interment of Philip II. of Spain. The rooms were hung with black cloth, +and in the principal saloon was an effigy of the Protector, with a royal crown upon his head +and a sceptre in his hand, stretched upon a bed of state erected over his coffin. Crowds +of people of all ranks went daily during eight weeks to see it, the place being illuminated by +hundreds of candles. The wax cast of the face of Cromwell after death is still preserved in +the British Museum. His body, however, was carried away secretly, and at night, and buried +privately at Westminster, for fear of trouble. Later, in 1660, the remains of the great Protector, +and those of his friends Ireton and Bradshaw, were sacrilegiously taken from their graves, +dragged with ignominy through the streets, and hanged at Tyburn, to the apparent satisfaction +of Mrs. Pepys and her friend Lady Batten, and all and sundry in London, as is recorded in +the "immortal diary." By the way, Mr. Pepys himself, who died in 1703, was buried with +much state and circumstance in Crutched Friars Church, but at night, the service being said +by Dr. Hickes, the author of the <em>Thesaurus</em>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_074.jpg" width="200" height="77" alt="decoration" /> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a></span> + +<img src="images/letterp.jpg" width="100" height="104" alt="P" class="floatl" /> + +ERHAPS the strangest funeral recorded in modern history was that of the +translation of the remains of Voltaire, popularly known as his "apotheosis." +The National Assembly in May, 1791, decreed that the bones of the poet +should be brought from the Abbey of Scellières, and carried in state to the +Pantheon. In Voltaire's lifetime it was boasted that he had buried the +priests and the Christian religion, but now the priests were going to bury him, having very +little of Christian religion left amongst them. The day of the procession was fixed for July +10; but the 10th was a deluging, rainy day, and the ceremony was postponed to the next +day, or till the weather should be fine. The next day was as wet, and the Assembly was +about to renew the postponement, when about two o'clock it cleared up. The coffin was +placed on a car of the classic form, and was borne first to the spot on which the Bastille had +stood, where it was placed on a platform, being covered with myrtles, roses, and wild flowers, +and bearing the following inscriptions:—"If a man is born free, he ought to govern himself." +"If a man has tyrants placed over him, he ought to dethrone them." Besides these, there +were numerous other inscriptions in different parts of the area, including one on a huge block +of stone: "Receive, O Voltaire! on this spot, where despotism once held thee in chains, the +honours thy country renders thee!"</p> + +<p>From the Bastille to the Pantheon all Paris seemed to be following the procession, which +consisted of soldiers, lawyers, doctors, municipal bodies, a crowd of poets, literary men, and +artists carrying a gilded chest containing the seventy volumes of Voltaire's works; men who +had taken part in the demolition of the Bastille, bearing chains, fetters, and cuirasses found in +the prison; a bust of Voltaire, surrounded by those of Rousseau, Mirabeau, and Montaigne, borne +by the actors from the different theatres, in ancient costume; and lastly came the funeral car, +now surmounted by a statue of the philosopher, which France was crowning with a wreath of +immortelles. The immense procession halted at various places for the effigy to receive particular +honours. At the opera houses the actors and actresses were waiting to present a laurel crown +and to sing to Voltaire's glory; at the house of M. Villette—where was yet deposited the +heart of the great man, previous to being sent to Fernay—four tall poplars were planted, and +adorned with wreaths and festoons of flowers, and on the front of the house was written in +large letters: "His genius is everywhere, and his heart is here." Near this was raised a sort +of amphitheatre, on which were seated a crowd of young girls in white dresses with blue +sashes, crowned with roses, and holding wreaths in honour of the poet in their hands. The +names of all Voltaire's works were written on the front of the Theatre Français. The next +halt was made on the site of the Comédie Française, and a statue of the poet was there +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a></span> +crowned by actors costumed as Tragedy and Comedy. Thence the procession wended its way +to the Pantheon, where the mouldering remains of Voltaire were placed beside those of Descartes +and Mirabeau. All Paris that evening was one festal scene; illuminations blazing on the +busts and figures of the patriot of equality.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_076.jpg" width="600" height="262" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 48.</span>—<em>Funeral Car of Nelson.</em>—From a contemporary engraving, reproduced expressly for this publication.</p> +</div> +<p>The obsequies in England of Lord Nelson, which took place on January 9, 1806, were +extremely imposing. I transcribe from a contemporary and inedited private letter the +following account of it:—"I have just returned from such a sight as will never be seen in +London again. I managed at an inconveniently early hour to get me down into the Strand, +and so down Norfolk Street to a house overlooking the river. Every post of vantage +wherever the procession could be seen was swarming with living beings, all wearing mourning, +the very beggars having a bit of crape on their arms. The third barge, which contained the +body, was covered with black velvet and adorned with black feathers. In the centre was a +viscount's coronet, and three bannerols were affixed to the outside of the barge. In the +steerage were six lieutenants of the navy and six trumpets. Clarencieux, King-at-Arms, sat at +the head of the coffin, bearing a viscount's coronet on a black velvet cushion. The Royal +Standard was at the head of the barge, which was rowed by forty-six seamen from the +'Victory.' The other barges in the cortege were rowed by Greenwich pensioners. The fourth +barge contained Admiral Sir Peter Parker, the chief mourner, and other admirals, vice-admirals, +and rear-admirals; whilst the Lords of the Admiralty, the Lord Mayor of London, +members of the various worshipful Companies, and other distinguished mourners occupied +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a></span> +the remaining barges, which were seventeen in number, and were flanked by row-boats, with +river fencibles, harbour marines, etc., etc. All, of course, had their colours half-mast high. +On the following morning, the 9th, the land procession, which I also contrived to see, started +from the Admiralty to pass through the streets of London to St. Paul's, between dense crowds +all along the route. This procession was of great length, and included Greenwich pensioners, +sailors of the 'Victory,' watermen, judges and other dignitaries of the law, many members of +the nobility, public officers, and officers of the army and navy; whilst in it were carried +conspicuously the great banner, gauntlets, helmet, sword, etc., of the deceased. The pall was +supported by four admirals. Nearly 10,000 military were assembled on this occasion, and these +consisted chiefly of the regiments that had fought in Egypt, and participated with the deceased +in delivering that country from the power of France. The car in which the body was conveyed +was peculiarly magnificent. It was decorated with a carved resemblance of the head and stern +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a></span> +of the 'Victory,' surrounded with escutcheons of the arms of the deceased, and adorned with +appropriate mottoes and emblematical devices, under an elevated canopy, in the form of the +upper part of a sarcophagus, with six sable plumes, and a viscount's coronet in the centre, +supported by four columns, representing palm trees, entwined with wreaths of natural laurel +and cypress. As it passed, all uncovered, and many wept. I heard a great deal said among +the people about 'poor Emma' (Emma, Lady Hamilton), and some wonder whether she will +get a pension or not. On the whole, the processions were most imposing, and I am very +glad I saw it all, although I am much fatigued at it, from standing about so much and +pushing in the crowd, and faint from the difficulty of getting food, every eating-place being so +full of people; and surely, though a nation must mourn, equally certain is it that it must +also eat."</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_077.jpg" width="500" height="362" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 49.</span>—<em>Funeral Car of Lord Nelson.</em>—From a contemporary engraving, reproduced expressly +for this publication.</p> +</div> +<hr class="large" /> +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_078.jpg" width="500" height="657" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 50.</span>—<em>An Old Market Cross, Rouen.</em></p> +</div> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_079.jpg" width="500" height="351" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 51.</span>—<em>Funeral Procession of the +Emperor Napoleon I., December</em> 15, 1840. <em>The Cortége descending +the Champs Élysées.</em>—From a contemporary engraving.</p> +</div> +<p> +<img src="images/letterlsecond.jpg" width="100" height="114" alt="L" class="floatl" /> +OUIS PHILLIPPE, who, by the way, had neglected no opportunity +to render justice to the genius of Napoleon, obtained, in 1840, the +permission of the British Government to remove his body from St. Helena; +and on December 15 it was solemnly interred in the gorgeous chapel +designed by Visconti, at the Invalides. The Prince de Joinville had the +honour of escorting the remains of the Emperor from the lonely island in the Indian Ocean +to Paris. Words cannot paint the emotion of the inhabitants of the French capital, as the +superb procession descended the long avenue of the Champs Élysées, or that of the privileged +company which witnessed the striking scene in the chapel itself, as the Prince de Joinville +formally consigned the body to the King, his father, saying, as he did so, "Sire, I deliver +over into your charge the corpse of Napoleon." To which the King replied, "I receive it in +the name of France," and then taking the sword of the victor of Austerlitz, he handed it to +General Bertrand, who, in his turn, laid it on the coffin. Many years later, when another +Napoleon reigned in France, a Lady who had not yet reached the <em>mezzo camin di nostra vita</em>, +stood silently, with bowed head, before the grave of the mighty enemy of the glorious empire +over which she rules, and it was observed that there were tears in the eyes of Queen Victoria +when she quietly left the chapel.</p> + +<div class="page"> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a></span></p> +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_080.jpg" width="500" height="700" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 52.</span>—<em>The Tomb of Napoleon I. at the Invalides, Paris.</em></p> +</div> +</div> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a></span> +The earliest year of the last half of this century witnessed another funeral of much +magnificence, that of the great Duke of Wellington. It was determined that a public funeral +should mark the sense of the people's reverence for the memory of the illustrious deceased, +and of their grief for his loss. The body was enclosed in a shell, and remained for a +time at Walmer Castle, where the Iron Duke died. A guard of honour, composed of men +of his own rifle regiment, did duty over it, and the castle flag was hoisted daily half-mast high. +On the evening of the 10th of November, 1852, the body was placed upon a hearse and +conveyed, by torchlight, to the railway station, the batteries at Walmer and Deal Castles firing +minute-guns, whilst Sandown Castle took up the melancholy salute as the train with its burden +swept by. Arrived at London, the procession re-formed, and by torchlight marched through +the silent streets, reaching Chelsea about three o'clock in the morning, when the coffin +containing the body was carried into the hall of the Royal Military Hospital. Life Guardsmen, +with arms reversed, lined the apartment, which was hung with black and lighted by waxen +tapers. The coffin rested upon an elevated platform at the end of the hall, over which was +suspended a cloud-like canopy or veil. The coffin itself was covered with red velvet; and at +the foot stood a table on which all the decorations of the deceased were laid out. Thither, +day by day, in a constant stream, crowds of men, women, and children repaired, all dressed +in deep mourning. The first of these visitors was the Queen, accompanied by her children; +but so deeply was she affected that she never got beyond the centre of the hall, where her +feelings quite overcame her, and she was led, weeping bitterly, back to her carriage.</p> + +<p>The public funeral took place on the 18th of November, and was attended by the Prince +Consort and all the chief officers of State. The body was removed by torchlight, on the +evening previous, to the Horse Guards, under an escort of cavalry. At dawn on the 18th the +solemn ceremony began. From St. Paul's Cathedral, down Fleet Street, along the Strand, by +Charing Cross and Pall Mall, to St. James's Park, troops lined both sides of the streets; while +in the park itself, columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery were formed ready to fall into +their proper places in the procession, of which we publish two interesting engravings. How +it was conducted—with what respectful interest watched by high and low—how solemn the +notes of the bands, as one after another they took up and entoned the "Dead March in +Saul"—how grand, yet how touching the scene in the interior of St. Paul's—none but those +who can remember it can realise.</p> +<div class="page"> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a></span> +<img src="images/i_083.jpg" width="500" height="377" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 53.</span>—<em>Funeral of the Duke of Wellington, November</em> 18, 1852. <em>The Procession passing Apsley House.</em>—From +an original sketch, reproduced expressly for this publication.</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="large" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a></span> +<img src="images/i84.jpg" width="500" height="419" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 54.</span>—<em>Funeral of the Duke of Wellington, November</em> 18, 1852. <em>Scene inside St. Paul's.</em>—Reproduced +from an original sketch, expressly for this publication.</p> +</div></div> + +<p>A man of genius in France is rightly placed on a kind of throne, and considered a "king of +thought;" so the obsequies of so truly illustrious a poet as Victor Hugo, which took place in +Paris, June 1, 1885, assumed proportions rarely accorded even to the mightiest sovereigns. +Unfortunately, it was marred by the desecration of a noted church, the Pantheon; for it +pleased a political party in power to make out that Hugo had denied even the existence of +God, and this notwithstanding the fact that every page of his works is a testimony to his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a></span> +ardent creed in the Almighty and his hope in the life to come. The lying-in-state took +place under the Arch of Triumph, which was decorated with much taste by a huge black veil +draped across it. Flaring torches lighted up the architectural features of the monument, +and also the tremendous throng of spectators. The arch looked solemn enough, but the +behaviour of the people who surrounded it was the reverse, especially at night. On +Thursday, June 1, early in the day, which was intensely hot, the procession began to +move from the Arc de Triomphe to the Pantheon, and presented a scene never to be +forgotten. The coffin was a very simple one, in accordance with the poet's wishes to be +buried like a pauper; but what proved the chief charm of this really poetical spectacle +was the amazing number of huge wreaths carried by the countless deputations from all +parts of France, and sent from every city of Europe and America. There were some 15,000 +wreaths of foliage and flowers carried in this strange procession, many of which were of +colossal dimensions, so that when one beheld the cortége from the bottom of the +Champs Élysées, for instance, it looked like a huge floral snake meandering along. The +bearers of the wreaths were hidden beneath them, and these exquisite trophies of early +summer flowers, combined with the glittering helmets of the Guards, the bright costumes +of the students, and, above all, with the veritable walls of human beings towering up on all +sides, filling balconies and windows, covering roofs and every spot wherever even a glimpse +of the pageant could be obtained, created a spectacle as unique as it was picturesque.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_085.jpg" width="300" height="92" alt="decoration" /> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a></span> +<img src="images/i_086.jpg" width="500" height="690" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 55.</span>—<em>Funeral of Victor Hugo, Paris, June</em> 1, 1885.</p> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a></span></p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_087.jpg" width="500" height="679" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 56.</span>—<em>Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Frederick of Germany, Princess Royal of Great Britain.</em></p> +</div> + +<p> +<img src="images/lettert.jpg" width="100" height="106" alt="T" class="floatl" /> +HE solemn but exceedingly simple obsequies of that much regretted and most +able man His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, took place at Windsor +on the 23rd December, 1861. At his frequently expressed desire it was +of a private character; but all the chief men of the state attended the +obsequies in the Royal Chapel. The weather was cold and damp, the +sky dull and heavy. There was a procession of state carriages to St. George's Chapel, at +the door of which the Prince of Wales and the other royal mourners were assembled to receive +the corpse. The grief of the poor children was very affecting, little Prince Arthur especially, +sobbing as if his heart were breaking. When all was over, and the last of the long, lingering +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a></span>train of mourners had departed, the attendants descended into the vault with lights, and moved +the bier and coffin along the narrow passage to the royal vault. The day was observed +throughout the realm as one of mourning. The bells of all the churches were tolled, +and in many of them special services were held. In the towns the shops were closed, +and the window blinds of private residences were drawn down. No respectable people appeared +abroad except in mourning, and in seaport towns the flags were hoisted half-mast high. The +words of the Poet Laureate were scarcely too strong:</p> +<div class="center"> +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<div class="i0">"The shadow of his loss moved like eclipse,</div> +<div class="i0">Darkening the world. We have lost him; he is gone;</div> +<div class="i0">We know him now; all narrow jealousies</div> +<div class="i0">Are silent; and we see him as he moved,</div> +<div class="i0">How modest, kindly, all-accomplished, wise;</div> +<div class="i0">With what sublime repression of himself,</div> +<div class="i0">And in what limits, and how tenderly;</div> +<div class="i0">Not swaying to this faction or to that;</div> +<div class="i0">Not making his high place the lawless perch</div> +<div class="i0">Of wing'd ambitions, nor a vantage ground</div> +<div class="i0">For pleasure; but thro' all this tract of years</div> +<div class="i0">Wearing the white flower of a blameless life,</div> +<div class="i0">Before a thousand peering littlenesses,</div> +<div class="i0">In that fierce light which beats upon a throne,</div> +<div class="i0">And blackens every blot; for where is he</div> +<div class="i0">Who dares foreshadow for an only son</div> +<div class="i0">A lovelier life, a more unstained than his?"</div> +</div></div> +</div> + +<div class="page"> +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_088.jpg" width="500" height="710" +alt="Illustration" /> <p class="caption"> <span class="smcap">Fig. +57.</span>—<em>Funeral of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, +at Windsor, December</em> 23, 1861.</p> +</div> +</div> + +<p>When Her Majesty became a widow, she slightly modified the +conventional English widow's cap, by indenting it over the forehead +<em>à la</em> Marie Stuart, thereby imparting to it a certain +picturesqueness which was quite lacking in the former head-dress. This +<span class="err" title="original: coifure">coiffure</span> has been +not only adopted by her subjects, but also by royal widows abroad. +The etiquette of the Imperial House of Germany obliges the Empress +Frederick to introduce into her costume two special features during +the earlier twelve months of her widowhood. The first concerns the +cap, which is black, having a Marie Stuart point over the centre of +the forehead, and a long veil of black crape falling like a mantle +behind to the ground. The second peculiarity of this stately costume +is that the orthodox white batiste collar has two narrow white bands +falling straight from head to foot. This costume has been very slightly +modified from what it was three centuries ago, when a Princess of the +House of Hohenzollern lost her husband.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_089.jpg" width="200" height="38" alt="decoration" /> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i090.jpg" width="500" height="692" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> +<span class="smcap">Fig. 58.</span>—HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY THE QUEEN.</p> + +<p class="caption"><em>From a Photograph by Messrs. W. & D. Downey.</em></p> +</div></div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a></span> +<img src="images/lettert.jpg" width="100" height="106" alt="T" class="floatl" /> + +HE first general mourning ever proclaimed in America was on the occasion +of the death of Benjamin Franklin, in 1791, and the next on that of +Washington, in 1799. The deep and wide-spread grief occasioned by the +melancholy death of the first President, assembled a great concourse of +people for the purpose of paying him the last tribute of respect, and on +Wednesday, December 18, 1799, attended by military honours and the simplest but grandest +ceremonies of religion, his body was deposited in the family vault at Mount Vernon. Never +in the history of America did a blow fall with more terrible earnestness than the news of the +assassination of President Lincoln on April 14, 1865. All party feeling was forgotten, and sorrow +was universal. The obsequies were on an exceedingly elaborate scale, and a generous people +paid a grateful and sincere tribute to a humane and patriotic chieftain. After an impressive +service, the embalmed body was laid in state in the Capitol at Washington, guarded by +officers with drawn swords, and afterwards the coffin was closed for removal to Springfield, the +home of the late President, a distance of about 1,700 miles. It took twelve days to accomplish +the journey. The car which conveyed the remains was completely draped in black, the +mourning outside being festooned in two rows above and below the windows, while each +window had a strip of mourning connecting the upper with the lower row. Six other cars, +all draped in black, were attached to the train, and contained the escort, whilst the engine +was covered with crape and its flags draped. At several cities <em>en route</em> a halt was made, in +order to permit people to pay tributes of respect to the deceased, and several times the body +was removed from the train, so that funeral services might be held. At last, on the 3rd of +May, the train reached Springfield, and after a brief delay the procession moved with befitting +ceremony to Oak Ridge Cemetery, President Lincoln's final resting-place. During the period +intervening between President Lincoln's death and his interment, every city and town in the +United States testified the greatest grief, and public expressions of mourning were universal. +To take New York, as an instance, that city presented a singularly striking appearance. Scarce a +house in it but was not draped in the deepest mourning, long festoons of black and white muslin +drooped sadly everywhere, and even the gay show-cases outside the shop doors were dressed +with funereal rosettes. The gloom which prevailed was intense. In many places, however, the +decorations, though sombre, were exceedingly picturesque, the dark tones being relieved by +the bright red and blue of the national colours, entwined with crape.</p> + +<p>Scarcely less magnificent were the obsequies accorded by the people of America to +General Grant. Funeral services were observed in towns and cities of every state and territory +of the Union, amidst a display of mourning emblems unparallelled. In New York, for two<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a></span> +weeks previous to the funeral ceremony, preparations of the most elaborate description were +going on, and the best part of the city was densely draped. The route of the procession to +the tomb was 9 miles long, and it is estimated that three million persons saw the cortege, in +which over 50,000 people joined, including 30,000 soldiers. Some further idea of the magnitude +of this solemn procession can be <span class="err" title="original: ormed">formed</span> when it is stated that its head reached the +grave three hours and a half before the funeral car arrived. This car was exceptionally +imposing, inasmuch as it was drawn by 24 black horses, each one led by a coloured servant, +and each covered with sable trappings which swept the street.</p> + +<p>Another imposing funeral, which many who are still young can remember, was that of +his Majesty Victor Emmanuel, the first King of United Italy, who died in Rome early in +1878. His obsequies were conducted with all the pomp of the Roman Catholic religion, and +the catafalque, erected in the centre of the Pantheon, was supremely imposing. We give an +engraving of it, which will afford an excellent idea of its great magnificence.</p> +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_093.jpg" width="400" height="112" alt="Illustration" /> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_094.jpg" width="500" height="377" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 59.</span>—<em>The Catafalque erected for the Funeral Service of His Majesty King Victor Emmanuel, in the Pantheon, Rome.</em></p> +</div> +</div> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">95</a></span> + +<img src="images/lettert.jpg" width="100" height="106" alt="T" class="floatl" /> +HE ingenious idea of the <em>Magasin de Deuil</em>, or establishment exclusively +devoted to the sale of mourning costumes and of the paraphernalia necessary +for a funeral, has long been held to be exclusively French; but our quick-witted +neighbours have, to speak the truth, originated very few things; for +was not the father of French cookery a German physician in attendance on +Francis I., assisted by an Italian cardinal, Campeggio, who, by the way, came to England on +the occasion of the negotiations in connection with the divorce of Queen Catherine of +Arragon. The <em>Magasin de Deuil</em> is but a brilliant and elaborate adaptation of the old <em>Mercerie +de lutto</em> which has existed for centuries, and still exists, in every Italian city, where people in +the haste of grief can obtain in a few hours all that the etiquette of civilisation requires for +mourning in a country whose climate renders speedy interment absolutely necessary. Continental +ideas are slow to reach this country, but when they do find acceptance with us, they +rarely fail to attain that vast extension so characteristic of English commerce. Such development +could scarcely be exhibited in a more marked manner than in Jay's London General +Mourning Warehouse, Regent Street, an establishment which dates from the year 1841, +and which during that period has never ceased to increase its resources and to complete +its organisation, until it has become, of its kind, a mart unique both for the quality and +the nature of its attributes. Of late years the business and enterprise of this firm has +enormously increased, and it includes not only all that is necessary for mourning, but also +departments devoted to dresses of a more general description, although the colours are +confined to such as could be worn for either full or half mourning. Black silks, however, +are pre-eminently a speciality of this house, and the Continental journals frequently announce +that "<em>la maison Jay de Londres a fait de forts achats</em>." Their system is one from which +they never swerve. It is to buy the commodity direct from the manufacturers, and to +supply it to their patrons at the very smallest modicum of profit compatible with the +legitimate course of trade. The materials for mourning costumes must always virtually, +remain unchangeable, and few additions can be made to the list of silks, crapes, paramattas, +cashmeres, <em>grenadines</em>, and <em>tulles</em> as fabrics. They and their modifications must be ever in +fashion so long as it continues fashionable to wear mourning at all; but fashion in design, +construction, and embellishment may be said to change, not only every month, but well-nigh +every week.</p> + +<p>The fame of a great house of business like this rests more upon its integrity and the +expedition with which commands are executed than anything else. To secure the very best +goods, and to have them made up in the best taste and in the latest fashion, is one of the +principal aims of the firm, which is not unmindful of legitimate economy. For this purpose, every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">96</a></span> +season competent buyers visit the principal silk marts of Europe, such as Lyons, Genoa, and +Milan, for the purpose of purchasing all that is best in quality and pattern. Immediate +communication with the leading designers of fashions in Paris has not been neglected; and it +may be safely said of this great house of business, that if it is modelled on a mediæval +Italian principle, it has missed no opportunity to assimilate to itself every modern improvement.</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_097.jpg" width="500" height="347" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 60.</span>—<em>Funeral of Earl Palmerston, in Westminster Abbey, Oct.</em> 27, 1865. +</p> +</div> + +<p>Private mourning in modern times, like everything else, has been greatly altered and +modified, to suit an age of rapid transit and travel. Men no longer make a point of wearing +full black for a fixed number of months after the decease of a near relation, and even content +themselves with a black hat-band and dark-coloured garments. Funeral ceremonies, too, are +less elaborate, although during the past few years a growing tendency to send flowers to the +grave has increased in every class of the community. The ceremonial which attends our State +funerals is so well known that it were needless to describe them. We, however, give, as +"records," illustrations of the funerals of Lord Palmerston, Lord Beaconsfield, Mr. Darwin, and +of the much-regretted Emperor Frederick of Germany, a function which was extremely imposing, +as the etiquette of the German Court still retains many curious relics of bygone times.</p> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_098.jpg" width="500" height="381" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 61.</span>—<em>Funeral of the Right +Honourable the Earl of Beaconsfield, in Hughenden Church, April</em> 26, +1881.</p> +</div> +</div> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">99</a></span> +<img src="images/letterg.jpg" width="100" height="107" alt="G" class="floatl" /> +ENERAL Court mourning in this country is regulated by the Duke of +Norfolk, as Earl Marshal, but exclusively Court mourning for the Royal +Family by the Lord Chamberlain.</p> + +<p>The order for Court mourning to be observed for the death of a foreign +sovereign is issued by the Foreign Office, and transmitted thence to the +Lord Chamberlain.</p> + +<p>Here is the form of the order for general mourning to be worn on the occasion of the +death of the Prince Consort:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="right"> + +<span class="smcap">College of Arms</span>, Dec. 16, 1866. +</p> + +<p class="center"><em>Deputy Earl Marshal's Order for a General Mourning for His late Royal Highness +the Prince Consort.</em></p> + +<p>In pursuance of Her Majesty's commands, this is to give public notice that, upon the melancholy +occasion of the death of His Royal Highness the Prince Consort, it is expected that all persons do +forthwith put themselves into decent mourning.</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Edward C. F. Howard</span>, D.E.M. + +</p></blockquote> + +<p>The order to the army is published from the War Office:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p class="right"> + +<span class="smcap">Horse Guards</span>, Dec. 18, 1861. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<em>Orders for the Mourning of the Army for His late Royal Highness the Prince Consort.</em></p> + +<p>The General commanding-in-chief has received Her Majesty's commands to direct, on the present +melancholy occasion of the death of H.R.H. the Prince Consort, that the officers of the army be +required to wear, when in uniform, black crape over the ornamental part of the cap or hat, over the +sword-knot, and on the left arm;—with black gloves, and a black crape scarf over the sash. The +drums are to be covered with black, and black crape is to hang from the head of the colour-staff of +the infantry, and from the standard-staff of cavalry. When officers appear at Court in uniform, they +are to wear black crape over the ornamental part of the cap or hat, over the sword-knot, and on the +left arm;—with black gloves and a black crape scarf.</p></blockquote> + +<p>A like order was issued by the Admiralty, addressed to the officers and men of the +Royal Navy.</p> + +<blockquote> +<p class="center">FIRST NOTICE.</p> + +<p class="right"> + +<span class="smcap">Lord Chamberlain's Office</span>, December 16, 1861. +</p> + +<p class="center"><em>Orders for the Court to go into Mourning for His late Royal Highness the Prince Consort.</em></p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Ladies</span> attending Court to wear black woollen Stuffs, trimmed with Crape, plain Linen, black +Shoes and Gloves, and Crape Fans.</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span> attending Court to wear black Cloth, plain Linen, Crape Hatbands, and black +Swords and Buckles.</p> + +<p>The Mourning to commence from the date of this Order.</p></blockquote> + +<blockquote> +<p class="center"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">100</a></span> + +SECOND NOTICE.</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Lord Chamberlain's Office</span>, +December 31, 1861. +</p> + +<p class="center"><em>Orders for the Court's change of Mourning, on +Monday, the 27th January next, for His late Royal Highness the Prince +Consort, viz.</em>:</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Ladies</span> to wear black Silk Dresses, +trimmed with Crape, and black Shoes and Gloves, black Fans, Feathers, +and Ornaments.</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span> to wear black Court Dress, +with black Swords and Buckles, and plain Linen.</p> + +<p><em>The Court further to change the Mourning on Monday the 17th of +February next, viz.</em>:</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Ladies</span> to wear black Dresses, with +white Gloves, black or white Shoes, Fans, and Feathers, and Pearls, +Diamonds, or plain Gold or Silver Ornaments.</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span> to wear black Court Dress, +with black Swords and Buckles.</p> + +<p class="center"><em>And on Monday the 10th of March next, the Court +to go out of Mourning.</em></p> +</blockquote> + +<hr class="tb" /> +<blockquote> +<p class="center">FIRST NOTICE.</p> + +<p class="right"> +<span class="smcap">Lord Chamberlain's Office</span>, +November 7, 1817. +</p> + +<p class="hang"><em>Orders for the Court's going into Mourning on Sunday next, the 9th instant, for Her late Royal +Highness the Princess Charlotte Augusta, Daughter of His Royal Highness the Prince Regent, +and Consort of His Serene Highness the Prince Leopold Saxe-Cobourg, viz.</em>:</p></blockquote> + +<blockquote> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Ladies</span> to wear black Bombazines, plain Muslin, or long Lawn Crape Hoods, Shamoy Shoes +and Gloves, and Crape Fans.</p> + +<p>Undress:—Dark Norwich Crape.</p> + +<p>The <span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span> to wear black cloth without buttons on the Sleeves or Pockets, plain Muslin, or +long Lawn Cravats and Weepers, Shamoy Shoes and Gloves, Crape Hatbands and black Swords and +Buckles.</p> + +<p>Undress:—Dark Grey Frocks.</p> + +<p class="p2">For <span class="smcap">Ladies</span>, black Silk, fringed or plain Linen, white Gloves, black Shoes, Fans, and Tippets, +white Necklaces and Earrings.</p> + +<p>Undress:—White or grey Lustrings, Tabbies, or Damasks.</p> + +<p>For <span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>, to continue in black, full trimmed, fringed or plain Linen, black Swords and +Buckles.</p> + +<p>Undress:—Grey Coats.</p> + +<p class="p2">For <span class="smcap">Ladies</span>, black silk or velvet coloured Ribbons, Fans, and Tippets, or plain white, or white +and gold, or white and silver Stuffs, with black Ribbons.</p> + +<p>For <span class="smcap">Gentlemen</span>, black Coats and black or plain white, or white and gold, or white and silver +stuffed Waistcoats, coloured Waistcoats and Buckles.</p></blockquote> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_102.jpg" width="500" height="279" alt="Illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 62.</span>—<em>Funeral of Charles +Darwin, Esq., in Westminster Abbey.</em></p> +</div> +</div> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">103</a></span> + +<img src="images/lettert.jpg" width="100" height="106" alt="T" class="floatl" /> +HE Register of "Notices" preserved at the Lord Chamberlain's Offices date +back from 1773 to 1840. They are written in chronological order from the +first folio (9th March, 1773) to folio 16 (28th Nov., 1785). After this +date a number of papers are missing, and, curious to relate, the next entry is +Oct. 24, 1793, and orders the Court to go into mourning for ten days for +Her late Majesty Marie Antoinette, Queen of France.</p> + +<p>On the margin of the one for mourning for Louis XVIII., is written a note to the effect +that the "King this day, Sep. 18, 1824, orders three weeks' mourning for the late King of +France." At about this time, too, the word "the ladies to wear bombazine gowns" disappears, +and is replaced by "woolen stuffs."</p> + +<p>Our military etiquette connected with mourning was really modelled on that in use in the +army of Louis XIV., as is proved by a rather singular fact. In 1737 George II. died, and an +order was issued commanding the officers and troopers in the British army to wear black crape +bands and black buttons and epaulettes. Very shortly afterwards the French Government +issued a decree to the effect that, as the English army had "slavishly imitated the French +in the matter of wearing mourning, henceforth the officers of the French army should +make no change in their uniform, and only wear a black band round the arm." Oddly +enough, at the present moment both the French and the English armies wear precisely the +same "badge of grief," a black band of crape on the left arm above the elbow.</p> + +<p>The Sovereign can prolong, out of marked respect for the person to be mourned, the +duration of the period for general and Court mourning.</p> + +<p>The following are regulations for Court mourning, according to the register at the Lord +Chamberlain's office:—</p> + +<p>For the King or Queen—full mourning, eight weeks; mourning, two weeks; and half-mourning, +two weeks: in all, three full months.</p> + +<p>For the son or daughter of the Sovereign—Full mourning, four weeks; mourning, one +week; and half-mourning, one week: total, six weeks.</p> + +<p>For the brother or sister of the Sovereign—full mourning, two weeks; mourning, four +days; and half-mourning, two days: total, three weeks.</p> + +<p>Nephew or niece—full mourning, one week; half-mourning, one week: total, two weeks.</p> + +<p>Uncle or aunt—same as above.</p> + +<p>Cousin, ten days; second cousin, seven days.</p> + +<hr class="chap" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">104</a></span> + +<img src="images/lettert.jpg" width="100" height="106" alt="T" class="floatl" /> + +HE following are the accepted reasons for the selection of various colours for +mourning in different parts of the world:—</p> + +<p><em>Black</em> expresses the privation of light and joy, the midnight gloom of +sorrow for the loss sustained. It is the prevailing colour of mourning in +Europe, and it was also the colour selected in ancient Greece and in the +Roman Empire.</p> + +<p><em>Black and white striped</em> expresses sorrow and hope, and is the mourning of the South +Sea Islanders.</p> + +<p><em>Greyish brown</em>—the colour of the earth, to which the dead return. It is the colour of +mourning in Ethiopia and Abyssinia.</p> + +<p><em>Pale brown</em>—the colour of withered leaves—is the mourning of Persia.</p> + +<p><em>Sky-blue</em> expresses the assured hope that the deceased is gone to heaven, and is the colour +of mourning in Syria, Cappadocia, and Armenia.</p> + +<p><em>Deep-blue</em> in Bokhara is the colour of mourning; whilst the Romans in the days of the +Republic also wore very dark blue for mourning.</p> + +<p><em>Purple and violet</em>—to express royalty, "Kings and priests of God." It is the colour of +mourning of Cardinals and of the Kings of France. The colour of mourning in Turkey is violet.</p> + +<p><em>White</em>—emblem of "white-handed hope." The colour of mourning in China. The ladies +of ancient Rome and Sparta sometimes wore white mourning, which was also the colour for +mourning in Spain until 1498. In England it is still customary, in several of the provinces, +to wear white silk hat-bands for the unmarried.</p> + +<p><em>Yellow</em>—the sear and yellow leaf. The colour of mourning in Egypt and Burmah. In +Brittany widows' caps among the peasants are yellow. Anne Boleyn wore yellow mourning for +Catherine of Arragon, but as a sign of joy.</p> + +<p><em>Scarlet</em> is also a mourning colour, and was occasionally worn by the French Kings, +notably so by Louis XI.</p> +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_105.jpg" width="200" height="80" alt="decoration" /> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_106.jpg" width="500" height="349" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 63.</span>—<em>Funeral of His Imperial Majesty Frederick the Noble, Emperor of Germany. The Funeral Service in the Imperial Chapel.</em> + +</p> +</div> +</div> +<div class="page"> +<hr class="chap" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">107</a></span> +<img src="images/i_108.jpg" width="500" height="356" alt="illustration" /> +<p class="caption"> + +<span class="smcap">Fig. 64.</span>—<em>Funeral of His Majesty +the Emperor of Germany. The Procession leaving the Palace.</em></p> +</div> +</div> +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">109</a></span></p> +<h2>NOTES.</h2> +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/110.jpg" width="200" height="47" alt="Notes" /> +</div> + +<p>(<em>a</em>) In the 18th Century, the undertaker issued his handbills—gruesome things, with +grinning skulls and shroud-clad corpses, thigh bones, mattocks and pickaxes, hearses, etc.:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>"These are to notice that Mr. John Elphick, Woollen Draper, over against St Michael's Church, in Lewes, +hath a good Hearse, a Velvet Pall, Mourning Cloaks, and Black Hangings for Rooms, to be lett at Reasonable +Rates.</p> + +<p>"He also sells all sorts of Mourning and Half Mourning, all sorts of Black Cyprus for Scarfs and Hatbands, +and White Silks for Scarfs and Hoods at Funerals; Gloves of all sorts, and Burying Cloaths for the +Dead."</p></blockquote> + +<p>Again:—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>"Eleazar Malory, Joiner at the Coffin in White Chapel, near Red +Lion Street end, maketh Coffins, Shrouds, letteth Palls, Cloaks, +and Furnisheth with all the other things necessary for Funerals at +Reasonable Rates."</p></blockquote> + +<p>(<em>b</em>) The dead were formerly buried in woollen, which was rendered compulsory by the +Acts 30 Car. ii. c. 3 and 36 Ejusdem c. i., the first of which was for "lessening the +importation of Linen from beyond the seas, and the encouragement of the Woollen and Paper +Manufactures of the Kingdome." It prescribed that the curate of every parish shall keep a +register, to be provided at the charge of the parish, wherein to enter all burials and affidavits +of persons being buried in woollen. No affidavit was necessary for a person dying of the plague, +but for every infringement a fine of £5 was imposed, one half to go to the informer, and the +other half to the poor of the parish. This Act was only repealed in 1815. The material used +was flannel, and such interments are frequently mentioned in the literature of the time.</p> + +<p>(<em>c</em>) Misson throws some light on the custom of using flannel for enveloping the dead, +but I fancy that it is of much greater antiquity than he imagined. However, he asserts:—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>"There is an Act of Parliament which ordains, That the Dead shall be +bury'd in a Woollen Stuff, which is a kind of a thin Bays, which they +call Flannel; nor is it lawful to use the least Needleful of Thread or +Silk. This Shift is always White; but there are different Sorts of it +as to Fineness, and consequently of different Prices. To make these +dresses is a particular Trade, and there are many that sell nothing +else; so that these Habits for the Dead are always to be had ready +made, of what Size or Price you please, for People of Every Age and +Sex. After they had washed the Body thoroughly clean, and shav'd it, if +it be a Man, and his Beard be grown during his Sickness, they put it on +a Flannel Shirt, which has commonly a sleeve purfled about the Wrists, +and the Slit of the Shirt down the Breast done in the same Manner. When +these Ornaments are not of Woollen Lace, they are at least edg'd, and +sometimes embroider'd with black Thread. The Shirt shou'd be at least +half a Foot longer than the Body, that the feet of the Deceas'd may be +wrapped in it as in a Bag. When they have thus folded the end of the +Shirt close to the Feet, they tye the Part that is folded down with a +piece of Woollen Thread, as we do our stockings; so that the end of the +Shirt is done into a kind of Tuft. Upon the Head they put a Cap, which +they fasten with a very broad Chin Cloth, with Gloves on the Hands, +and a Cravat round the Neck, all of Woollen. That the Body may ly the +softer, some put a Lay of Bran, about four inches thick, at the Bottom +of the Coffin. Instead of a Cap, the Women have a kind of Head Dress, +with a Forehead Cloth."</p></blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">110</a></span> + +Funeral invitations of a ghastly kind were sent out, and Elegies, laudatory of the deceased, +were sometimes printed and sent to friends. These were got up in the same charnel-house +style, and embellished with skulls, human bones, and skeletons. Hat-bands were costly items.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>"For the encouragement of our English silk, called a la modes, His Royal Highness the Prince of +Denmark, the Nobility, and other persons of quality, appear in Mourning Hatbands made of that silk, to bring +the same in fashion, in the place of Crapes, which are made in the Pope's Country where we send our money +for them."</p></blockquote> + +<p>(<em>d</em>) The poor in Anne's time had already started Burial Clubs and Societies, and very +cheap they seem to have been.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>"This is to give notice that the office of Society for Burials, by mutual contribution of a Halfpenny or +Farthing towards a Burial, erected upon Wapping Wall, is now removed into Katherine Wheel Alley, +in White Chappel, near Justice Smiths, where subscriptions are taken to compleat the number, as also at the +Ram in Crucifix Lane in Barnaby Street, Southwark, to which places notice is to be given of the death of +any Member, and where any person may have the printed Articles after Monday next. And this Thursday +evening about 7 o'clock will be Buried by the Undertakers, the Corpse of J. S., a Glover, over against the Sun +Brewhouse, in Golden Lane; as also a child from the corner of Acorn Alley, in Bishopsgate Street, and +another child from the Great Maze Pond, Southwark."</p></blockquote> + +<p>(<em>e</em>) Undertakers liked to arrange for a Funeral to take place on an evening in winter, as +the costs were thereby increased, for then the Mourners were furnished with wax candles. These +were heavy, and sometimes were made of four tapers twisted at the stem and then branching +out. That these wax candles were expensive enough to excite the thievish cupidity of a band +of roughs, the following advertisement will show:—</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>"Riots and Robberies—Committed in and about Stepney Church Yard, at a Funeral Solemnity, on +Wednesday, the 23rd day of September; and whereas many persons, who being appointed to attend the same +Funeral with white wax lights of a considerable value, were assaulted in a most violent manner, and the said +white wax lights taken from them. Whoever shall discover any of the Persons, guilty of the said crimes, so +as they may be convicted of the same, shall receive of Mr. William Prince, Wax Chandler in the Poultry, +London, Ten Shillings for each Person so discovered."</p></blockquote> + +<p>(<em>f</em>) We get a curious glimpse of the paraphernalia of a funeral in the Life of a notorious +cheat, "The German Princess," who lived, and was hanged, in the latter part of the 17th +Century, and the same funeral customs therein described obtained in Queen Anne's time. She +took a lodging at a house, in a good position, and told the landlady that a friend of hers, a +stranger to London, had just died, and was lying at "a pitiful Alehouse," and might she, for +convenience sake, bring his corpse there, ready for burial on the morrow.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>"The landlady consented, and that evening the Corps in a very handsome Coffin was brought in a Coach, +and placed in the Chamber, which was the Room one pair of Stairs next the Street, and had a Balcony. The +Coffin being covered only with an ordinary black Cloth, our Counterfeit seems much to dislike it; the +Landlady tells her that for 20s. she might have the use of a Velvet Pall, with which being well pleas'd, she +desir'd the Landlady to send for the Pall, and withal accommodate the Room with her best Furniture, for the +next day but one he should be bury'd; thus the Landlady performed, setting the Velvet Pall, and placing on +a Side Board Table 2 Silver Candlesticks, a Silver Flaggon, 2 Standing Gilt Bowls, and several other +pieces of Plate; but the Night before the intended Burial, our Counterfeit Lady and her Maid within the +House, handed to their comrades without, all the Plate, Velvet Pall, and other Furniture of the Chamber that +was Portable and of Value, leaving the Coffin and the supposed Corps, she and her Woman descended from +the Balcony by help of a Ladder, which her comrades had brought her."</p></blockquote> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">111</a></span> + +It is needless to say that the coffin contained only brickbats and hay, and a sad sequel +to this story is that the undertaker sued the landlady for the loss of his pall, which had +lately cost him £40.</p> + +<p>According to a request in the will of one Mr. Benjamin Dodd, a Roman Catholic, "Citizen +and Linnen Draper, who fell from his horse and died soon after," four and twenty persons +were at his burial, to each of whom he gave a pair of white gloves, a ring of 10s. value, a +bottle of wine, and half-a-crown to be spent on their return that night, "to drink his Soul's +Health, then on her Journey for Purification in order to Eternal Rest." He also appointed +his "Corps" to be carried in a hearse drawn by six white horses, with white feathers, and +followed by six coaches, with six horses to each coach, and commanded that "no Presbyterian, +Moderate Low Churchmen, or Occasional Conformists, be at or have anything to do with his +Funeral."</p> + +<p>(<em>g</em>) Parisian funerals at the present day present many features common to those celebrated +in England in the last century. The church, for instance, is elaborately decorated in black +for a married man or woman, but in white for a <span class="err" title="original: spinister">spinster</span>, youth, or child. +The costumes of the hired attendants, and these are numerous—I counted one day, quite recently, no less than +twenty-four, two to each coach, all handsomely dressed in black velvet—are of the time of +Louis XV. I am assured that the expenses of a first-class funeral in Paris, in this year of +Grace 1889, sometimes exceeds several hundred pounds.</p> + + +<p>The <em>lettre de faire part</em>, as it is called, is also a curious feature in the funeral rites of our +neighbours. It is an elaborate document in the form of a printed letter, deeply edged with +black, and informs that all the members, near and distant, of the deceased's family—they are +each mentioned by name and title—request you, not only to attend the funeral, but to pray +for his or her soul.</p> + +<p>The fashion of sending costly wreaths to cover the coffin is recent, and was quite as +unknown in Paris twenty years ago as it was in this country until about the same period. +Wreaths of <em>immortelles</em>, sometimes dyed black, were, however, sent to funerals in France in +the Middle Ages. In Brittany, the "wake" is almost as common as it is in Ireland, and quite +as frequently degenerates into an unedifying spectacle. Like the Irish custom, it originated +in the early Christian practice of keeping a light burning by the corpse, and in praying for +the repose of the soul, <em>coram</em> the corpse prior to its final removal to the church and grave, +certain pagan customs, the distribution of wine and bread, having been introduced, at first +possibly from a sense of hospitality, and finally as means of carousal.</p> + +<p class="right"> +RICHARD DAVEY. +</p> + +<div class="figcenter"> + +<img src="images/i_113.jpg" width="400" height="238" alt="Finis" /> +</div> +<hr class="full" /> + +<div class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/i_back_cover.jpg" width="500" height="628" alt="back cover" /> +</div> + +<hr class="full" /> +<div class="transnote"> +<h2>Transcriber's Note.</h2> + +<p>Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained.</p> + +<p>Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently corrected.</p> + +<p>Some illustrations have been moved from their original position so as not +to interrupt the text.</p> + +<h3><a id="Corrections"></a>Corrections.</h3> + +<p>The first line indicates the original, the second the correction.</p> + +<p>p. <a href="#Page_20">20</a>:</p> +<ul><li>In these, bassirilievi and figures in terra-cotta have been found,</li> + +<li>In these, <span class="u">bassorilievi</span> and figures in terra-cotta have been found,</li> +</ul> + +<p>p. <a href="#Page_27">27</a>:</p> +<ul> +<li>at the dawn of the +Rennaissance</li> + +<li>at the dawn of the +<span class="u">Renaissance</span></li> +</ul> +<p>p. <a href="#Page_88">88</a>:</p> +<ul> +<li>This coifure has</li> + +<li>This <span class="u">coiffure</span> has</li> +</ul> +<p>p. <a href="#Page_91">91</a>:</p> +<ul> +<li>of this solemn procession can be ormed</li> + +<li>of this solemn procession can be <span class="u">formed</span></li> +</ul> +<p>p. <a href="#Page_111">111</a>:</p> +<ul> +<li>but in white for a spinister</li> + +<li>but in white for a <span class="u">spinster</span></li></ul> +<h3>Errata.</h3> +<p>The first line indicates the original, the second how it should read.</p> +<p>p. <a href="#Page_66">66</a>:</p> +<ul><li>"On the 6th of January, 1756, the body of his 'Britannic Majesty' was conveyed in great +state to the said Church of the Twelve Apostles,"</li> +<li>"On the 6th of January, <span class="u">1766</span>, the body of his 'Britannic Majesty' was conveyed in great +state to the said Church of the Twelve Apostles,"</li></ul> +</div> + +<p> </p> +<p> </p> +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44379 ***</div> +</body> +</html> |