James's. The usurpers of the government
refused permission to bury it in Henry the VII.'s Chapel, from a dread
of the indignation of the crowds who would assemble on so solemn and
interesting an occasion; but, at last, after some deliberation, the
council allowed it to be privately interred in St. George's Chapel at
Windsor, provided the expenses of the funeral should not exceed five
hundred pounds. The last duties of love and respect were (according to
Charles's express desire) paid to their sovereign's corpse by the Duke
of Richmond, the Marquess of Hertford, Lord Southampton, Lord Lindsey,
the Bishop of London, Herbert, and Mildmay, who, on producing a vote of
the Commons, were admitted by Whichcote, the Governor of Windsor Castle,
to the chapel. When the body was carried out of St. George's Hall, the
sky was serene and clear; but presently a storm of snow fell so fast,
that before it reached the chapel the pall and the mourners were
entirely whitened. When the bishop proposed to read the burial service
according to the rites of the Church of England, this fanatical governor
roughly refused, saying, "that that Common Prayer Book was put down, and
he would not suffer it to be used in that garrison where he commanded."
Clarendon thus describes, with graphic simplicity, the sad scene to its
close:--
"But when they entered into it (the chapel), which they had been so well
acquainted with, they found it so altered and transformed, all
inscriptions and those landmarks pulled down, by which all men knew
every particular place in that church, and such a dismal mutation over
the whole that they knew not where they where; nor was there one old
officer that had belonged to it, or knew where our Princes had used to
be interred.
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