At each corner of the car walked a knight, with a banner of descents; and on either side of it rode three others, cloaked and hooded, their steeds being trapped in black to the ground. Those on the right were Sir Thomas Seymour, Sir Thomas Heneage, and Sir Thomas Paston; those on the left were Sir John Gage, Sir Thomas Darcy, and Sir Maurice Berkeley.
In the rear of the funeral car rode the chief mourner, the Marquis of Dorset, alone, with his horse trapped in black velvet, and after him came the twelve mourners with their steeds trapped to the ground. After the mourners rode the Earl of Arundel, lord chamberlain of the household, with his hood on his shoulder, to intimate that he was not a mourner. After the lord chamberlain came Sir Anthony Brown, master of the horse, bareheaded, and leading the king’s favorite milk-white steed, trapped all in cloth of gold down to the ground.
Nine mounted henchmen followed next, clad in suits of woe, and hooded, their horses trapped to the ground, and having shaffrons on their heads, and themselves bearing bannerols of the arms of England before the Conquest.
Then followed Sir Francis Bryan, master of the henchmen. Then Sir Anthony Wingfield, vice-chamberlain and captain of the guard, followed by a large company of the guard, in black, marching three and three, each with a halberd on his shoulder with the point downwards. A long line of noblemen’s servants and others closed the cortége.
It was now broad day, though dull and foggy, but the countless torches lighted up the procession, and gave it a strange, ghostly look. Thus seen, the black, hooded figures appeared mysterious and awful. But it was upon the stupendous funeral car that all regards were concentrated. So wonderfully lifelike was the effigy of the king, that not a few among the credulous and half-informed spectators thought Henry himself had returned to earth to superintend his own funeral ceremony; while on all hands the image was regarded as a miracle of art. Exclamations of wonder and delight arose on all sides as it went by, and many persons knelt down as if a saint were being borne along. The head of the cortége had passed Spring Gardens some time before the rear issued from the courts of the palace, and, seen from Charing-cross, the long line of dusky figures, with the standards, banners, torches, and chariot, presented such a spectacle as has never since been seen from that spot, though many a noble procession has in after times pursued the same route.
At the foot of the noble Gothic cross a crowd of persons had been collected from an early hour. Amongst them was a tall Franciscan friar, who maintained a moody silence, and who regarded the pageant with so much sternness and scorn that many marvelled he should have come thither to look upon it. When the ponderous funeral car, after toiling its way up the ascent, came to the Cross, a brief halt was called, and during this pause the tall monk pressed forward, and throwing back his hood, so as fully to display his austere and death-pale features, lighted up by orbs blazing with insane light, stretched out his hand towards the receptacle of the royal corpse, and exclaimed, with a loud voice, “In the plenitude of his power I rebuked for his sinfulness the wicked king whom ye now bear to the tomb with all this senseless pomp. Inspired from above, I lifted up my voice, and told him, that as his life had been desperately wicked, so his doom should be that of the worst of kings, and dogs would lick his blood. And ere yet he shall be laid in the tomb my words will come to pass.”
At this juncture two pursuivants rode up and threatened to brain the rash speaker with their maces, but some of the crowd screened him from their rage.
“Strike him not!” cried an elderly man of decent appearance. “He is crazed. ‘T is the mad Franciscan, Father Peto. Make way for him there! Let him pass!” he added to those behind, who charitably complying, the monk escaped uninjured.