The Constable of the Tower by W. Harrison Ainsworth

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Chapter XVII

WHAT WAS SEEN AND HEARD AT MIDNIGHT BY THE WATCHERS IN THE CONVENTUAL CHURCH AT SION

Beautifully situated on the banks of the Thames, between Brentford and Isleworth, and about midway between the metropolis and Windsor, stood the suppressed Convent of Sion, selected as the first halting place of the funeral cortége. In this once noble, but now gloomy and desecrated monastery, which had been stripped of all its wealth and endowments by the rapacious monarch, was confined the lovely but ill-fated Catherine Howard, who had poured forth her unavailing intercessions for mercy from on high at the altar near which, later on, the body of her tyrant husband was to rest, and who had been taken thence, half frantic with terror, to die by his ruthless decree on the scaffold. Guilt she might have, but what was her guilt compared with that of her inexorable husband and judge!

Shortly after the events about to be narrated, Sion was bestowed by Edward VI. on his uncle, the lord protector; but from the time of its suppression up to this period, it had been, comparatively speaking, deserted. Reverting to the crown, the estate was next granted to the Duke of Northumberland, on whose attainder it was once more forfeited. The monastery was restored and re-endowed by Mary—but it is needless to pursue its history further.

Mighty preparations had now been made within the neglected convent for the lodging and accommodation of the immense funeral retinue. Luckily, the building was of great extent, and its halls and chambers, though decaying and dilapidated, capable of holding an incredible number of persons. Their capacity in this respect was now about to be thoroughly tested. Hospitality, at the period of our history, was practised at seasons of woe on as grand and profuse a scale as at festivities and rejoicings, and the extraordinary supplies provided for the consumption of the guests expected at Sion were by no means confined to funeral baked meats. Cold viands there were in abundance—joints of prodigious size—chines and sirloins of beef, chines of pork, baked red-deer, baked swan, baked turkey, baked sucking-pig, gammon of bacon pie, wild-boar pie, roe pie, hare pie, soused sturgeon, soused salmon, and such like—but there was no lack of hot provisions, roast, boiled and stewed, nor of an adequate supply of sack, hippocrass, Rhenish, Canary, and stout October ale.

Every care was taken that the lords spiritual and temporal, with the foreign ambassadors and other persons of distinction, should be suitably lodged, but the majority of the actors in the gloomy pageant were left to shift for themselves, and the dormitories of the convent, even in its most flourishing days, had never known half so many occupants. The halls and principal chambers of the ancient religious structure were hung with black, and garnished with escutcheons, and the fine old conventual church, refitted for the occasion, was likewise clothed with mourning, the high altar being entirely covered with black velvet, and adorned with all the jewels and gold and silver plate of which the shrines of the monastery had been previously plundered. In the midst of the choir, protected by double barriers, was placed a catafalque even more stately than that provided in the chapel of the palace at Westminster, with a lofty canopy, the valance whereof was fringed with black silk and gold, and the sides garnished with pensils, escutcheons, and bannerols. Around this catafalque burnt a surprising number of large wax tapers.

The progress of the funeral cortége was necessarily slow, and it was past one o’clock ere it reached Brentford, at which place a number of nobles, knights, and esquires, together with the lord mayor and aldermen of London, rode on towards Sion, and arranged themselves in long lines on either side of the convent gates. About two o’clock, the funeral car drew up at the west door of the church, and the effigy of the king was first taken out by the three gigantic warders, and carried by them with befitting care and reverence to the revestry. After which the coffin was ceremoniously brought out, and conveyed through two lines of nobles and ambassadors to the receptacle provided for it within the choir—the bishops in their mitres and copes preceding it. Thus deposited, the coffin was covered with a blue velvet pall, having a white cross embroidered upon it. At the head of the pall were laid the king’s helm and crest, on the right and left, his sword and targe, and his embroidered coat at the foot. All round the exquisitely carved choir were ranged the various banners and standards used in the procession.