5)
held him fast, while the Archbishop exhorted him to give some token
that he put his trust in Christ. The King wrung Cranmer's hand with
his fast-ebbing strength, and so passed away about two in the morning,
on Friday, the 28th of January, 1547. He was exactly fifty-five years
and seven months old, and his reign had lasted for thirty-seven years
and three-quarters.

[Footnote 1163: _L. and P._, iv., 4942.]

[Footnote 1164: Foxe, ed. Townsend, v., 692;
Fuller, _Church History_, 1656, pp. 252-55.]

[Footnote 1165: _Cotton MS_., Titus, F. iii.;
Strype, _Eccl. Mem_., II., ii., 430.]

"And for my body," wrote Henry in his will,[1166] "which when the soul
is departed, shall then remain but as a _cadaver_, and so return to
the vile matter it was made of, were it not for the crown and dignity
which God hath called us unto, and that We would not be counted an
infringer of honest worldly policies and customs, when they be not
contrary to God's laws, We would be content to have it buried in any
place accustomed to Christian folks, were it never so vile, for it is
but ashes, and to ashes it shall return. Nevertheless, because We
would be loth, in the reputation of the people, to do injury to the
Dignity, which We are unworthily called unto, We are content to will
and order that Our body be buried and interred in the choir of Our
college of Windsor." On the 8th of February, in every parish church in
the realm, there was sung a solemn dirge by night, with all the bells
ringing, and on the morrow a Requiem mass for the soul of the
King.[1167] Six days later his body "was solemnly with great honour
conveyed in a chariot towards Windsor," and the funeral procession
stretched four miles along the roads. That night the body lay at (p. 426)
Sion under a hearse, nine storeys high. On the 15th it was taken to
Windsor, where it was met by the Dean and choristers of the Chapel
Royal, and by the members of Eton College. There in the castle it
rested under a hearse of thirteen storeys; and on the morrow it was
buried, after mass, in the choir of St. George's Chapel.

[Footnote 1166: The original is in the Record
Office; a copy of it was made for each executor,
and it has been often printed; see _England under
Protector Somerset_, p. 5 n.]

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