laid on ashes on the bare earth at the last
with no extra sackcloth. No bishops or abbots being at hand to commend
him at the end, the monks of Westminster were to send seven or eight of
their number and the Dean of St. Paul's a good number of singing clerks.
His body was to be washed with the greatest care, to fit it for being
taken to the holy chapel of the Baptist at Lincoln, and laid out by
three named persons and no others. When it reached Lincoln it was to be
arrayed in the plain vestments of his consecration, which he had kept
for this. One little light gold ring, with a cheap water sapphire in it,
he selected from all that had been given him. He had worn it for
functions, and would bear it in death, and have nothing about him else
to tempt folk to sacrilege. The hearers understood, foolishly, from this
that he knew his body would be translated after its first sepulture, and
for this reason he had it cased in lead and solid stone that no one
should seize or even see his ornaments when he was moved. "You will
place me," he said, "before the altar of my aforesaid patron, the Lord's
forerunner, where there seems fitting room near some wall, in such wise
that the tomb shall not inconveniently block the floor, as we see in
many churches, and cause incomers to trip or fall." Then he had his
beard and nails trimmed for death. Some of his ejaculations in his
agonies are preserved. "O kind God, grant us rest. O good Lord and true
God, give us rest at last." When they tried to cheer him by saying that
the paroxysm was over he said, "How really blessed are those to whom
even the last judgment day will bring unshaken rest." They told him his
judgment day would be the day when he laid by the burden of the flesh.
But he would not have it. "The day when I die will not be a judgment
day, but a day of grace and mercy," he said. He astonished his
physicians by the robust way in which he would move, and his manly voice
bated nothing of its old power, though he spoke a little submissively.
The last lection he heard was the story of Lazarus and Martha, and when
they reached the words, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had
not died," he bade them stop there. The funeral took up the tale where
the reader left off, "I am the Resurrection and the Life."

They reminded him that he had not confessed any miscarriages of justice
of which he had been guilty through private love or hate. He answered
boldly, "I never remember that I kno