The king’s health had long been in a declining state; but for several days all those near him plainly saw his end approaching. He was become so froward, that no one durst inform him of his condition; and as some persons, during this reign, had suffered as traitors for foretelling the king’s death,g every one was afraid, lest, in the transports of his fury, he might, on this pretence, punish capitally the author of such friendly intelligence. At last, Sir Anthony Denny ventured to disclose to him the fatal secret, and exhorted him to prepare for the fate, which was awaiting him. He expressed his resignation; and desired that Cranmer might be sent for: But before the prelate arrived he was speechless, though he still seemed to retain his senses.Death of the king. Cranmer desired him to give some sign of his dying in the faith of Christ: He squeezed the prelate’s hand, and immediately expired, after a reign of thirty-seven years and nine months; and in the fifty-sixth year of his age.



The king had made his will near a month before his demise; in which he confirmed the destination of parliament, by leaving the crown first to prince Edward, then to the lady Mary, next to the lady Elizabeth: The two princesses he obliged, under the penalty of forfeiting their title to the crown, not to marry without consent of the council, which he appointed for the government of his minor son. After his own children, he settled the succession on Frances Brandon, marchioness of Dorset, elder daughter of his sister, the French queen; then on Eleanor, countess of Cumberland, the second daughter. In passing over the posterity of the queen of Scots, his elder sister, he made use of the power obtained from parliament; but as he subjoined, that, after the failure of the French queen’s posterity, the crown should descend to the next lawful heir, it afterwards became a question, whether these words could be applied to the Scottish line. It was thought, that these princes were not the next heirs after the house of Suffolk, but before that house; and that Henry, by expressing himself in this manner, meant entirely to exclude them. The late injuries, which he had received from the Scots, had irritated him extremely against that nation; and he maintained to the last that character of violence and caprice, by which his life had been so much distinguished. Another circumstance of his will may suggest the same reflection with regard to the strange contrarieties of his temper and conduct: He left money for masses to be said for delivering his soul from purgatory; and though he destroyed all those institutions, established by his ancestors and others, for the benefit of their souls; and had even left the doctrine of purgatory doubtful in all the articles of faith, which he promulgated during his later years; he was yet determined, when the hour of death was approaching, to take care, at least, of his own future repose, and to adhere to the safer side of the question.h

[g] Lanquet’s Epitome of Chronicles in the year 1541.



[h] See his will in Fuller, Heylin, and Rymer, p. 110. There is no reasonable ground to suspect its authenticity.