It was said that as he lay dying at Whitehall the King had called for Archbishop Cranmer, but by the time he arrived Henry was past speech. And when the prelate asked him to give a sign that he died in the faith of Christ, he had been able only to clutch Cranmer’s hand. No confession then for Henry, no last rites. His death – perhaps by accident – had been one which Protestants could approve. And yet, extraordinarily, the King in his Will had ordered traditional requiem Masses to be said over his body. Henry, in death, was as inconstant as he had been in life.

‘VIVE LE ROI EDWARD THE SIXTH!’ So the heralds proclaimed the new King, that thin, straight-backed little boy. The new Council which the old King had appointed by his Will made shortly before his death, to govern England during Edward’s minority, was dominated by those identified with the Protestant cause. Lord Lisle and the Earl of Essex, Catherine Parr’s brother, had places. So, too, did those in the middle, who would bend with the wind: Paget remained Master Secretary, Wriothesley was still in place on the Council, and Rich. All had bent to the King’s final change of path. But not Bishop Gardiner; he was left seething impotently on the sidelines. It was said that radical religious reform would soon be coming.

Within the reforming camp, the Seymours had won out over the Parrs. There was to be no Regency for Catherine Parr, despite her hopes. She was now merely Queen Dowager, while the council had immediately appointed Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, as Protector of the young King. He it was who sat now at the head of the Council table, to which he had also appointed his brother Thomas.

All sorts of stories were flying around that the King’s Will had been doctored after his death, Hertford conspiring with the careerists to insert a clause concerning ‘unfulfilled gifts’ from the King which allowed the new council to award them titles, setting their loyalty in stone. Certainly there was a great crop of new peers: Richard Rich, for instance, was now Lord Rich of Lees in Essex. But exactly what had happened in the days just after the King died, nobody knew for sure; perhaps no one ever would.

ATTENDANCE AT the funeral procession was officially encouraged, but not compulsory. Most of the great crowd, like me, had come, I think, to witness the passing of an epoch. The younger people present would have known no other ruler, and I could only dimly recall, when I was seven, my dear mother telling me that King Henry VII was dead and a second Tudor had ascended the throne.