“QUEEN
MARY’S FUNERAL”
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Reflections by the
Minister, |
Readings:
Job
14:1-10, 1 Cor 15:35-38, 42-44
5
March 1695 was a raw day in London –
the Thames was frozen over and a blizzard was blowing.
A
great funeral procession made its way through the city towards the abbey.
Mourning black against the white falling snow.
In
the procession: members of the Houses of Parliament and other dignitaries,
together with 400 poor women,
who had been dressed in black specially for the occasion,
each one with a young boy assigned as trainbearer.
Trumpeters and drummers were there too, the drums draped with black baize
At
the heart of the procession the coffin for Queen Mary II–
for this of course was her funeral cortege –
the event her
funeral service – a lavish ceremony,
resplendent with the music of Henry Purcell
which we will hear at the close of this service.
Queen
Mary and her husband King William III
had come to throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
Together
they had replaced Mary’s father, the deposed James II on the throne.
James had gone into exile.
7
years later, at the age of only 32, Mary was dead of smallpox.
The
Jacobite supporters of the exiled James had no time
for Mary at all –
for them she had betrayed her Father by marrying a Protestant husband -
and worse still by espousing his faith.
They never tired of saying Mary had broken the 5th Commandment
(Honour thy father and thy mother) –
she was a Goneril to poor James’s Lear, a wicked
daughter
scheming to usurp the throne from her father.
But
for most of the British population Mary was much loved,
and there was much genuine grief at her passing.
And
it does seem that she was not a scheming power seeker.
Her diary makes clear that she did not wish to be made queen.
She disliked pomp and ceremony
(and I fear would not have approved of the lavish funeral arranged for
her).
Poets
and balladeers of the time celebrated her humility and her unpretentiousness –
a simple princess who befriended servants,
whose virtues were as many as the sands of the shore.
Her
loyalty to William –
in spite of his habitual coldness and his even more habitual infidelity –
had finally won around her erring husband
so that he deeply and genuinely grieved at her death.
Her
spirituality was well known.
As she lay dying she received communion for the last time, and,
worried that she could not concentrate sufficiently on the liturgy in her final
illness,
turned to those about her and said weakly
“others have need to pray for me, seeing I am so little able to pray for
myself.”
The
next day she died.
She did not fear death.
Many sermons were preached to mark Mary’s passing –
·
More than one cleric turned to 2 Chron 35:24
and drew a comparison between Mary’s death and that of the Good King Josiah
(though there was a none too subtle political thrust here -
Israel had gone to the dogs following the death of Josiah -
would the same be true of Britain after Mary?)
·
Other clergy preached from Proverbs 31:29
“Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest
them all”
·
Archbishop Tenison
preached at the Abbey service itself
and took as his text Ecclesiastes 7:14
“In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity
consider”.
i.e. This may be a day of sorrow, but we can still
learn from it.
There
is clearly a message here for us about learning from days of suffering -
though we would probably wish to distance ourselves
from much of what Tenison said.
For
the Archbishop, who I suspect had a rather more simplistic view
of the cause and effect mechanism of divine providence than we do,
God’s message was clear:
The
people had been sinful,
and so God had taken away their beautiful young queen as punishment.
So,
words for the funeral of Queen Mary –
or more precisely five contemporary thoughts on her death:
1.
“In the day of adversity, consider” –
let us try to hear what God is saying to us in our contemporary trials and
tribulations –
and if there is a word of judgment there for our society, let us hear it.
2.
Let us pray that today we accept all
within our national community,
whether Catholic Protestant Jewish or Moslem, as our sisters and brothers
3.
When our rulers are unable or unwilling
to pray,
that is all the more reason for us to pray for them.
4.
As we remember our leaders,
let us pray that they seek God’s will humbly and care more for the poor
than for their own might or prestige
5.
May we all learn to live our lives so
close to God that we need not fear death –
And so I
conclude with words from Mary’s funeral sermon –
in hope and prayer that we might aspire through God’s grace to emulate her in
this:
Thus the old archbishop spoke of his young queen’s last hours:
“Thus piously, thus resignedly, thus calmly
departed this wise and great and this good princess,
who could ne’er have learn’d the art of dying so
well,
had she not first well understood,
and duly practis’d the art of living so.”
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For more information on the funeral of Queen Mary, see: Edward Carpenter,
“Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, his life
and times”, Elizabeth Hamilton, “William’s Mary”, Hamish Hamilton 1972, pp 334-7 Robert King, “Henry Purcell”, Thames and Hudson 1994, pp 208-215 Craig Rose, “England in the 1690s”, Blackwell 1999 pp 43-45, 198-9. For a MIDI version of the funeral music follow the link at Purcell, “Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary (1695)” |