Note 118 — Chapter XXII

Footnote 118: A very curious turn has been given inadvertently to this circumstance by the translation of the ecclesiastic's sentence, and the comment upon it, now found in the Appendix to the "Battle of Agincourt." "Rege præsente, pedes ejus tergente post extremam unctionem propriis manibus,"—words which can only be translated so as to represent the King, "after extreme unction, wiping the feet" of the Bishop,—the Editor of that work, by the careless blunder of an amanuensis, or some unaccountable accident, is made to render by the strange sentence, "covering his feet with extreme unction;" and he is then led, as a comment upon that text, to observe, that "the Bishop received from Henry's own hand the last offices of religion." Extreme unction, the last of the seven sacraments of the see of Rome, was administered doubtless by an attendant priest.(back)