Note 138 — Chapter IX · THE QUEEN AND THE LORD HIGH-ADMIRAL

This interesting account shows how many Catholic customs still survived—the offering here mentioned is evidently a relic of the Offertory at the Requiem Mass, otherwise explained; and the candles also are distinctly a part of Roman Catholic ritual, though Coverdale’s account of their signification is not altogether that given by Catholics. The Te Deum is no longer sung or said at either Catholic or Anglican funerals. The fact that the writer of this account mentions that the whole service was done in one morning, shows that the brevity of the new form of worship was somewhat of a novelty to people accustomed to the long series of Dirges and Masses accompanying burials in Catholic times. Sir Walter Besant says, on p. 154 of his London in the Time of the Tudors, “Before the coming of the Puritans the funerals continued with much of the old (Catholic) ritual.”