Theodore Dalrymple
TD discusses how the loss of religion and the sense of the transcendent is apparent from tombstones.
Returning to my friends’ house, I idly picked a volume from a bookcase. It was an edition of Henry VIII’s love letters. It fell open to Katherine of Aragon’s last letter to the man she considered still, and always, her husband:My most dear lord, king and husband,
The hour of my death now approaching, I cannot choose but out of the love I bear for you, advise you of your soul’s health, which you ought to prefer before all considerations of the world or flesh whatsoever. For which you have cast me into many calamities, and your self into many troubles. But I forgive you all, and pray God do so likewise. For the rest, I commend unto you Mary, our daughter, beseeching you to be a good father to her, as I have heretofore desired. I must entreat you also, to respect my maids, and give them in marriage, which is not much, they being but three; and to all my other servants, a year’s pay, besides their due, lest otherwise they should be unprovided for; lastly, I make this vow, that mine eyes desire you above all things. Farewell.
Katherine, Queene of England
Stupid Henry VIII.
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