The boys attached to the
College were, moreover, to sing every night in perpetuity, either the
_Salve Regina_ or _Ave Regina_, with a _De Profundis_ for his soul's
repose. So, as the hour of his death drew near, he who had concerned
himself through life with the souls of the departed, essayed to make
provision for his own. Since that hour when he proceeded to the high
altar of Winchester Cathedral, escorted by the Lord Prior of Winchester
and the Abbot Hyde, to celebrate his first Pontifical Mass, the same
constant memory of the dead had been with him, as when kneeling he
prayed aloud for the soul of his predecessor,
William de Edyndon, and bade the choir chant the _De Profundis_,
while he himself recited the _Fidelium omnium conditor_.
But leaving Oxford and its pious founder, we turn our gaze upon that
ancient foundation of Eton, which was to serve as a preparatory school
for the new establishment of King's College of Cambridge, which Henry
had in contemplation. Henry, in his famous Eton charter, makes mention
of his desire that this college shall be, as it were, a memorial of
him, and be composed of clerks, "who," he says, "shall pray for our
welfare whilst we live, and for our soul when we shall have departed
this life.
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