Death and funeral of Anne of Denmark
[3] From September 1614 Anne was troubled by pain in her feet and swellings, which were a form of gout and dropsy and restricted her movements, as described in the letters of her chamberlain Viscount Lisle and the countesses of Bedford and Roxburghe.
"[6][7] Anne of Denmark received "great good" from recipes provided by Walter Raleigh,[8] and wrote to King James in 1618 that he should not be executed.
[11] In November, a comet was interpreted as a portent of her death, but she was reported to be in good health and had watched a fox hunt from her bedroom window.
[13] Anne moved to Hampton Court and was attended by Mayerne, Henry Atkins, and, according to Gerard Herbert, Turner, a physician recommended by Walter Raleigh.
He recovered and wrote a poem, comparing Anne's life to the appearance of the great comet in 1618:[20] Anne's body was embalmed by the apothecary Lewis Lemire and sealed in a lead coffin by Abraham Green, the sergeant plumber,[23] and on 9 March taken by barge to Somerset House,[24] sometimes called "Denmark House", where she lay in state attended by her ladies in waiting.
[28] A large of number of heraldic pennants and banners were made by the workshop of the painter John de Critz for use at Denmark House and at the Abbey.
[46] The procession from Denmark House to the Abbey included her household and many aristocratic women, all dressed in black mourning clothes in quantities and qualities according to their status.
[47] Also present and dressed in black were the queen's jewellers, George Heriot, William Herrick, John Spilman, and Abraham Harderet, and the painters Peter Oliver, Marcus Gheeraerts, and Paul van Somer, and many of the artificiers and tradesmen who had contributed to the magnificence of her court.
[48] John Chamberlain provided a satirical account of the procession, "a drawling tedious sight",[49] "laggering all along, even tired by the length of the way and the weight of their clothes, every lady having twelve yards of broadcloth about her and the countesses sixteen".
[52] According to Nathaniel Brent, the stone was a letter "S", a part of a motto forming the roof-line balustrade, and was "thrust down by a gentlewoman who put her foot against it, not thinking it had been so brickle" [brittle].
Anne of Denmark's body was buried privately in the evening at Westminster Abbey on 13 May, after the funeral, by the Knight Marshal Edward Zouch.
[54] During works in the Abbey in 1718, the antiquary John Dart saw a labelled urn containing the embalmed organs of Anne of Denmark,[55] which he thought had been moved in 1674 during the reburial of the Princes in the Tower.
The furniture painter and gilder, Thomas Capp and seven associates petitioned King James for payment of £1600 for household work supplied to the queen.
