Henry VIII – so much has been handed down – loved life, at least his own, and especially women, at least at times. The former King of England (1509 to 1547) from the House of Tudor had six marriages, two were annulled, two women presumably died naturally, and the ruler had two executed.
The monarch’s tumultuous and cruel love life is making British headlines again now, 476 years after his death – and one little English boy will benefit from it. Credit for that goes to Charlie Clarke, a 34-year-old restaurateur from Birmingham.
In 2019, according to British newspapers, Clarke was out and about with a metal detector in the county of Warwickshire in central England, he had only discovered the hobby for himself a month earlier. Once again he was unsuccessful, only discovered “garbage”, as he says according to the “Financial Times”. car batteries, scrap metal. “To be honest, I’ve had enough of digging,” Clarke said – until his detector went off again. And Clarke started digging. Around 30 centimeters deep.
Then he screamed, “like a little schoolgirl. My voice got pretty high,” reports the amateur treasure hunter to the “Guardian”. He had discovered a gold chain with 75 links and a heart-shaped pendant. You make a find like this “once in 30 years,” says Clarke. But he didn’t know whether the piece of jewelry was really valuable, after all, not all that glitters is gold. Clarke needed professionals.
He found it in the British Museum. But they didn’t give the finder much hope. “We have here the largest collection of precious metal objects from the early Tudor period. None of them look like it – they tend to be smaller. Things like this have not really survived,” says Rachel King, Curator of European Renaissance at the British Museum. There was even a suspicion that the necklace was a fake, reports the research journal Smithsonian Magazine.
To be on the safe side, the chain was checked again by other experts. Gold content, tool marks from the maker, processing technique and components only allow one conclusion: The chain is genuine and from the 16th century, made around 1520, perhaps on the occasion of a magnificent summit meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I, King of France she also a prize at a jousting tournament.
The necklace was later intended to prove Henry VIII’s intermittent love for his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. An “H” and a “K” are engraved on the pendant, along with a play on words from the French “toujours” and the English “all yours”. The piece of jewelry is decorated with a Tudor rose, among other things. However, the scientists cannot prove the possible connection. And how did the chain get into Warwickshire soil? “We don’t know,” says museum curator Ricarda King.
One thing is certain: the restaurateur from Birmingham has made a sensational discovery. Nothing of this Renaissance grandeur and importance has not been found in Britain for more than two decades, King reports. “The quality is such that the necklace was either commissioned by, or somehow associated with, a member of the higher nobility or courtier.”
The find is now on display in the British Museum and once its value is appraised, Charlie Clarke and the owner of the site property in Warwickshire are to each get half of it. The 34-year-old wants to use the money to give his four-year-old son “the best possible education”. “That’s all it’s really about.” At the moment, however, his offspring has other plans for their professional future, says his father. Clarke Junior only wants to be one thing later: treasure hunters.
Quellen: “The Guardian”, “Financial Times”, “Smithsonian Magazine”, BBC
