As we discussed in CA 397, the pendant is not thought to have belonged directly to either Henry or Katherine – there is no mention of anything similar in the extensive inventories that document the pair’s possessions, and, although the object is ornate and skilfully made, it also appears to have been produced quite hastily. It was probably made using Henry’s money, however. The king is known to have commissioned London goldsmiths on numerous occasions to create costume jewellery for courtiers to wear at state occasions and major celebrations; might this pendant represent a rare surviving example of this kind of bauble? Its chain measures 17 inches around, a fairly standard collar size in modern men’s shirts, but, although the pendant is slightly damaged, there is little evidence of ordinary use-wear indicating that it had been worn frequently or for any great length of time. The fact that the enamelling on its surface, while vibrant, is quite sparingly used might also suggest that the object had been destined for recycling in the goldsmith’s melting pot once it had served its intended purpose (something that might explain, too, why no similar artefacts are known).
Even if the pendant was only meant to be short-lived, however, its recipient would have been a high-ranking courtier. The whole piece weighs around 340g, and the strict sumptuary laws of the time (which dictated what people could wear depending on their station in life) banned anyone below the status of a baron, knight, or their sons from wearing gold ornaments of this size. It is thought that the object might have been intended as a prize for a noble participant in a tournament overseen by Katherine and Henry – and, given the make-up of its black enamel, which includes cobalt as a colourant, this event must have taken place before the 1530s. A key clue emerged early in the British Museum team’s historical research: while analysing the object’s imagery, they identified written sources from 1521 that document payments for the unpicking of embroideries on horse bards (decorative cloths) held in storage at Greenwich Palace, then an important royal residence, Descriptions of the textiles include all of the motifs that appear on the pendant – hands emerging from clouds, pomegranates, Tudor roses, and the letters H and K – and it is tempting to think that it could have been awarded at the same joust where these bards were worn. What could this occasion have been?
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We still do not know how, or when, it came to be buried in a Warwickshire field, far from the Tudor court. Its weight, roughly the same as a tin of soup, means that it is unlikely to have been a casual loss – unlike a coin or a ring, you would notice the difference if you dropped it. Perhaps it was hidden by one of the inhabitants of the county’s many castles, who thought it no longer prudent to own an object linking Henry and Katherine after their marriage was annulled (an event that saw the queen’s emblems stripped from architecture and objects alike). Perhaps it represents stolen goods buried for a retrieval that never came. Or perhaps it was a family heirloom secreted for safekeeping during a later crisis – possibly the English Civil War, in which Warwickshire played an active role. For now, this mystery endures, but the pendant represents a thought-provoking object full of stories that – like the ornate horse-cloths that hinted at its possible origins – are now being carefully unpicked.
https://the-past.com/news/devotion-and-diplomacy-examining-a-treasure-from-the-heart-of-the-tudor-court/
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