500-year-old gold pendant made for Henry VIII’s daughter’s marriage to sell for £3.5m after find by metal detectorist

Posted by thoughtful_human

12 comments

  2. A spectacular gold pendant linked to Henry VIII’s marriage to Katharine of Aragon could be saved for the nation – but it will come at a hefty price.

    The artefact, which is marked with the letters ‘H’ and ‘K’, was found in 2019 by a cafe owner from Birmingham who had only had his metal detector for six months.

    The detectorist, Charlie Clarke, will become a millionaire if the British Museum’s campaign to raise £3.5million to buy the pendant at market value is successful.

    The Museum today launches a bid to save the ‘Tudor Heart’ with the help of funds from the general public.

    According to research by experts from the Museum, the 24 carat gold artefact may have been created for a tournament held in October 1518 to mark the betrothal of Henry VIII’s and Katharine’s daughter, Princess Mary, to the French heir apparent.

    Henry regularly commissioned London goldsmiths to create costume jewellery for major celebrations and state occasions.

    They were worn briefly by members of the court to create the impression of great splendour.

    The pendant unites the Tudor rose with Katherine’s pomegranate symbol, and features a banner that reads ‘tousiors’, the old French for ‘always’.

    After it was found in a Warwickshire field, the pendant was reported under the Treasure Act 1996.

    Under the Act, any object that is declared treasure becomes the property of the Crown and is kept safe so that museums or galleries in England can buy it.

    The proceeds of the purchase are typically shared with the person who found it and the landowner. Mr Clarke could therefore be set for a £1.75million windfall.

    Speaking about his discovery in 2023, Mr Clarke told The Guardian: ‘I had found a few coins before, nothing special. But I knew it was gold.

    ‘When you see that colour then that is what you are there for as a metal detectorist.’

    His ‘once in 30 lifetimes’ find caused him, he said, to shriek ‘like a little schoolgirl’.

  3. They call it a pendant but it also seems to be a locket. What would have been kept inside one of these?

  5. Oh how exciting! I wonder how it wouldn’t up in the field…I feel like there must be a good story behind that.

  6. Wasn’t it a betrothal when she was a child, not an actual marriage?

  7. I’m surprised he was allowed to keep it and sell it at market value? Would’ve thought it fell under the found treasure act or whatever it’s called.

  9. Henry VIII’s daughter 🤮 top reporting by the daily fail as always.

  10. How does something that important end up in a field?

    Some royal out for a stroll and happens to drop it without noticing?

  11. Any portraits of Princess Mary wearing it? Do you think she stopped wearing it after the divorce of her parents?

  12. Absolutely gorgeous and a metal detectorist’s dream.

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