Vatican to give Queen a copy of Henry VIII's divorce plea
A facsimile of an historic document from the Vatican Secret Archives in which English peers appeal to Pope Clement VII to annul Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon is to be given to the Queen tomorrow.
The 95 x 46cm (37 x 18in) parchment, which dates from 1530 and bears 81 red wax seals, is a key document of events leading to the schism between Rome and the Church in England.
Scrinium, a Venice-based publisher that promotes the historic and cultural wealth of the Vatican and reproduces treasures from its archives, said that the facsimile would be presented to Lady Roberts, the Royal Librarian since 2002. The collectors’ item normally costs €50,000 (£44,000).
The document, Causa Anglica, is the fourth treasure from the Secret Archives to be reproduced. It joins facsimiles of the papal bull announcing the first Jubilee or Holy Year in 1300, Munificentia Venetiarum, a 16th-century Venetian document on relations with the Church of Rome, and the Chinon Parchment, the record of the trial of the Knights Templar in the 14th century, in which they were exonerated of heresy. A second copy of the Henry VIII parchment is held at the National Archives at Kew, but it lacks the wax seals and is in parts illegible.
Vatican historians say that whatever the later causes of the schism, the “most immediate and determining cause” was Henry VIII’s “wish to get rid of his legitimate wife, Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, in order to marry Anne Boleyn.”
Read entire article at The Times Online
The 95 x 46cm (37 x 18in) parchment, which dates from 1530 and bears 81 red wax seals, is a key document of events leading to the schism between Rome and the Church in England.
Scrinium, a Venice-based publisher that promotes the historic and cultural wealth of the Vatican and reproduces treasures from its archives, said that the facsimile would be presented to Lady Roberts, the Royal Librarian since 2002. The collectors’ item normally costs €50,000 (£44,000).
The document, Causa Anglica, is the fourth treasure from the Secret Archives to be reproduced. It joins facsimiles of the papal bull announcing the first Jubilee or Holy Year in 1300, Munificentia Venetiarum, a 16th-century Venetian document on relations with the Church of Rome, and the Chinon Parchment, the record of the trial of the Knights Templar in the 14th century, in which they were exonerated of heresy. A second copy of the Henry VIII parchment is held at the National Archives at Kew, but it lacks the wax seals and is in parts illegible.
Vatican historians say that whatever the later causes of the schism, the “most immediate and determining cause” was Henry VIII’s “wish to get rid of his legitimate wife, Catherine of Aragon, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, in order to marry Anne Boleyn.”