Both estimates are out of my price range, but would be interesting to have!
First up is a Tudor “Esses collar” that will be auctioned at Christie’s in December and is expected to go for £1,000,000 (about $1,850,000 US at today’s exchange rate).
From The Indpendent:
The merciless punishments Henry VIII meted out to his enemies have been well documented. Less is known about how, on the rarer occasions when the king was happy with the service of his courtiers or the country’s most eminent noblemen, he liked to give them a golden livery collar or heavy chain as a token of his gratitude.
Henry VIII only awarded around 20 of the chains. They were all engraved with the characters SS, referring to the Latin religious creed, Spiritus Sanctus (Holy Spirit), though none were believed to have survived in their entirety.
Now, however, the first complete “collar of the Esses”, as they were known, has been discovered in the family home of the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The collar was presented to Edward Montagu, the then Lord Chief Justice, by King Henry in the 1540s.
And second is another clipping of hair, this time from Mary Queen of Scots. This one is expected to fetch about £3000. You can see the item here at the website of the Lyon and Turnbull auction house.
Update: The lock of hair ended up selling for £7200, purchased by an anonymous bidder.
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Perhaps I’m just cynical, but were queens of the period likely to leave cuttings of hair conveniently behind in their palace chest of drawers, labelled “a lock of my own hair,” signed “Mary R”?
But maybe someone else can say that this was a common practice …?
OK, I’m in a nitpicky mood.
“I have traced it back to the wife of Edward III, who was the daughter of the king of France, who had a brooch with the letters on it, and she gave it to her son, John of Gaunt, who used it as livery.” I think Philippa of Hainault, Edward III’s wife, would be surprised to hear she was the daughter of the King of France.
Didn’t Mary wear a wig?
The thing that I thought was odd about the note of Mary’s was that she tended to sign things “Marie”, with the French spelling. But I guess that doesn’t necessarily mean she *always* did.. I haven’t looked at any original Scottish government documents from her reign, so it’s possible she didn’t use that spelling on them. I’ve just mostly seen letters (well, images of letters, not the real things!) And yes, she did wear a wig, but she still had hair underneath it, which was revealed when the executioner accidentally pulled it off when he was trying to lift up her head.
Re the quote in the Collar article – Philippa being the daughter of the King of France reminds me of all the articles I’ve come across saying that Elizabeth I had her sister Bloody Mary Queen of Scots executed.
Or the one that informed its readers that Anne of Cleves was the second wife of Henry VIII. (!!)
I’m hoping Christie’s puts a nice photo on their site when the auction gets closer, since I’d love to see it. I’ve seen photos of the Lord Mayor’s collar, but I’d like to see this one too. I’ll keep an eye out and post it on the blog if I find a photo of the auction collar.
I noticed the Mary/Marie discrepancy too but I just find the whole story behind the lock rather suspicious:
“The lock of hair contained with this casket was part of a larger find made by the 8th Lord Belhaven in his position of High Commissioner of Scotland. The main of the lock was subsequently gifted to Her Majesty Queen Victoria and formed part of her collection of Queen Mary Stuart relics.”
Queen Victoria (and many Victorians) were big Mary Queen of Scots fans and Lord Belhaven may have had incentive for making this unusual find. Also, locks of hair seem to be the romantic preoccupation of later ages than the Tudors (when they dug up Catherine Parr in 1782 they took several locks of hair), but especially of the Victorians. Weren’t there strict rules for disposing of the monarch’s hair in the Middle Ages so it couldn’t be used for magical charms against him or her? I don’t know if there were still those sort of restrictions in effect during the 16th century, but I don’t think the attendants would leave it lying around. And why would Mary wrap it up, label it herself, and tuck it into a drawer in Holyrood?
It will be interesting to see if it sells, or if it does, what it ends up going for. The auction house seems to be convinced of its authenticity, which is interesting. I guess they could only get in to trouble if it was somehow proven that they deliberately ignored or covered-up something proving that it wasn’t authentic. As the saying goes IANAL – I am not a lawyer.
It’s a pity that cloning techniques aren’t more advanced, as the authenticity of the lock could be proven by cloning a genuine Mary Queen of Scots from it …
LOL! There’s a thought.
Hmmm…looks like she left yet more hair lying around…this time apparently without a helpful identifying note written in English:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2008/08/30/do3008.xml
Plus Sir Thomas More’s hat!
No wonder she had to wear a wig, she kept cutting off locks of her hair to give away!!
http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=searchresults&intObjectID=5132875&sid=e8e79f98-9db5-4045-9630-a94d27acd818
Here is the collar from the Christie’s web site. I just found your site the other day – what a lot of fun! I LOVE Tudor history, and never would have seen this collar if I hadn’t found the article on your site. Thank you!!
A.L. – You’re welcome and thanks for digging up the Christie’s link!