Due to the 1996 Treasure Act, which gives museums the first right of refusal on potential treasures to prevent them from disappearing into private hands, the British Museum has launched a campaign to raise £3.5 million for the ‘Tudor Heart’, a gold heart pendant associated with Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon.
Charlie Clarke, a metal detectorist from Warwickshire, unearthed the pendant in 2019, making it one of the few remaining objects from Henry VIII’s early reign. One side features an entwined Tudor rose with a pomegranate tree, while the other displays the letters H and K, bound together by white thread. Research suggests it was made around 1518, possibly to mark the betrothal of the then two-year-old Henry and Katherine’s daughter, Mary Tudor, to the Dauphin of France.
Damien Lewis, who portrays Henry VIII in the series Wolf Hall, publicly endorses the campaign, highlighting the pendant’s cultural and emotional significance as a tangible connection to England’s Tudor history.
