English church wants to exhume skull of Tudor saint decapitated by Henry VIII
St. Dunstan's Church in Canterbury is asking parochial leaders to open its tomb of Thomas More ahead of the 500th anniversary of his 1535 murder, the Times of London reported.
More, a Tudor lawyer to the English monarchy, was decapitated on Tower Hill on the orders of King Henry VIII after refusing to recognize the axe-happy monarch as the head of the Church of England during the English Reformation's separation from the Vatican.
St. Thomas More was executed in 1535 after he refused to recognize King Henry VII as head of the church.
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After the execution More's body was tossed in a mass grave at the Tower of London, while his head was parboiled and stuck on a spike over the Thames for passersby to see.
And it would have been tossed into the river had More's daughter not paddled down the waterway and retrieved it — and kept it preserved and hidden away until she died years later, with the head being encased in lead and buried with her at St. Dunstan's, according to legend.
Over the coming centuries More gained a following as devotee of his faith, and in 1935 — the 400th anniversary of his execution — was made a saint by the Vatican.
And now the church council at St. Dunstan's wants to exhume whatever remains of More's skull to begin preserving it for the 500th anniversary of his death, but needs permission from Canterbury's commissary court before any action can be taken, the Times reported.
'We could just put it back in the vault, maybe in a reliquary of some kind, or we could place the reliquary in some sort of shrine or carved stone pillar above ground in the Roper chapel, which is what many of our visitors have requested,' St. Dunstan's said in a statement.
More's skull is entombed at St. Dunstan's Church in Canterbury.
Benefice of St. Dunstan / Facebook
Nobody is quite sure what state the skull's remains are even in.
The vault containing the skull was accidentally opened in 1835 during construction, and in 1997 it was placed in a secured niche in the vault's wall — but it hasn't been seen since. During both of those years, the lead casing around the skull was seen broken open and the bones were fragmented.
'Having the relic deteriorating in a vault is not good enough for many who venerate Thomas More. He's here, he's staying here — despite many of our Catholic visitors who would like him back — and we need to consider our ecumenical responsibility,' the church added.
The exhumation would seek to preserve whatever remains of the skull, and the church is seeking nearly $70,000 in donations for the process.
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