July 7. 1855.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



LONDON. SATURDAY, JULY1, 1865. 



OUR TWELFTH VOLUME. 



In commencing our Twelfth Volume We cannot 

 resist giving utterance to a few words of courteous ac- 

 knowledgment to all those Friends, Contributors, and 

 Readers to whose kind assistance We are indebted for 

 our success. We thank them all most heartily. And 

 while We venture with confidence to direct their at- 

 tention to our present Number, as a proof that custom 

 does not stale the infinite variet}' of our pages. We pro- 

 mise them increased exertions to make " Notes and 

 Queries " deserving of a continuance of that favour which 

 has hitherto been so lavishly bestowed upon it. — Vale. 



3aie^, 



COPT OF THE " ASSKRTIO SEPTEM SACEAMENTORUM 

 AD VERSUS LUTHERUM," PRESENTED BT HENRY 

 VIII. TO THE POPE IN 1521. 



Evelyn, in his Diary, vol. i. p. 128. (edit. 1819), 

 speaking of his visit to the Vatican library at 

 Kome, Jan. 18, 1644-5, and the rarities he had 

 seen there, after mentioning the two Virgils, the 

 Terence, &c., adds, " what we English do much 

 inquire after, the booke which our Hen. VIII. writ 

 against Luther." The late editor, Mr. Bray, sub- 

 joins the following note : 



" This very book, hj one of those curious chances that 

 occasionally happens, has recently been brought to Eng- 

 land, where the editor has seen it ; and, what is very re- 

 markable, wherever the title of Defender of the Faith is 

 subjoined to the name of Henry, the Pope has drawn his 

 pen through the epithet. The name of the king occurs 

 in his own handwriting, both at the beginning and end; 

 and on the binding are the royal arms. The present pos- 

 sessor [Mr. Woodburn] purchased it in Italy for a few 

 shillings from an old book-stall." 



In this statement, Mr. Bray is unquestionably 

 in error. The volume he mentions was after- 

 wards presented by Mr. Woodburn to the Fitz- 

 william Museum, at Cambridge, where I saw it 

 in 1846, and where it is exhibited to visitors as the 

 identical copy sent by King Henry VIII. to the 

 Pope, which was stolen from the Vatican library 

 during the time the French were in Italy. It is 

 in the original binding, and signed by the King at 

 the beginning and end, but is printed on paper, 

 whereas the copy presented by Henry to the Pope 

 was printed on vellum ; and so far from having 

 been " stolen from the Vatican," no doubt exists 

 there at this moment. At all events, it was safely 

 preserved there subsequent to my visit to the 

 Fitzwilliam Museum, as proved by Sir George 

 Head's account of the Vatican library in his work 

 entitled Rome, a Tour of many Days, 8vo., 1849; 

 in which, among " a few particular objects con- 

 sidered the staple curiosities of the region" (Sir 



No. 297.1 o V 



George is but a poor bibliographer) actually seen 

 by him, he specifies : 



" The ' Assertio Septem Sacramentorum,' written by 

 Henry VIII., a royal literary effort in defence of the sevea 

 Roman Catholic Sacraments, that procured the title of 

 Defender of the Faith for the author ; " 



And he then proceeds to describe it as — 



" A good thick octavo volume, written in Latin, and 

 printed in the year loOl [a mistake for 1521] in London, 

 on vellum. The type is clear, with a broad margin, and 

 at the beginning is the original presentation address to 

 Leo X. as follows, subscribed by the royal autograph : 



" ' Anglorum Rex Henricus, Leo Decime, mittit 

 Hoc opus, et fidei testis * et amicitiae.' " 



Strype, in his Memorials, vol. i. p. 51. (ed. 1822), 

 states that the presentation of the book to the 

 Pope was brought about by the means of Cardinal 

 Wols^, " who procured some copies to be written 

 in a very fine and beautiful character, and one of 

 them to be bound up splendidly, namely, that that 

 was to be sent especially to the Pope, and the said 

 cardinal sent that especially to the King, for his 

 liking of it, before it went." It would be desirable 

 to know the authoi'Ity of Strype for these asser- 

 tions. The book itself was printed by Pynson, 

 " apud inclytam urbem Londinum, in aedibus 

 Pynsonianis, an. mdxxi, quarto idus Julli," and 

 from the original correspondence of Dr. John 

 Clerk (the King's Orator at Rome) to Vi^'olsey, pre- 

 served in the Cottonian MS. Vitellius, b. iv., two 

 of the most important letters of which are printed 

 by Sir H. Ellis in vol. i. pp. 257. 262. of his third 

 series of Original Letters, it appears that no less 

 than twenty-eight copies (apparently printed 

 ones), each signed by the King's own hand, were 

 forwarded to Rome, out of which number, at a 

 private interview with the Pope, in September, 

 1521, Dr. Clerk delivered two copies to his Holi- 

 ness, one of which was covered with cloth of gold, 

 and at the end of this copy (not at the beginning, 

 as stated by Sir G. Head) were two verses in the 

 King's autograph, "wry ten with a very small 

 penne," and which, although stated by Clerk to be 

 of the King's own composition, were in reality sent 

 to Henry by Cardinal Wolsey, to be Inserted in 

 the Pope's copy. Five or six more copies, at the 

 Pope's request, were sent to him by Dr. Clerk, to 

 be delivered to sundry learned cardinals ; and 

 after the public presentation of the book to the 

 Pope in full consistory, held on the 2nd Octo- 

 ber (the whole process of which is related by 

 Clerk), the remaining copies were forwarded, by 

 direction of Cardinal Wolsey, " to various regions, 



* Lalande, who saw this book in the Vatican in 1765, 

 reads (in his Voyage d'ltalie, tom. iii. p. 259., 1769, 

 12mo.) tesiem, and says that these two verses were written 

 by the king's own hand ; a fact meant probably also to 

 be expressed by the ambiguous words of Sir G. Head, 

 quoted above. 



