White told CNN on Tuesday that he found the margins “quite unexpectedly” while looking at the book and recognized them from his previous work on Henry VIII.
“I was just astonished,” White said. “I didn’t know there was marginalia in the book.”
Henry left two distinct types of markup. The first, known as “manicles”, are drawings of a hand with a pointed index finger, and the second are “rails”, which are three dots with a squiggle.
White then compared the marginal markings with well-known marks left by Henry in other books and concluded that the prayerbook scribbles were also made by the king, because of their size, shape and design, including the fact that the manicles feature a cuff. distinct.
Parr gave the book, which is currently housed at the Wormsley Library in Stokenchurch, England, for Henry as a gift. Printed in 1544, it “contains prayers for repentance, for wisdom, for the destruction of enemies, and for the king and his army,” according to White.
“It’s clear that when he read them, there were certain things on his mind,” said White, who found a total of 14 hand-drawn scribbles in the margins of four psalms.
Henry infamously created a schism in the church so that he could marry his second wife, Anne Boleyn.
A passage in the prayer book says that God’s chastisement left the narrator “feeble”, and Henry himself was in poor health at the time.
“He’s worried that God is punishing him with a physical illness,” White said.
Henry was also at war with France and the book – with further copies distributed to selected courtiers – would have played an important role in garnering support for the conflict among those who received it, according to White.
Henry’s own copy, including the marginalia, would have been read by chosen courtiers, giving it a political function as well as reflecting his personal thoughts, White said.
“I think he’s trying to show that he’s exemplary,” she said, referring to the marginalia alongside passages where the narrator asks God to bring him back to the right path.
“He’s obviously very concerned,” White said. “At the end of his reign, he definitely had a lot to worry about.”
The study was published in the journal Renaissance Quarterly .
Source: CNN Brasil
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