The Legend of Thomas Moore's Skull...

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Thomas Moore was a close friend of Henry VIII and later one of the men he had executed for treason during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It is likely that the king was under the influence of his wife Protestant Anne Boleyn, because she apparently despised the Catholic thinker.  

On 1st July 1535, on Tower Hill, Tower of London, Thomas Moore, Tudor scholar, was beheaded because he refused to turn to the new faith that the king had introduced to England. On that day he was martyred. A martyr is a man or woman who dies for their belief (e.g: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Thomas A' Becket, who has been proved to be an ancestor of Anne Boleyn!). The king ordered that the man's severed head was to be displayed as a warning on the bridge. Here is were the legend begins, this is the basic although because it is a legend, there are many version.

When the executioner was sent to take down the displayed heads and dispose of them by throwing them into the Thames, Moore's daughter- Margaret Roper- took her father's head away for a Christian burial. This task had to be done discreetly in fear that the plan would be discovered. The executioner was more than likely bribed by money to hand over the head, but nevertheless Margaret carried her deceased father's head in a bag.

The head was kept by Margaret until her death when it became the possession of her eldest daughter Lady Elizabeth Bray. It was only after Lady Bray's death in 1558, where it was probably placed in a vault in St Dunstan's Church, Canterbury. The skull was discovered when the church was involved in an accident when the roof of the vault was broken, in 1835. It was resealed with a plaque telling you of the find. The remains must still be there today! 

There is a chance that this may be a myth but it is nice to think that it is a famous person's skull!

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