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Each piece of jewellery has a truly unique gem made from Heather which is a plant native. As for the spelling, while Catherine’s name was spelled various ways during the period, Braganza said that manuscripts signed by Catherine show her writing it with a K. Unique Scottish Jewellery hand crafted and made here in Scotland. Henry had three wives named Catherine, but only Catherine of Aragon was around when Holbein was at court. Wow what a selection to choose from Loved looking at all the designs of every sort of jewellery. Heathergems is a family run business based in Scotland that has handcrafted a wide variety of jewelry since the 1950s. We loved the filmshow which explained how the jewellery is made, there was only one lady in the workshop when we visited, but then we moved into the shopping area. After an afternoon, she had it: HENRICVS REX and KATHERINE. Heathergems was recommended to us and it didnt disappoint. She started with the letters that had to be there, based on the pen strokes, then worked through other possibilities. When completing a chapter on the proliferation of ciphers at Henry’s court, she looked up the digitized images from the “Jewellery Book,” as the collection of drawings by Holbein at the British Museum is known.Īs she idly puzzled over them, one oval-shaped tangle in particular tugged at her. Heathergems is a family run business based in Scotland that has handcrafted a wide variety of jewelry since the 1950s. The Catherine/Henry cipher came to her attention this spring, through a similar moment of serendipity. (The volume, a biography of Cyrus the Great of Persia, is now owned by Harvard’s Houghton Library.) “This was a book that wasn’t supposed to exist,” Braganza said.