As part of its role as the custodian of the UK’s documentary heritage, the British Library frequently acquires items of significance to the nation. Thanks to the support of the British Library Collections Trust, curators recently acquired a unique 16th-century broadside mandate proclaiming Henry VIII’s supremacy (C.194.c.125).  

Issued in 1535 by the Bishop of Lincoln, it’s the earliest known printed evidence of a bishop’s support for the Reformation in England. It joins a rich collection of books and manuscripts relating to Henry VIII already held at the British Library, most notably Henry’s own book collection in the Old Royal Library.

The mandate asserting the Supremacy of King Henry VIII (C.194.c.125)

The Act of Supremacy was passed by Parliament in 1534, declaring Henry VIII supreme head on earth of the Church of England. In early June 1535, Henry VIII’s chief secretary, Thomas Cromwell sent a circular letter to all bishops in England and Wales.  

It contained an order for the bishops to declare Henry’s new title during all Sunday services as well as on high feast days. The bishops were also asked to spread these directives to all clergymen and schoolmasters in their dioceses. Complying with the orders was a matter of life and death: one of their own, the Bishop of Rochester, was awaiting his imminent execution for failing to support the king.  

The Bishop of Lincoln faced a particularly difficult task as the Lincoln diocese was one of the largest, both in area and number of parishes, and reaching everyone by manuscript letters alone proved challenging. Therefore, as the bishop explains in a letter to Cromwell, he had 2,000 copies of the mandate printed as a broadside. The British Library’s mandate is the only known copy to survive.  

Written in Latin and English, the mandate was directed both at the clergy and at parishioners. Used as the basis for sermons, it is also possible that the broadside would have been pinned up inside the church for everyone to see.

The text reveals the meticulous and ruthless detail with which Henry’s supremacy was enforced in the 1530s. Not only was every ‘true chrysten subject’ obliged to ‘recognise the kynges hyghnes to be supreme heed in erthe of the churche of England [recognise the King’s Highness to be Supreme Head on earth of the Church of England]’.  

They also had to ‘teache theyr chyldren and servants’ that the ‘bysshop of Rome [the Pope]’ has ‘usurped, not onely upon god, but also upon princes of this realme and theyr progenitours’.  

Consequently, any mention of the word ‘pope’ was to be erased from books. Indeed, today many books bear the traces of such deletions. For example, in a Polycronicon copy printed by William Caxton in 1482, someone has blacked out all mentions of the word ‘pope’.

Deletions of the word ‘pope’ in Ranulph Higden’s Polycronicon (IB. 55058)

Now sitting within the British Library’s rich Printed Heritage Collections, this unique mandate sheds light onto how printed material became a site of profound political and religious shifts during this tumultuous period in English history.  

By Alyssa Steiner
Curator, Printed Heritage Collections

Having retired from corporate finance, Martin Giles is using the Library to research his encyclopaedia of hippos.

Martin Giles

A few years ago, I was on holiday in Burkina Faso. We were in a wooden dugout looking at hippos, and a lady started asking the guide questions about them. I found that I was answering, and she turned around to me and said, ‘Are you some kind of a hippo expert or something?’ And I thought, gosh, actually, do you know what? I’ve just realised – I am. 

My book will be an alphabetical hippo encyclopaedia, with cross-referencing. It will cover everything from religion to recipes to how hippos have appeared throughout history. I think they’re an animal that has dignity; that is underappreciated. Hippos have always given me joy. 

My book is about the connections between hippos and other topics

With the resources provided by the Library, I have the opportunity to pursue this interest. I love sitting in the Reading Room surrounded by people being studious, and going to the Members’ Room to have a break and a cup of tea. 

A colleague of mine once asked, ‘What’s the world market for an encyclopaedia of hippos?’ I said to him, ‘That’s not why I’m doing it. I just think there should be one.’ 

However, in an encyclopaedia about birds, for example, you’d have a few chapters on general topics and then a page on every kind of bird for a thousand pages thereafter. Whereas there are only two kinds of hippos – pygmy and regular. My book is about the connections between hippos and other topics. 

Tutankhamun may have been killed by a hippo

The first pharaoh of unified Egypt, Menes, was supposedly carried away and killed by a hippo. One of the theories about Tutankhamun is that he was killed by a hippo, too. People may know that the first American president, George Washington, had dentures made out of hippopotamus ivory, but they don’t tend to know that another president, Thomas Jefferson, had a bit of a fixation with hippos. He was determined to prove that they existed in North America. 

I’m going to look at hippos in art and literature, and hippos on stamps, banknotes and coins. I was interested in the designers and engravers who created stamps with hippos on them, so I contacted the Philatelic Curator at the Library, and that has turned out to be an interesting path to pursue.

The first stamps with hippos on them are from Liberia

There are Roman coins with hippos on them, and bank notes from the Belgian Congo. The Library holds an archive of original artwork by the Crown Agents, who created the stamps for Britain and the Commonwealth. For about a decade, they did Liberian stamps as well. 

The first ever stamps with hippos on them were from Liberia in 1892. Liberia is associated with pygmy hippos, so there is an assumption that the hippos on the stamps are pygmy hippos. The president of the Liberian Philatelic Society even wrote a great article about it. But that point didn’t sit well with me, because the image looks like a regular hippo. 

The Library holds wonderful 19th-century books of engravings. The hippo engraved on the stamp was from Jumbo’s Picture Book of Natural History, created by a very experienced pair of engravers, The Brothers Dalziel (the firm who did Sir John Tenniel's illustrations for Alice in Wonderland). The engraving is clearly meant to be a regular hippo and has clearly been copied on the stamp. I got in touch with the Liberian Philatelic Society to have my theory peer reviewed. I’ve now written 24 articles for their journal, and this year, they elected me a director of the society. 

There’s no end to where hippos get

One thing that’s really surprised me is that the Library has so much literature that’s not in English. If I want to include a novel in my encyclopaedia – such as El Ruido de las Cosas al Caer by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, a Colombian novel that features the hippos of Pablo Escobar – I can read it in translation, but I can also check the original. 

There’s an Angolan novel called A General Theory of Oblivion in which an old woman decides to wall herself up in her apartment because she isn’t sure how to cope with the outcome of independence. But, on the balcony below hers, somebody is keeping a hippo. There’s no end to where hippos get.

I can even look at original manuscripts at the Library. There are medieval romances about Alexander the Great, in which, when he crosses into India, he sends 200 of his finest knights across the Indus River and they are eaten by hippos. Now, of course, the story is nonsense, but, as I research it, I get to handle volumes printed in the 15th century. 

There is no topic you can’t bring round to hippos

Hippos have a cuddly side to them, but they are said to be the world’s most dangerous animal. There are no good figures about that. One element of the project that I’ve found very interesting has been chasing down facts. You know, nobody keeps good records of how many people have been killed by hippos. 

I have a long-suffering wife. She has an acronym that we joke about: SHAWIG. It stands for ‘Spreading Hippopotamus Awareness Wherever I Go’. There is no topic you can’t bring round to hippos. For a relatively introverted person, it’s a great way of side-stepping conversational angst. Nobody writes an encyclopaedia because they’re an extrovert. This time last year we went to Colombia together, because I was chasing down the Pablo Escobar hippos. He imported four hippos, and now there are almost 200 living there. 

I’m currently ready to share a few letters of the alphabet with a publisher. I’m on E for Egypt, Pablo Escobar, earthquakes, eclipses – how do hippos respond to a solar eclipse? I don’t know if this is going to be the world’s leading encyclopaedia of hippos. But, in the meantime, it’s fun.

As told to Lucy Peters