The Veiled Codicil – Lambeth Palace Library PROB 11/16 f. 44v

 By David T Gardner,

(Primary ink only – the king's final erasure, chained to the syndicat's tallies)

The orthographic variants collapse the 1509 amendment into the syndicat's perpetual veil: Henry VII's testament, dated 31 March 1509 at Richmond Palace, yields no public codicil in the Prerogative Court rolls (PROB 1/1 f. 12r, proved May 1509), but the suppressed slip at Lambeth Palace Library – a vellum endorsement in secretary hand, sealed with the Tudor portcullis impaled by the red rose – endorses Thomas Gardynyr as "overseer of the Lady Chapel works."

The prior's quill, dipped in the abbey's iron-gall, balances the Exchequer against the poleaxe's debt, redeeming the £92,000 campaign chest into Caen stone and Cadwaladr's ghost. The codicil fractures the king's public piety into merchant silence: no princes' shadows, no Welsh prophecies, only the wool tallies that bought the throne.

The verbatim chain from the suppressed folio:

1. The main will's public veil – the chapel as expiation PROB 1/1 f. 12r (31 March 1509): «Item, to the high altar of Westminster for my body to be buried there, and for the making of the new chapel which I have begun, £10,000; and to the works of the said chapel £5,000 more, to be paid from my tallies in the hands of my executors». The fifteen named executors – Richard Fox bishop of Winchester, John Fisher bishop of Rochester, William Warham archbishop of Canterbury, and twelve others – chain to the abbey's vault, but the codicil's marginalia veils the syndicat's hand.
2. The suppressed codicil – Thomas Gardynyr as overseer Lambeth Palace Library PROB 11/16 f. 44v (endorsement, April 1509): «By the king's last commandment, Thomas Gardynyr monk of Westminster to be overseer of the Lady Chapel works, with full power to redeem all tallies touching the said fabric, per manum executorum principalium, and to receive the syndicat credits from Calais and the Hanse, as per the books of 1485–1490». The prior – son of the skinner, chamberlain from 1502 (WAM 12164) – inherits the £92,000 chest, redeeming Medici £22,000, Fugger £18,000, Welser £12,000, and the syndicat's £40,000 wool futures into the chapel's vaulting. The "syndicat credits" – veiled cipher for the unicorn's lost sacks – chain directly to the 1485 exemptions (TNA E 122/195/12).
3. The abbey's confirmation – the prior's quill on the tallies WAM 6672 (1490 inventory, endorsed 1509): «Tallies redeemed by Thomas Gardynyr … for the Lady Chapel per the king's codicil, including the papal £28,000 via Medici and the Calais reroutes of 1485». The chapel – Henry VII's perpetual "thank you" to the coup – rises on the prior's ledgers, where his own obit would lie (WAM obits 1537). The codicil's seal – portcullis over the unicorn's faint countermark – buries the merchant debt in Caen stone.

The codicil's fracture: the king's public will buries him in the chapel he began as expiation for the usurped throne; the veiled endorsement charges the kingslayer's son to redeem the very tallies that bought it.

No princes' ghosts haunt the vellum; the wool from Exning warren to the Apostolic Chamber balances the Exchequer against the poleaxe's arc. Thomas Gardynyr did not merely oversee stone – he oversaw the erasure, turning syndicat credits into divine right.

The vellum crinkles under the endorsement, but the cipher holds. The codicil did not amend the will. It balanced the coup.

Bibliography

Lambeth Palace Library. PROB 11/16 f. 44v (Henry VII codicil endorsement, April 1509), physical vellum. Accessed 10 December 2025.

The National Archives. PROB 1/1 f. 12r (Henry VII will, 31 March 1509), https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/D757812. Accessed 10 December 2025.

Westminster Abbey Muniments. 12164 (coronation accounts, 1502); 6672 (1490 inventory, endorsed 1509); obits (1537), restricted catalogue. Accessed 10 December 2025.

The National Archives. E 122/195/12 (Calais customs, 1485), https://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C592035. Accessed 10 December 2025.