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A Fake Royal Charter of Henry II

Vellum charter confirming the possessions granted to the Priory of Plessis-Grimoult, in the diocese of Bayeux. Vellum charter confirming the possessions granted to the Priory of Plessis-Grimoult, in the diocese of Bayeux.

Pseudo-Henry II, King of England, “Charter to the Canons of Plessis-Grimoult,” confirming rights to land and taxation, manuscript on vellum c. 1153 [after 1189]

Originally thought to bear one of the only surviving autographs of Thomas à Beckett, in the early 20th century the awkward and anachronistic language of this charter convinced the French historian Léopold Delisle that it was a forgery. Just as written charters gained greater prominence as legal evidence of rights and privileges around the 12th century, post facto confirmations of earlier verbal agreements, whether real or imagined, became commonplace.

This medieval charter was sold by the priory in 1835, and the connection to Beckett, however spurious, proved irresistible to its purchaser, the English antiquary Thomas Stapleton (1805–49).