Thorn 'from head of Christ' that came to Scotland

IT was one of the most revered religious artefacts of medieval Christianity, a precious piece of which was brought to Scotland by Mary Queen of Scots.

Now a single thorn from the Crown of Thorns, reputedly worn by Christ when he was mocked and crucified, is to go on public display for the first time.

The thorn is held in a container with the queen's pearls entwined around it. Mary was said to have been given the precious relic by her father-in-law, King Henry II of France, when she married his eldest son Francis, Dauphin of France, in 1558.

The Crown of Thorns had been in the possession of the French kings since King Louis IX, the only French monarch to be declared a saint, bought it in Venice in 1239.

The king acquired it for 135,000 livres - nearly half the annual expenditure of his kingdom.

It was plundered from Constantinople, which was the capital of the Byzantine Empire, in the Fourth Crusade around the year 1200.

The relic was kept in Paris in the specially built Saint Chapel with individual thorns being broken off and given as presents to people who were marrying into the family.

Mary Queen of Scots brought the thorn with her when she returned to Holyrood in Edinburgh in 1561 after the early death of her first husband, one year earlier.

It stayed in her possession until her execution in 1587, after which it was given to her loyal servant, Thomas Percy.

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Percy passed it on to his daughter, Elizabeth Woodruff, who in her turn gave it to her confessor - a Jesuit priest - in 1600.

The Jesuits brought the thorn with them to Stonyhurst College, a 400-year-old Jesuit boarding school in Clitheroe, Lancashire, where it has been kept for the past 200 years in a glass cylinder with the queen's pearls wrapped around it.

The school keeps the relic in a safe but once a year, during Holy Week, places it in the school chapel for the pupils to see.

Stonyhurst College curator Jan Graffius said: "It is an incredible object and we are really delighted that it will form part of the British Museum exhibition. It is a priceless treasure."

Trade in holy relics was a huge business in medieval Europe and kings would assemble large collections and even go to war to secure them.

The exhibition, at the British Museum in London, features some of the finest sacred treasures of the medieval age, which have been collected from more than 40 institutions and many of which have not been seen in the UK before.The thorn will sit among rare loans from the Vatican, including from the private chapel of the popes and the Sancta Sanctorum.

Whilst the majority of objects date from between 1000 to 1500AD, some of the earliest pieces include a late Roman sarcophagus dating from between 250 to 350AD.

It will be one of the major attractions of the Treasures of Heaven exhibition, inspired by saints' relics and devotion in medieval Europe.

The exhibition opens on 23 June and runs until 9 October.