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Thomas Arundel and the Smoking Gun in 1399: Edward II’s letter to the pope in 1317. By ‘Smoking Gun’, we mean a piece of evidence which proves that Thomas Arundel was guilty of counterfeiting a religious sacrament. Arundel was everywhere directing events in 1399 but, 600 years later, we would like something concrete that shows how far he was willing to go to achieve his goal, and happily we have evidence that he was willing to commit a crime to reach it. Perhaps he thought that his heavenly patrons would forgive him his trespasses on the basis that he was working for the good of the church – she needed him back as archbishop of Canterbury to lead the fight against earthly evils of Wycliffism. The fact that all had gone so smoothly would have confirmed his belief that they were on his side. Arundel needed a mystical flux to turn his chosen one into the true king so he, like an ecclesiastical Merlin, magicked up a holy oil to anoint Henry with at the coronation. This oil was given by the Virgin Mary to St Thomas Becket who hid it. It was discovered by Henry of Grosmont and kept in a royal lumber room in an ampulla, attached to which was a piece of paper on which St Thomas Becket had written the whole story. The oil was awaiting a righteous king: ‘This is the oil with which the Kings of England must be anointed, not those who now reign because they are evil, and will be, and because of their sins they have lost much, and will lose, but they who will reign after’, Annales p298. The crime. What was written on the paper that went with this marvellous unguent was a forgery. As Arundel was in charge, and as he used this oil himself, and as the words on the paper suited his purposes so perfectly, he must have faked it himself. How do we know for sure that Arundel faked this, and, we might ask: what else did he fake? Richard II’s renunciation for example?. We can be sure because there already existed an oil with a story that contains all the major elements, except those that spoke of a Lancastrian heritage. The Vatican archives hold the copy of a letter sent by Pope John XXII to Edward II in 1317 in response to a letter from Edward II. The papal letter repeats the information in the royal letter and then gives a response. Edward II wanted to know if he could be anointed with an oil brought to him by a mystic. This oil had been given to St Thomas Becket by Mary and was destined for the 5th king from Henry II (Edward II) to help him against his adversaries. The mystic had decoded what St Thomas had written on a metal plate – words that only the mystic could decipher, and written them out on paper. The pope’s verdict was, yes, he could be anointed with the oil but only in private, and nobody must know about it. Thomas Arundel repurposed Edward II’s oil as a new Lancastrian oil that was waiting for a righteous king to be anointed with it. Those already familiar with the holy oil of Lancaster will surely be familiar with the factoid from a chronicle in which Richard II, vainly thinking he merited the sacred oil, would wear it on his breast in the pathetic hope it would do him some good, which it couldn’t as he was so unworthy. Here’s the Monk of St Denis and a report from ambassadors in 1399: ‘The ambassadors reported that the king (Henry IV) was superstitious, as were all the English, and that he had a marvellous trust in this eagle, and had decided to carry it on him always in the hope it would bring him victories over his enemies.’ The ‘eagle’ is the oil-filled ampulla. Caught red handed?