Page 85 - All About History 55 - 2017 UK

Lost Treasures

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King John’s jewels

In October 1216, King John was on the run. The French
had invaded England with support from the Scots,
while his own English barons were openly revolting
against him for asking the pope to annul the Magna
Carta. Retreating from the French, the king headed
north, travelling through the wild marshlands of East
Anglia from the port town of King’s Lynn to Lincoln.
In his haste it seems that the king may have not
hired a guide to lead him through the Fens. His train
crossed the Wash, a shallow estuary, at low tide and
the slow baggage carts became caught in the mud as
the tide turned. The animals and their cargo were lost
in the rush of water.
Exactly what was lost in the Wash remains
unknown, but John was devastated. While local legend
that his crown and other royal regalia were among
the buried treasures seems wishful thinking, we do
know that his jewellery, plate and other valuables
were. John fell ill with dysentery and died that same
month, his spirit broken.
There have been various attempts to find the jewels
but the shifting landscape makes it difficult. In 2015,
archaeologists using lasers were confident that they
could map John’s route but were ultimately unable to
detect any signs of the treasure. What’s more, every
passing tide deposits more silt across the burial site,
making discoveries more and more unlikely.
“exactly what was LAst Known
LocAtion
lost in the w ash East Anglia,

remains unknown ” King John’s reign was defined by the England
signing of Magna Carta of 1215

4 treasure of Lima By the 1800s, the Spanish colonies
of the New World were beginning to
LAst Known flex their muscles — they could no
Hundreds of treasure hunters LocAtion longer be relied on to simply give up
have headed to Cocos Island
to try and find the treasure their vast supplies of gold. With Peru’s
Cocos Island,
loyalty looking shaky, the governor of
Costa Rica Lima decided to evacuate the state’s
treasury to the safety of Mexico. He
entrusted the hoard to a Newfoundland
captain called William Thompson, who
promptly disappeared with the golden
Incan statues, diamonds and bullion.
Thompson and his crew were later
captured, though without their plunder.
Many of the crew were hanged for
piracy but Thompson managed to
escape the noose by promising to reveal
the location of treasure. He led the
Spanish to Cocos Island but fled into the
jungle, never to be recaptured. Was the
treasure really buried on Cocos, or was it
just a convenient spot for Thompson to
make a getaway?

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