As well as devotional articles, such as crucifixes and sacral art, the trade fair is also an acknowledgement that churches, especially historic cathedrals, can be expensive to run and need skilled craftsmen to maintain.

CNN: May 25, 2012 -- Updated 0815 GMT (1615 HKT)

It was the charismatic, even sacral powers of the king, and not bureaucracy, that underpinned regality in the reign of Henry VIII, and such powers were concentrated in the Privy Chamber, the innermost sanctum of the court, and not in institutions such as the exchequer, the courts of law, or even Parliament.

ECONOMIST: Tudor history