Henry VIII aide ‘saved Catholic manuscript during dissolution of monasteries’

• Sir John Gage, a key enforcer during Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, secretly saved a forbidden Catholic manuscript that he was tasked with destroying.
• Academics from the universities of Cambridge and Sussex identified a six-page fragment in a Brighton archive that matches a manuscript held at Yale University.
• The manuscript is a 15th-century copy of Nicholas Love's Mirror Of The Blessed Life Of Jesus Christ , bearing Gage's signature on the final page.
• Gage, who remained a Catholic throughout the Reformation, is believed to have acquired and hidden the text during the chaotic dissolution period.
• The study, published in the journal Notes And Queries , highlights how secret networks helped rescue and preserve Catholic literature despite widespread book destruction.

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Henry VIII enforcer ‘secretly saved Catholic book he was meant to destroy’