A key enforcer for Henry VIII secretly saved a Catholic book he was tasked with destroying, a study has found.
Sir John Gage, portrayed in Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall trilogy as a dependable figure while serving as Constable of the Tower and Privy Counsellor, was a key agent in the dissolution of the monasteries.
However, research reveals that Gage, who remained a Catholic throughout the Reformation, shielded a manuscript of Nicholas Love’s early 15th-century Mirror Of The Blessed Life Of Jesus Christ.
Academics from the universities of Cambridge and Sussex identified a six-page fragment stored at The Keep Archive in Brighton as belonging to a manuscript held at Yale University in the US.
The fragment was contained within 46 boxes of documents deposited on loan by Gage’s family with the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1929.
It is believed the pages became detached after Gage acquired the text and before it was rebound in the 19th century.
Researchers confirmed the link by matching the scribe’s handwriting and filling a gap in Yale's digitised manuscript.
The Yale manuscript was bought at a Christie’s sale of properties belonging to John Gage’s descendant Viscount Gage of Firle in 1970 by a collector in Tokyo, Japan – Professor Toshiyuki Takamiya.
It was transferred in 2017 to Yale University where it remains.
The final page of the Yale manuscript has the signature of John Gage, among a list of names of likely owners including those of two religious women.
Dr Katie Walter, of the University of Sussex, said: “The fact two possible owners before Gage were religious women suggests the manuscript might have been in a monastic house before it came into his possession.
“The dissolution of the monasteries led to the destruction of many books but others were taken and then circulated through informal networks.
“Considering Gage’s active role in the dissolution, it’s very possible he acquired the book during this chaos.”
She continued: “We often associate this period with book burning and destruction, so this manuscript’s story goes a bit against that grain.
“It reminds us that people were also rescuing, valuing and caring for books.”
She said that “by keeping this book on his shelf, John Gage and his family were part of a much bigger secret effort to preserve Catholic literature and knowledge”.
Dr James Wade, of Cambridge University’s Girton College, said: “One possibility is that John Gage went to a monastic library and brought it home.
“Another is that someone else smuggled it out, and it briefly circulated from hand to hand until Gage acquired it.
“The key thing is – he kept it safe when he was meant to destroy books precisely like this one.”
He said that 65 copies of Love’s text survive today.
“That’s a lot for a 15th-century manuscript but so many could have been destroyed in the Reformation,” said Dr Wade.
“It shows how popular it was, but it also shows how a work that became suspicious and dangerous for some could also be valued and preserved by others.”
The study is published in the journal Notes And Queries.
