The Newshound

Henry VIII's monastery enforcer secretly saved Catholic book he was ordered to destroy, research reveals

From the Newshound archive · first published 19 September 2026.

Sir John Gage, Tudor courtier and key agent in the dissolution of the monasteries, whose family deposited the fragment in 46 boxes with the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1929.
Sir John Gage, Tudor courtier and key agent in the dissolution of the monasteries, whose family deposited the fragment in 46 boxes with the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1929.
The fragment of Nicholas Love's early 15th-century Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, found at The Keep archive in Brighton, where researchers matched its handwriting to Yale University's copy of the manuscript.
The fragment of Nicholas Love's early 15th-century Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ, found at The Keep archive in Brighton, where researchers matched its handwriting to Yale University's copy of the manuscript.

Sir John Gage, Tudor courtier and key agent in Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, shielded a forbidden Catholic manuscript rather than destroy it, new research from the universities of Sussex and Cambridge has found. Six missing pages of Nicholas Love's 'Mirror Of The Blessed Life Of Jesus Christ' — a medieval Catholic text — were discovered at The Keep archive in Brighton and matched to the rest of the manuscript now held at Yale University. Gage, who remained a Catholic throughout the Reformation and is portrayed in Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall' trilogy as a dependable royal servant, signed the manuscript among a list of likely owners.

The fragment had lain unnoticed in 46 boxes deposited by the Gage family with the Sussex Archaeological Society in 1929.

Researchers confirmed the match by comparing the scribe's handwriting with Yale's digitised copy, filling a gap that had puzzled scholars.

Cambridge's Dr James Wade said the 'key thing' was that Gage kept the book safe 'when he was meant to destroy books precisely like this one'.

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