Export risk to Henry VIII divorce treatise
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Your support makes all the difference.A manuscript that paved the way for Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon will be sold abroad unless a British bidder emerges to save it for the nation.
Museums and galleries have until next weekend to raise the £650,000 asking price for the historic 34-page document, which advises the king on how to justify his divorce and subsequent split from the Catholic Church. It was written in 1530 by one of his religious advisers, Jacobus Calchus, a Carmelite friar.
The unpublished treatise, bound in calfskin by Henry's favourite binder, is one of the most significant surviving documents relating to the turbulent period that led to the establishment of the Church of England. In it, Calchus, known as one of the earliest scholars to argue for a break with Rome, addressed the crucial issue of divorce. Challenging centuries-old orthodoxy, he argued that the decision to end a marriage was ultimately a matter for individual conscience rather than the Pope, thus justifying Henry's split with his first wife.
The Arts minister, Baroness Blackstone, put a two-month export ban on it in May after it emerged that the owner was planning to take it abroad. She said then that it was the "last chance" for public bodies to raise the cash needed to keep the document in Britain.
The Heritage Lottery Fund confirmed it had received no application for financial help, and neither the British Library nor Historic Royal Palaces has made concerted efforts to raise the money.
A spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said it was unlikely that the export ban would be extended.
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