Prayer book that may have been Henry VIII's could fetch £2.5m at auction

The Bute Hours, to be auctioned at Sotheby’s, is particularly rare because few such books survived Reformation

A dazzling 16th century English prayer book, so extravagantly and expensively decorated that some experts believe it may have belonged to the young Henry VIII, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s with a £2.5m estimate – 156 years after the same auction house sold it for £84.

Few such English books survived the Reformation, and this one is particularly rare because it contains an image of Thomas Becket, which survived the widespread destruction of his image after Henry VIII outlawed the cult of the saint and martyr. The experts believe another image of Becket was removed from the book, but the censors missed this one.

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