Their followers were hanged. It was said of St Cuthbert’s shrine at Durham, “one jewel alone was worth a King’s ransom.” As the gospel’s expert and British Museum Curator Janet Backhouse has written the gospels were probably looted for their precious cover.

However since the “Return the Gospels campaign” of the Northumbrian Association, The British Library has come up with a new theory, that the gospels were not stolen but taken into protective custody because they were in danger in the North. (This argument is similar to the one used by Hitler regarding the Sudetanland). The danger they claim came from the ‘Rising of the Northern Earls’ 1569. This is nonsense, the Earls supported the old religion and St Cuthbert, they even said a Mass at Durham. The priest who said it was later hanged. They were no threat to the gospels even if the Gospels were still in Durham which they were not.

A much bigger threat would have been the Government-appointed new extremist Bishop and Dean, they destroyed all images and references to Cuthbert, the Dean’s wife burned Cuthbert’s banner which had been carried at the battle of Flodden. The Library says that the book was mentioned in a Durham book of the 1590s “The Rites of Durham”, but the “Rites” is clearly a description of Durham before the Reformation, it says so in its preface.

In 1567 Dean Nowell of St Paul’s in London used the gospels to produce his Saxon vocabularly, it was a most useful source because Aldred had written the Anglo-Saxon words under the Latin words. Nowell and others were keen to show their links to the Anglo-Saxon church which they claimed did not have the corruptions of the later medieval church. He borrowed the book from William Bowyer Keeper of the records in the Tower of London. This is acknowledged by TJ Brown Assistant Keeper in the Department of Manuscripts ,British Museum.

There is no need to doubt the conclusion of Janet Backhouse, Curator at the British Museum, that the gospels were taken at the time of the destruction of Cuthbert’s shrine. The commissioners were thorough men, and they could make money for themselves and their master Thomas Cromwell who organised the destruction of Monastic wealth, the cover was “ adorned with gold and with gems and also with gilded-over silver-pure metal.”

This was the beginning of a policy of looting and centralisation, continued by Leyland who had said that the north had many books which would be better off in the Royal library. This ensured that many books were removed to London. Archbishop Parker of Cantebury, the original “Nosey parker” also collected large numbers of books, which ended up in Cambridge.

Why are they in the British Library?

The Gospels were placed in the Tower of London in the care of the Keeper Thomas Bowyer. It was then that Nowell used it for his book. It was passed on to his son, Robert, who wrote his name on the outer leaf (the precious Anglo-Saxon binding and its jewelled decoration had been already removed).

Bowyer passed it on to Sir Robert Cotton who built up a large private library and his heirs passed it on to the newly created British Museum. At the end of the last century it was decided to create a British Library from the books in the British Museum. It cost £500 million; the biggest overspend of any public building until the infamous Million Dome. The gospels were passed from the Museum to the Library.

But how did this Royal possession fall into private hands? The British library offers no reason as to why a keeper should write his name on the book, suggesting personal ownership, or pass it on to a private collector. The library does say that there is any number of legal ways Robert Bowyer could have received the book. But they do not mention any of these ways. The most obvious is that he received it from his father. There are a number of illegal ways by which Cotton could have come into possession of the book.

So who was Robert Cotton? Born into a Huntingdon family Cottons life was dominated by court politics and scholarship. He was educated at Westminster school under the historian Camden. The two toured Northumberland hoovering up Roman inscriptions, particularly from Redesdale, these he transported down to his Country house. Some were lost at sea. The Northumbrian historian Horsley saw them there,

“when I looked round me in that summer house and observed particularly the inscriptions which had been removed from our own country and neighbourhood, it gave me for a time a great deal of pleasure, though it was afterwards much abated by reflecting on the ruinous state both of the house and inscriptions.”

At the same time Cotton drew up a list of “books I want”. He was to be ruthless in acquiring them. Cotton was used by the government to draw up arguments using old official documents, this gave him access to many documents. He was known not to return manuscripts which he borrowed. He is known to have stolen manuscripts even from the Justice Edward Coke. The City of London petitioned to have him return manuscripts which he had borrowed from them. Cotton was also known to remove pages from those books he did return. He also divided books up and rebound sections of different provenance.

Thomas Wilson, record keeper of official papers, said Cotton had “coningly scraped together” his Library. His concern for Cotton’s methods led him to warn not to let any of Cotton’s protégés to become keeper of exchequer records. Even Cotton’s biographer says,

“Such instances make it difficult to exonerate Cotton from the charge of theft.”

What was Cotton’s connection with the Gospels and the Bowyers? Cotton himself was imprisoned in the Tower as an accessory to murder! He had doctored documents in an attempt to help his patron Robert Carr, the Scottish favourite of James I who was accused of murdering Sir Thomas Overbury. He spent his time, “collecting, transcribing and abridging records in the Tower.” The fallen favourite Carr was accused of buying treasures from the Royal collection at a fraction of their face value.

Cotton sat in Parliament with Bowyer’s father William. Cotton helped Robert Bowyer in his work as Commons Clerk. Cotton recommended that Bowyer’s cousin be offered a baronetcy. What may Bowyer have offered in return?

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