Henry The VIII Divorce Still Hot Topic

More than four centuries on, King Henry VIII's divorce is still causing problems. The government is fighting to stop a unique document from the much-married monarch's first and most celebrated divorce from being sold overseas.

Arts Minister Baroness Blackstone on Monday barred the foreign sale of a treatise that is credited with helping to bolster arguments by Henry that he was entitled to ditch Catherine of Aragon in favor of Anne Boleyn, the second of his six wives.

"This treatise is of immense historical importance to the nation," Blackstone said in a statement.

"The argument set out in its pages was part of the process that led to a critical moment in English history - the break with Rome and the establishment of the Church of England," she said.

British buyers have until July 13 to come up with $940,000, or watch the document being sold to a foreign bidder.

The treatise, which addresses the question of whether a man may marry the widow of his deceased brother, as Henry had done in wedding Catherine, was written in 1530 by Jacobus Calchus, a Carmelite friar.

"Even in its own right, the document is remarkable, representing as it does one of the finest of the earliest gilt bindings," said Blackstone. "I very much hope that sufficient funds will be raised to allow it to stay in the country."

Blackstone made her decision on the recommendation of the government's Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art, which controls the foreign sale of British artworks. If a serious British bid emerges before July 13, Blackstone has the power to extend the period of grace to Oct. 13.

The Department of Arts and Culture could provide no details of who is selling the document. A spokesman said from 1687 until the 20th century, the manuscript had been part of the collection of the 11th Earl of Kent, housed at Wrest Park in southern England.

Calchus first came to England in 1529, when Henry was looking for opinions supporting a divorce from Catherine, his wife of 20 years who had failed to provide him with a son. Their only surviving child was a daughter, Mary.

Henry wanted to marry Boleyn, an attractive young member of his wife's household.

In the 34-page Latin treatise with its elaborate gilt decorations, which Henry had bound in finest calf leather, Calchus argues that that conscience takes moral priority over the pope.

Henry claimed his marriage to Catherine was invalid because she was the widow of his brother, Arthur. Church authorities agreed with her argument that her first marriage did not count because it had not been consummated.

Henry finally achieved his goal be separating the English church from the Roman church, and taking up the leadership of the new Church of England himself.

He legally rid himself of Catherine in 1532 and married Boleyn the following year. His third wife, Jane Seymour, bore him his only surviving son, Edward VI, a sickly man who reigned for just six years. Catherine's daughter, Mary I, reigned after him, followed by Anne's daughter, Elizabeth I.