A bejeweled Book of Hours in Trinity College Cambridge’s collection has been identified as belonging to English statesman Thomas Cromwell, who served as King Henry VIII’s chief minister from 1534–40. The link between Cromwell’s ownership of this version of the prayer book and Henry VIII’s two wives, Catherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn, was discovered by curators at Hever Castle while conducting research ahead of an exhibition. The portrait of Cromwell by Hans Holbein the Younger, which shows him holding the book that was printed in 1527, confirmed the identification. The gemstones affixed to the front of the book and the clasps were shown to be garnets in a study by Cambridge’s material science department using Raman spectroscopy.
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/thomas-cromwell-prayer-book-trinity-college-cambridge-2319174