MASKED MEN STEAL HISTORIC TREASURE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 93, 23 April 1946, Page 5

MASKED MEN STEAL HISTORIC TREASURE

ROLLS-ROYCE USED TO ROB CASTLE

Recd. 12.15 p.m. London, April 21. Four masked men, using a Rolls Royce car, overpowered the watchman and stole antiques and works of art valued at thousands of pounds tonight from Hever Castle, Kent, the home of Colonel Astor, president of the Empire Press Union and managing director of “The Times.” Port authorities throughout Britain have been instructed to keep a lookout for men trying to get treasures from Britain. The alarm was raised an hour after the masked robbers had left, when the watchman freed himself. Hever Castle was once the home of Anne Boleyn.

The treasures stolen included a signet ring which belonged to Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn’s prayer book, which she is believed to have carried to the scaffold, several prayer books, including those belonging to Queen Elizabeth and Emperor Charles V, and a number of snuff boxes, among them a Louis XVI box given to Marie Louise by Napoleon, a miniature of Lady Hamilton and a full length mink coat worth at least belonging to Lady Astor. A police official told the Press Association that the robbery was carefully planned. Colonel Astor, at present a patient in a Middlesex hospital in London, said that as far as was known at the moment the thieves had taken only about eight or ten objects, but had made a careful selection. They could have taken a great deal more, but picked out a few particularly fine pieces.