After a week of public outcry that an 800-year-old reliquary casket commemorating the martyrdom and burial of St. Thomas a Becket had been lost to England, the casket's owner agreed to let the National Heritage Memorial Fund and the Victoria and Albert Museum buy it from him.
Lord Thomson of Fleet, the Canadian-based publisher, purchased the enamel casket at a Sotheby's auction in London in July for $6.5 million, and he is selling it for that price.The museum tried to buy the casket, which dates from the year 1195, at the auction, but was shy by $1.1 million. Alan Borg, director of the Victoria and Albert, said he had now raised all but $300,000 from public and private sources. The rest of the money would come from the museum's new admissions policy, he added.