On the 22nd of June Henry informed
Catherine that they had been living in mortal sin and must separate.
During Wolsey's absence in July at Paris, where he had been commissioned
to discuss vaguely the divorce and Henry's marriage with Renee, daughter
of Louis XII., Anne Boleyn is first heard of in connexion with the king,
his affection for her having, however, begun probably as early as 1523,
and the cardinal on his return found her openly installed at the court.
In October 1528 the pope issued a commission to Cardinal Campeggio and
Wolsey to try the cause in England, and bound himself not to revoke the
case to Rome, confirming his promise by a secret decretal commission
which, however, was destroyed by Campeggio. But the trial was a sham.
Campeggio was forbidden to pronounce sentence without further reference
to Rome, and was instructed to create delays, the pope assuring Charles
V. at the same time that the case should be ultimately revoked to Rome.
4 The object of all parties was now to persuade Catherine to enter a
nunnery and thus relieve them of further embarrassment. While Henry's
envoys were encouraged at Rome in believing that he might then make
another marriage, Henry himself gave Catherine assurances that no other
union would be contemplated in her lifetime. But Catherine with courage
and dignity held fast to her rights, demanded a proper trial, and
appealed not only to the bull of dispensation, the validity of which was
said to be vitiated by certain irregularities, but to a brief granted
for the alliance by Pope Julius II. Henry declared the latter to be a
forgery, and endeavoured unsuccessfully to procure a declaration of its
falsity from the pope. The court of the legates accordingly opened on
the 31st of May 1529, the queen appearing before it on the 18th of June
for the purpose of denying its jurisdiction. On the 21st both Henry and
Catherine presented themselves before the tribunal, when the queen threw
herself at Henry's feet and appealed for the last time to his sense of
honour, recalling her own virtue and helplessness. Henry replied with
kindness, showing that her wish for the revocation of the cause to Rome
was unreasonable in view of the paramount influence then exercised by
Charles V. on the pope. Catherine nevertheless persisted in making
appeal to Rome, and then withdrew. After her departure Henry, according
to Cavendish, Wolsey's biographer, praised her virtues to the court. "She is, my lords, as true, as obedient, as conformable a wife as I could
in my phantasy wish or desire. She hath all the virtues and qualities
that ought to be in a woman of her dignity or in any other of baser
estate." On her refusal to return, her plea was overruled and she was
adjudged contumacious, while the sittings of the court continued in her
absence. Subsequently the legates paid her a private visit of advice,
but were unable to move her from her resolution. Finally, however, in
July 1529, the case was, according to her wish, and as the result of the
treaty of Barcelona and the pope's complete surrender to Charles V., revoked by the pope
to Rome: a momentous act, which decided Henry's future attitude, and
occasioned the downfall of the whole papal authority in England. On the
7th of March 1530 Pope Clement issued a brief forbidding Henry to make a
second marriage, and ordering the restitution of Catherine to her rights
till the cause was determined; while at the same time he professed to
the French ambassador, the bishop of Tarbes, his pleasure should the
marriage with Anne Boleyn have been already made, if only it were not by
his authority.
5 The same year Henry obtained opinions favourable to the
divorce from the English, French and most of the Italian universities,
but unfavourable answers from Germany, while a large number of English
peers and ecclesiastics, including Wolsey and Archbishop Warham, joined
in a memorial to the pope in support of Henry's cause.
Continued on page three.
Notes
4 Cal. of State Pap., England and Spain, iii. pt. ii. 779.
5 Cal. of State Pap., Foreign and Domestic, iv. 6290.
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