invalidity of the dispensation turn on the an.swer to it. On this point it is hardly possible to avoid two remarks. First, that there was ample evidence of the fact to have convinced an ordinary court in an ordinary case; and, secondly, that, in an age when a mere contract of marriage with one person was held "to invalidate any subsequent marriage with another, to raise such a question at all seems rather like a proposition to swallow a camel after straining vehemently over a previous gnat.[1] The whole subject is manifestly one upon which an irreconcilable difference of opinion might, and may, legitimately exist; though I confess that to my own mind it appears perfectly clear that great as maybe the sympathy which is naturally called up in our own minds by the hard measure dealt out to Queen Katherine, yet that in fact and in law she never was the lawful wife of Henry, and the Princess Mary was ab initio illegitimate. Again, the notion—if any one still entertains it—that Clement VII. ever felt any real scruple on the subject, or that he would have hesitated for a single moment to grant the divorce had not Charles V. stood in the way, is absolutely destitute of foundation. Of the many odious characters which meet us in the history of the sixteenth century, that of Clement VII. is the most despicable by far. As one reads in the State papers the letters and despatches from men representing every side of the question, it is impossible not to see plainly that Clement is troubled by no scruple whatever, I will not say regarding the prostitution of his high office as the vicar of Christ but even regarding the most elementary considerations of right and wrong. His primary object is to save his own skin; his next, to improve his position as a petty
