prevented a reasonable arrangement; and thus the right of the Pope himself to the spiritual sovereignty of Europe came necessarily under question, when it implied the subjugation of independent princes to another power by which the Court of Rome was dominated.
Such a question once raised could have but one answer from the English nation. Every resource had been tried to the extreme limit of forbearance, and all had failed before the indomitable will of a single woman. A request admitted to be just had been met by excommunication and threats of force. With entire fitness, the King and Parliament had replied by withdrawing their recognition of a corrupt tribunal, and determining thenceforward to try and to judge their own suits in their own courts.
Thus, on the 10th of May, Cranmer, with three Bishops as assessors, sate at Dunstable under the Royal licence to hear the cause which had so long been the talk of Europe, and Catherine, who was at Ampthill, was cited to appear. She consulted Chapuys on the answer which she was to make. Chapuys advised her not to notice the summons. "Nothing done by such a Court could prejudice her," he said, "unless she renounced her appeal to Rome." As she made no plea, judgment was promptly given.[1] The divorce was complete so far as English law could decide it, and it was doubtful to the last whether the Pope was not at heart a consenting party. The sentence had been, of course, anticipated. On the 27th of April Chapuys informed the Emperor how matters then stood.
"Had his Holiness done as he was advised, and in-
- ↑ I have related elsewhere the story of the Dunstable trial, and do not repeat it.—[[History of England (Froude)/Chapter 5#417|History of England, vol. i. pp. 417–423.
