feared that he would disregard, and in March, 1529–30, a second inhibition was issued at her request, couched in still stronger language.[1] But these measures were needless, or at least premature. Henry expected that the display of temper in the country in the late session would produce an effect both on the Pope and on the Emperor; and proposing to send an embassy to remonstrate jointly with them on the occasion of the Emperor's coronation, which was to take place in the spring at Bologna, he had recourse in the mean time to an expedient which, though blemished in the execution, was itself reasonable and prudent.
Among the many technical questions which had been raised upon the divorce, the most serious was on the validity of the original dispensation; a question not only on the sufficiency of the form the defects of which the brief had been invented to remedy; but on the more comprehensive uncertainty whether Pope Julius had not exceeded his powers altogether in granting a dispensation where there was so close affinity. No one supposed that the Pope could permit a brother to marry a sister; a dispensation granted in such a case would be ipso facto void.—Was not the dispensation similarly void which permitted the marriage of a brother's widow? The advantage which Henry expected from raising this difficulty was the transfer of judgment from the partial tribunal of Clement to a broader court. The Pope
- ↑ Legrand, vol. iii. p. 446. The second brief is dated March 7, and declares that the King, if he proceeds, shall incur ipso facto the greater excommunication; that the kingdom will fall under an interdict. And see Divorce of Catherine of Aragon, p. 151.
