The clergy of New England, and especially those of Massachusetts, were much agitated over the question of the degrees of relationship which should be prohibited in wedlock. Marriage of first cousins, by affinity as well as by blood, and with a deceased wife's sister was strongly opposed. That of cousins german had been legalized by a statute of Henry VIII. in 1540;[660] and the earliest fruit of this act was the marriage of that monarch with Catherine Howard, first cousin of Ann Boleyn, his former wife.[661] Within less than two years thereafter Catherine lost her head; and Sewall, who like the Mathers regarded such marriages as incestuous, draws a grim moral from her fate.[662] Indeed, the Puritans, were in sore straits, fearing lest the "English Nation," while rejecting the excessive strictness of the Roman church in this regard, had gone "beyond the golden mean towards the other Extream."[663] In their anxiety to obey the Mosaic law they even exceeded its requirements.[664] Already in 1679 the general court, in reply to interrogation, had decided that marriage with a deceased wife's sister was unlawful,[665] thus taking the position which has been stubbornly maintained ever since by the English House of Lords. Interest in the matter seems, however, to have culminated in 1695. In that year a meeting of the ministers of Boston, Charlestown, and Dorchester, with Increase Mather at their head, came to the same conclusion as the general court in 1679.[666] This led directly to the passage of the celebrated law against incestuous marriages of the following June,[667] by which the general court, though not taking "in hand to determine what is the whole breadth of the divine commandment," proceeded, among other prohibitions, to forbid marriage with a wife's sister or niece.[668] For violation of the law, we have already seen, the culprit was condemned, as in the case of adultery, to wear the "scarlet letter." This act[669] remained nominally in force until after the Revolution; but the statute of 1785 in which these prohibitions do not appear was adopted seemingly without discussion.[670] [Footnote 660: By 32 H. VIII., cap. 38: _Statutes at Large_ (London, 1763), II, 298; SEWALL'S _Letter-Book_, in 6 _Mass. Hist. Coll._, I, 351-53, 369, 370.] [Footnote 661: "The greatest good the Land got by this Match, was a general leave to marry Cousin Germans, formerly prohibited by the _Crown_, and hereafter permitted by the _Co[=m]on Law_. A door of lawfull liberty, left open by God in Scripture; shut by the Pope for his privat profit; opend again by the King, first, for his own admittance ... and then for the service of such Subjects as would follow him."--FULLER, _English Worthies_ (London, 1840), II, 352; SEWALL'S _Letter-Book_, in 6 _Mass. Hist. Coll._, I, 369. Compare his letter of Feb., 1603/4, in _op. cit._, 290-93.]