[Footnote 239: So by Sir John Stoddart in his evidence before the Lords' Select Committee, 1844: "Therefore I apprehend that the _Reformatio legum_ having been published as a work of authority, although not of absolute legislative authority, it must have been, and in all probability was, followed: and for that reason _in the Spiritual Courts there were dissolutions of marriage_. Because _I believe that from about the year 1550 to the year 1602 marriage was not held by the Church, and therefore was not held by the Law, to be indissoluble_."--_Minutes of Evidence_, 27: _Law Review_ (Eng.), I, 358, 359.] [Footnote 240: _Law Review_ (Eng.), I, 359. _Cf._ JEAFFRESON, _op. cit._, II, 323.] [Footnote 241: JEAFFRESON, _op. cit._, II, 323, 324. Cranmer examined the Fathers and other authorities on divorce for adultery; and the material which he thus collected grew into a large book, which Burnet, who gives a summary, says he has seen: _Hist. of Reformation_, I, 330 ff. Burnet's summary is also given by GEARY, _Marriage and Family Relations_, 577, 578. _Cf._ MACQUEEN, _Practical Treatise_, 468, 469.] [Footnote 242: 5 and 6 Ed. VI., c. 4.] [Footnote 243: MACQUEEN, _op. cit._, 469. "This bill is often, but erroneously, referred to as the earliest example of parliamentary divorce (SHELFORD, 373). It is not a divorce bill; neither did it proceed upon the principle of a divorce bill. Its object was merely to declare that the adultery of the first wife, followed by the ecclesiastical sentence, entitled the Marquis to take a second wife. The principle on which the act passed assumed the jurisdiction of the Church Court, to dissolve the marriage _proprio vigore_. The act did not divorce the parties, but merely declared them to be _already_, by the ecclesiastical sentence, sufficiently divorced to admit of the Marquis marrying again."--_Ibid._, 469 n. _e_. On this case see also _Law Review_ (Eng.), I, 358, 359; _Report of the Royal Commission on Divorce, Parl. Papers_, 1853, 57 ff.; GEARY, _op. cit._, 17; WOOLSEY, _Divorce_, 169-71; LECKY, _Democracy and Liberty_, II, 174, 175; BURN, _Ecc. Law_, II, 503_a_-503_b_; REEVES, _Hist. of Eng. Law_, V, 80, 81; MORGAN, _Marriage, Adultery, and Divorce_, II, 229 ff.]