9. =The Legatine Court. 1529.=--The court of the two legates was opened at Blackfriars in =1529=. Before proceeding to business they tried hard to induce either Henry to abstain from asking for a divorce or Catharine to abstain from resisting his demand. In such a matter Catharine was as firm as the self-willed Henry. Even if she could consent to leave the throne, she could not, if she retained any sense of womanly dignity, acknowledge that she had never been a wife to Henry, or suffer her daughter to be branded with illegitimacy. When king and queen were at last cited to appear Catharine knelt before her husband. She had, she said been his true and obedient wife for twenty years, and had done nothing to deserve being put to open shame. As it was, she appealed to Rome. The queen's cause was popular with the masses, who went straight to the mark, and saw in the whole affair a mere attempt to give a legal covering to Henry's lust. The legates refused to consider the queen's appeal, but when they came to hear arguments on the merits of the case they were somewhat startled by the appearance of the aged Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, one of the holiest and most learned prelates of the day, who now came voluntarily, though he knew that Henry's wrath was deadly, to support the cause of Catharine. Campeggio took advantage of the strong feeling which was growing against the king to interpose delays which he knew to be well-pleasing to Clement, and before these delays were at an end Clement annulled all the proceedings in England and revoked the cause to Rome. Most probably he was alarmed at the threats of the Emperor, but he had also reasons of his own for the course which he took. Henry did not ask for a divorce on any of the usual grounds, but for a declaration that his marriage had been null from the beginning. As, however, his marriage had been solemnised with a Papal dispensation, Clement was asked to set aside the dispensation of one of his predecessors, a proceeding to which no Pope with any respect for his office could reasonably be expected to consent.