In 1528 he published his pedagogic classic on the Christian education of women. The mother, says Vives, like Cornelia, should regard her children as her most precious jewels. She should nurse her own children because of possible physical influences on the child. The mother should instruct her girl in all that pertains to the household; and early teach her to read. She should relate to her stories, not empty fables, but such as will instruct and edify her and teach her to love virtue and hate vice. The mother should teach her daughter that riches, power, praise, titles, and beauty are vain and empty things; and that piety, virtue, bravery, meekness, and culture are imperishable virtues. Strong discipline in the home is urged. Lax discipline, says Vives, makes a man bad, but it makes a woman a criminal. Dolls should be banished from the nursery because they encourage vanity and love of dress. Boys and girls should not be instructed together, not even during the earliest years of childhood. But women require to be educated as well as men. This work, which presented in stronger terms than hitherto the claims of the education of women, was dedicated to Catherine of Aragon. It was widely republished and had large influence. For five years Vives had been a distinguished figure at the court of Henry VIII, but with the king’s application for divorce, in 1528, came a rupture of these pleasant relations. In a letter to a friend he says: “You must have heard of the troubles between the king and the queen, as it is now talked of everywhere. I have taken the side of the queen, whose cause has seemed to me just, and have defended her by word and pen. This offended his Majesty to such degree that I was imprisoned for six weeks, and only released upon condition that I would never appear in the palace again. I then concluded it safest to return home [to Bruges]; and, indeed, the queen advised me to in a secret letter. Shortly after Cardinal Campeggio was sent to Britain to judge the cause. The king was very solicitous that the queen appoint counsel to defend her side before Campeggio and Wolsey. She, therefore, called me to her aid; but I told her plainly that any defence before such a court was useless, and that it would be much better to be condemned unheard, than with the _appearance_ of defence. The king sought only to save appearances with his people, that the queen might not appear to have been unjustly treated; but he had little regard for the rest. At this the queen was incensed that I did not obey her call instead of following my own good judgment, which is worth more to me than all the princes of the world together. So it has come about that the king regards me as his adversary, and the queen regards me as disobedient and opinionated; and both of them have withdrawn my pension.”