sister Margaret on the sinfulness of her life.[583] He hopes she will turn "to God's word, the vively doctrine of Jesu Christ, the only ground of salvation--1 COR. 3, etc."; he reminds her of "the divine ordinance of inseparable matrimony first instituted in Paradise," and urges her to avoid "the inevitable damnation threatened against (p. 210) advoutrers". Henry's conscience was convenient and skilful. He believed in the "ordinance of inseparable matrimony," so, when he wished to divorce a wife, his conscience warned him that he had never really been married to her. Hence his nullity suits with Catherine of Aragon, with Anne Boleyn and with Anne of Cleves. Moreover, if he had never been married to Catherine, his relations with Mary Boleyn and Elizabeth Blount were obviously not adultery, and he was free to denounce that sin in Margaret with a clear conscience. [Footnote 581: _L. and P._, iv., 4404.] [Footnote 582: _Ibid._, iv., 4542.] [Footnote 583: _Ibid._, iv., 4131. Wolsey writes the letter, but he is only giving Henry's "message". The letter is undated, but it refers to the "shameless sentence sent from Rome," _i.e._, sentence of divorce which is dated 11th March, 1527.] * * * * * Dr. Knight had comparatively little difficulty in obtaining the dispensation for Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn; but it was only to be effective after sentence had been given decreeing the nullity of his marriage with Catherine of Aragon; and, as Wolsey saw, that was the real crux of the question.[584] Knight had scarcely turned his steps homeward, when he was met by a courier with fresh instructions from Wolsey to obtain a further concession from Clement; the Pope was to empower the Cardinal himself, or some other safe person, to examine the original dispensation, and, if it were found invalid, to annul Henry's marriage with Catherine. So Knight returned to the Papal Court; and then began that struggle between English and Spanish (p. 211) influence at Rome which ended in the victory of Charles V. and the repudiation by England of the Roman jurisdiction. Never did two parties enter upon a contest with a clearer perception of the issues involved, or carry it on with their eyes more open to the magnitude of the results. Wolsey himself, Gardiner, Foxe, Casale, and every English envoy employed in the case, warned and threatened Clement that, if he refused Henry's demands, he would involve Wolsey and the Papal cause in England in a common ruin. "He alleged," says Campeggio of Wolsey, "that if the King's desire were not complied with... there would follow the speedy and total ruin of the kingdom, of his Lordship and of the Church's influence in this kingdom."[585] "I cannot reflect upon it," wrote Wolsey himself, "and close my eyes, for I see ruin,