Nearly two hundred clergy were assembled, and the ecclesiastical lawyers were called in to their assistance. The deliberation lasted Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.[599] On Saturday they had agreed upon their judgment, which was produced and read in the House of Lords. [Sidenote: Owing to the imperfectly cleared pre-contract,] The contract between the Lady Anne of Cleves and the Marquis of Lorraine was sufficient, they would not say to invalidate, but to perplex and complicate any second marriage into which she might have entered. [Sidenote: Conditions unfulfilled,] Before the ceremony the king had required the production of the papers relating to that engagement with so much earnestness, that the demand might be taken as a condition on which the marriage was completed. But the papers had not been produced, the uncertainties had not been cleared ... and thus there had not only been a breach of condition, but, if no condition had been made, the previous objection was further increased. [Sidenote: The enforced consent of the king,] Consent had been wanting on the part of the king. False representations had been held out to bring the lady into the realm and force her upon his Majesty's acceptance. The solemnization of the marriage was extorted from his Majesty against his will under urgent pressure and compulsion by external causes. [Sidenote: The absence of consummation,] [Sidenote: And from other causes affecting the interests of the kingdom,] Consummation had not followed, nor ought to follow, and the convocation had been informed--as indeed it was matter of common notoriety--that if his Majesty could, without the breach of any divine law, be married to another person, great benefits might thereby accrue to the realm, the present welfare and safety whereof depended on the preservation of his royal person, to the honour of God, the accomplishment of His will, and the avoiding of sinister opinions and scandals. Considering all these circumstances, therefore, and weighing what the Church might and could lawfully do in such cases, and had often before done,[600] the convocation, by the tenor of those their present letters, declared his Majesty not to be any longer bound by the matrimony in question, which matrimony was null and invalid; and both his Majesty and the Lady Anne were free to contract and consummate other marriages without objection or delay. [Sidenote: They declare the marriage dissolved.] [Sidenote: The continuance of the marriage could not have been desired.] [Sidenote: But the scandal was great and inevitable.]