In spite of the alluring hint thrown out at Wittenberg, the adulterous King, as everyone knows, did not resort to bigamy. It was Henry the Eighth’s wish to be rid of his wife, and, having had her removed, he regarded himself as divorced. After the King had repudiated Catherine, Luther told his friends: “The Universities [i.e. those which sided with the English King] have declared that there must be a divorce. We, however, and the University of Louvain, decided differently.... We [viz. Luther and Melanchthon] advised the Englishman that it would be better for him to take a concubine than to distract his country and nation; yet in the end he put her away.”[12] When Clement VII declared the first marriage to be valid and indissoluble, and also refused to countenance any bigamy, Henry VIII retorted by breaking with the Church of Rome, carrying his country with him. For a while Clement had hesitated on the question of bigamy, since, in view of Cardinal Cajetan’s opinion to the contrary, he found it difficult to convince himself that a dispensation could not be given, and because he was personally inclined to be indulgent and friendly; finally, however, he gave Bennet, the English envoy, clearly to understand that the dispensation was not in his power to grant.[13] That he himself was not sufficiently versed in Canon Law, the Pope repeatedly admitted. “It will never be possible to allege the attitude of Clement VII as any excuse for the Hessian affair” (Ehses). It is equally impossible to trace the suggestion of bigamy back to the opinions prevailing in mediæval Catholicism.[14] No mediæval pope or confessor can be instanced who sanctioned bigamy, while there are numbers of theologians who deny the Pope’s power to grant such dispensations; many even describe this negative opinion as the “_sententia communis_.”[15] Of Cardinal Cajetan, the only theologian of note on the opposite side (see above, vol. iii., p. 261), W. Köhler remarks, alluding particularly to the recent researches of N. Paulus: “It never entered Cardinal Cajetan’s head to deny that the ecclesiastical law categorically forbids polygamy.”[16] Further: “Like Paulus, we may unhesitatingly admit that, _in this case_, it would have been better for Luther had he had behind him the guiding authority of the Church.”[17] * * * * * Henry VIII, as was only natural, sought to make the best use of the friendship of the Wittenberg professors and Princes of the Schmalkalden League, against Rome and the Emperor. He despatched an embassy, though his overtures were not as successful as he might have wished. We may describe briefly the facts of the case.