to submit, who pleaded the prerogative of his crown, which did not allow of being subjected to foreign jurisdiction, and the liberties of his people, which demanded that questions of marriage should be tried at home and by their own church.[229] Thus passed away six long years in fruitless negotiations, till Henry, having now secured the opinion of nearly all the universities at home and abroad in his favour, a measure which Cranmer, whom he had sent upon the Continent as his champion for this purpose, had been very instrumental in accomplishing, as well as the verdict of the most distinguished individuals amongst the divines and scholars of Europe, gave proof that the “strong blood” of the Plantagenets was in his veins, took the law into his own hands, married Ann Bullen probably on the 14th November, 1532, and set the Pope at defiance. On reviewing the question of the divorce (as by a misnomer it has been called), there can be little doubt, we suppose, that the marriage was in the first instance unlawful. The authorities which declared it so preponderated at the time of the discussion; many, and amongst others Archbishop Warham, had protested against the match when it was originally proposed; and when the canon of prohibited degrees was afterwards adjusted by Archbishop Parker, it was expressly determined that a man may not marry his brother’s wife. If, therefore, the conduct of Henry had been such in other respects as to give token of a scrupulous conscience, it might have been credited that in this instance he was sincere in his professions of uneasiness; and that believing Katharine and himself to be joined together otherwise than God’s word doth allow, he sought for relief in the dissolution of the contract. But that contract was entered into with deliberation; it was made when the King was a minor--it was repeated and ratified when he was of just age; the objections, whatever they were, were not new; they had been raised and over-ruled, when Katharine was to be the bride, when she had youth to plead for her, and a dower of unparalleled magnitude, the first fruits of the trans-Atlantic treasures of Spain: it was only when these advocates were no more, her blossom faded, and her golden fruit gathered and gone, that the objections (valid in themselves) became fatal. Her lot in life was indeed hard; but her grave at least has been strewed with immortal flowers; and “the meek sorrows and virtuous distress of Katharine have furnished some scenes (says no mean critic) which may be justly reckoned amongst the greatest efforts of tragedy.”