The Parliaments showed themselves anti-clerical long before Henry threw off his allegiance to Rome; and Englishmen could find no better term of insult to throw at the Scots than to call them “Pope’s men.” These, and many other things that might be mentioned, indicate a certain preparedness in England for the Reformation, and that there was a strong national force behind Henry, when he at last decided to defy the Pope of Rome. The possibility of England breaking away from papal authority and erecting itself into a separate church under the archbishop of Canterbury had been thought probable before the divorce precipitated the quarrel between Henry and the pope. Henry clung strenuously to the conception of papal supremacy, and advocated it in a manner only done hitherto by canonists of the Roman court. It is evident that the validity of his marriage and the legitimacy of his children by Catharine of Aragon depended on the pope being in possession of the very fullest powers of dispensation. Henry had been married to Catharine under very peculiar circumstances, which suggested doubts about the validity of the marriage ceremony. To make the alliance stronger between England and Spain the pope had a marriage arranged between Arthur, Prince of Wales, and Catharine, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. The wedding took place in St. Paul’s, November 14, 1501, but Arthur died April 2, 1502, and it was proposed from the side of Spain that the young widow should marry Henry, her brother-in-law, now Prince of Wales. Ferdinand insisted that if this was not done Catharine should be sent back to Spain and her dowry returned. Pope Julius II was then besieged to grant a dispensation for the marriage. At first he refused to give his consent. Such a marriage had been branded as a sin by canonical law, and the pope himself had grave doubts whether it was competent for him to grant a dispensation in such a case; but he finally yielded to the pressure and granted the dispensation. The archbishop of Canterbury, who doubted whether the pope could grant dispensation for what was a mortal sin in his eyes, was silenced. The marriage took place June 11, 1509.