The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3)Froude, James Anthony
History
The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3)
Froude, James Anthony
Great Britain -- History -- Henry VIII, 1509-1547; Henry VIII, King of England, 1491-1547
Again urging Henry's delinquencies, his separation from his wife, and the
scandal of his connection with another person, he commanded him, under
penalty of excommunication, within one month of the receipt of those
injunctions, to restore the queen to her place, and to abstain
thenceforward from all intercourse with Anne Boleyn pending the issue of
the trial. "Otherwise," the pope continued, "when the said term shall have
elapsed, we pronounce thee, Henry King of England, and the said Anne, to be
_ipso facto_ excommunicate, and command all men to shun and avoid your
presence; and although our mind shrinks from allowing such a thought of
your Serenity, although by ourselves and by our auditory of the Rota an
inhibition has been already issued against you; although the act of which
you are suspected be in itself forbidden by all laws human and divine, yet
the reports which are brought to us do so move us, that once more we do
inhibit you from dissolving your marriage with the aforesaid Catherine, or
from continuing process, in your own courts, of divorce from her. And we do
also hereby warn you, that you presume not to contract any new marriage
with the said or with any other woman; we declare such marriage, if you
still attempt it, to be vain and of none effect, and so to be regarded by
all persons in obedience to the Apostolic see."[408]
An inhibitory mandate, was a natural consequence of the conference of
Calais, provided that the pope intended to proceed openly and uprightly;
and if it had been sent upon the spot, Henry could have complained of
nothing worse than of an honourable opposition to his wishes. But the
mystery was not yet exhausted. The postscript was not issued, it was not
spoken of; it was carried secretly to Bologna, and it bears at its foot a
further date of the 23rd of December, the very time, that is to say, at
which the pope was representing himself to Bennet as occupied only in
devising the best means of satisfying Henry, and to Sir Gregory Cassalis,
as so convinced of the justice of the English demands, that he had ventured
in defence of them to the edge of rupture with the emperor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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