Note 1185 — Chapter IX · THE PROTESTANT CONCEPTION OF MARRIAGE

By 24 Hen. VIII., c. 12 (1532): Statutes at Large, II, 71-73; Gee and Hardy, Documents, 187-95, appeals to Rome in questions of marriage and divorce are forbidden. Such cases may be carried from the archdeacon to the bishop, then to the archbishop of Canterbury or York, whose decision is final. By 25 Hen. VIII, c. 21: Statutes at Large, II, 90, the archbishop of Canterbury is given a right of dispensation similar to that formerly exercised by the pope. Chapter 19 of the same statute, ibid., II, 85-87; Gee and Hardy, Documents, 195 ff., provides for the appointment of a commission of thirty-two men to examine the whole body of canons in order to determine which should be accepted as valid; but until the commission should conclude its labors "such Canons Constitutions Ordinances and Synodals Provincial being already made," not repugnant to the laws or customs of the realm, "nor to the Damage or Hurt of the King's Prerogative Royal, shall now still be used and executed as they were afore." No report was made by this commission; nor did the Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum prepared by another commission, which was provided for by 3 and 4 Ed. VI., c. 11: Statutes at Large, II, 295, ever take effect: Friedberg, Eheschliessung, 310 n. 3. The act of 25 Hen. VIII., c. 19, was repealed by 1 and 2 Philip and Mary, c. 8: Statutes at Large, II, 342 ff.; but again restored by 1 Eliz., c. 1: Statutes, II, 379 ff. So the result was the practical retention of the canon law. Cf. Friedberg, op. cit., 309-11.