Note 239 — Chapter XI · HISTORY OF SEPARATION AND DIVORCE UNDER ENGLISH AND ECCLESIASTICAL LAW (continued 2)

So by Sir John Stoddart in his evidence before the Lords' Select Committee, 1844: "Therefore I apprehend that the Reformatio legum having been published as a work of authority, although not of absolute legislative authority, it must have been, and in all probability was, followed: and for that reason in the Spiritual Courts there were dissolutions of marriage. Because I believe that from about the year 1550 to the year 1602 marriage was not held by the Church, and therefore was not held by the Law, to be indissoluble."—Minutes of Evidence, 27: Law Review (Eng.), I, 358, 359.