Note 225 — Chapter XI · HISTORY OF SEPARATION AND DIVORCE UNDER ENGLISH AND ECCLESIASTICAL LAW (continued 2)

Bucer, in Milton's Prose Works, III, 302, 303, 292, 293, 306-8. By some of his brethren he was regarded as a fanatic on this subject as the following letter from John Burcher to Henry Bullinger shows: "Strasburgh, June 8, 1550: Bucer is more than licentious on the subject of marriage. I heard him once disputing at table upon this question, when he asserted that a divorce should be allowed for any reason, however trifling; so that he is considered, not without cause, by our bishop of Winchester as the author of the book published in defence of the Landgrave. I am ignorant as to what the hireling Bucer, who fled from this church before the wolf came in sight, is plotting in England."—Original Letters rel. to the Eng. Ref., 655, 656.

"Philip, landgrave of Hesse, in addition to Christina, the daughter of the late duke George, to whom he had been united many years, and by whom he had a large family, married on March 3, 1540, a lady named Margaret de Sala, and this with the consent of the landgravine under her own hand and seal. Previous to this he sought to obtain the sanction of Luther, Melanchthon, and Bucer, whose want of firmness in this painful case has called forth the most violent invectives from Vorillas and Bossuet, bishop of Meaux."—Ibid., 666, note.