Note (back) — Chapter VIII

From the point of view of justice, the Pope had an excellent case; even the Lutherans, who denied his dispensing power, denounced the divorce. Quod non fieri debuit, was their just and common-sense point, factum valet. But the Pope's case had been hopelessly weakened by the evil practice of his predecessors and of himself. Alexander VI. had divorced Louis XII. from his Queen for no other reasons than that Louis XII. wanted to unite Brittany with France by marrying its duchess, and that Alexander, the Borgia Pope, required Louis' assistance in promoting the interests of the iniquitous Borgia family.[590] The injustice to Catherine was no greater than that to Louis' Queen. Henry's sister Margaret, and both the husbands of his other sister, Mary, had procured divorces from Popes, and why not Henry himself? Clement was ready enough to grant Margaret's divorce;[591] he was willing to give a dispensation for a marriage between the Princess Mary and her half-brother, the Duke of Richmond; the more insuperable the obstacle, the more its removal enhanced his power. It was all very well to dispense with canons and divine laws, but to annul papal dispensations—was that not to cheapen his own wares? Why, wrote Henry to Clement, could he not dispense with human laws, if he was able to dispense with divine at pleasure?[592] Obviously because divine authority could take care of itself, but papal prerogatives needed a careful shepherd. Even this principle, such as it was, was not consistently followed, for he had annulled a dispensation in Suffolk's case. Clement's real anxiety was to avoid responsibility. More than once he urged Henry to settle the matter himself,[593] as Suffolk had done, obtain a sentence from the courts in England, and marry his second wife. The case could then only come before him as a suit against the validity of the second marriage, and the accomplished fact was always a powerful argument. Moreover, all this would take time, and delay was as dear to Clement as irresponsibility. But Henry was determined to have such a sentence as would preclude all doubts of the legitimacy of his children by the second marriage, and was as anxious to shift the responsibility to Clement's shoulders as the Pope was to avoid it. Clement next urged Catherine to go into a nunnery, for that would only entail injustice on herself, and would involve the Church and its head in no temporal perils.[594] When Catherine refused, he wished her in the grave, and lamented that he seemed doomed through her to lose the spiritualties of his Church, as he had lost its temporalties through her nephew, Charles V.[595]