Note 545 — Chapter XI
Reading edition
It ought not to be necessary to say that her will was respected—Lord Herbert, p. 188; but the king's conduct to Catherine of Arragon has provoked suspicion even where suspicion is unjust; and much mistaken declamation has been wasted in connexion with this matter upon an offence wholly imaginary.
In making her bequests, Catherine continued to regard herself as the king's wife, in which capacity she professed to have no power to dispose of her property. She left her legacies in the form of a petition to her husband. She had named no executors; and being in the eyes of the law "a sole woman," the administration lapsed in consequence to the nearest of kin, the emperor. Some embarrassment was thus created, and the attorney-general was obliged to evade the difficulty by a legal artifice, before the king could take possession, and give effect to the bequests.—See Strype's Memor., Vol. I., Appendix, pp. 252-255. Miss Strickland's valuable volumes are so generally read, that I venture to ask her to reconsider the passage which she has written on this subject. The king's offences against Catherine require no unnecessary exaggeration.