Note 1118 — Chapter V · THE YOUNG KING 1223–1227

See (1) the Pope’s reproach to Stephen in 1226 concerning Falkes and Margaret—“Quomodo potest anima tua in eorum venire consilium qui uxorem ejus nobilis detinent, et in multorum scandalum animarumque suarum perniciem matrimonii violant sacramentum?” (Roy. Lett., vol. i. p. 547), which clearly takes it for granted that their marriage was still recognized by Stephen and everyone else; and (2) a letter patent of 1228 which calls Margaret “quondam uxorem Falkesii” (Pat. Rolls, vol. ii. p. 211); “quondam uxor” or “quae fuit uxor” being the legal description of a widow, but not of a woman who had been “divorced,” i.e., declared by a judicial sentence to have been never truly a wife at all.