Note 188 — Chapter XIV · THE LADY JANE MARRIES THE LORD GUILDFORD

As for “having at the Crown,” as a matter of fact if the Cumberland marriage had taken place it would have put six persons between Guildford and any chance of his sharing regal honours; or else the Duke would have had to find some plea for setting aside not only the Princesses Mary and Elizabeth, but also the Duchess of Suffolk and her three daughters; this could only have been achieved by urging the irregularity of the Brandon and Dorset marriages, both of which, as we have seen, were strictly speaking illegal, for in both cases the husbands married again before their first marriages had been formally dissolved, either by the ecclesiastical or the secular courts.