Note 538 — INDEX.
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Footnote 538: The innumerable modern writers who agree with Pole on the iniquity of the divorce of Catherine forget that, according to the rule which most of us now acknowledge, the marriage of Henry with his brother's wife really was incestuous—really was forbidden by the laws of God and nature; that the pope had no more authority to dispense with those laws then than he has now; and that if modern law is right, Cranmer did no more than his duty.(Back to Main Text)