, who has injured him throughout, may
now pass the censures of the church against him.]

The general features of the case were then recapitulated. His marriage
with his brother's wife had been pronounced illegal by the principal
universities of Europe, by the clergy of the two provinces of the Church
of England, by the most learned theologians and canonists, and finally,
by the public judgment of the church.[155] He therefore had felt himself
free; and, "by the inspiration of the Most High, had lawfully married
another woman." Furthermore, "for the common weal and tranquillity of
the realm of England, and for the wholesome rule and government of the
same, he had caused to be enacted certain statutes and ordinances, by
authority of parliaments lawfully called for that purpose." "Now,
however," he continued, "we fearing that his Holyness the Pope ...
having in our said cause treated us far otherwise than either respect
for our dignity and desert, or the duty of his own office required at
his hands, and having done us many injuries which we now of design do
suppress, but which hereafter we shall be ready, should circumstances so
require, to divulge ... may now proceed to acts of further injustice,
and heaping wrong on wrong, may pronounce the censures and other
penalties of the spiritual sword against ourselves, our realm, and
subjects, seeking thereby to deprive us of the use of the sacraments,
and to cut us off, in the sight of the world, from the unity of the
church, to the no slight hurt and injury of our realm and subjects:

[Sidenote: He appeals from any such censures to the next general
council.]

"Fearing these things, and desiring to preserve from detriment not only
ourselves, our own dignity and estimation, but also our subjects,
committed to us by Almighty God; to keep them in the unity of the
Christian faith, and in the wonted participation in the sacraments;
that, when in truth they be not cut off from the integrity of the
church, nor can nor will be so cut off in any manner, they may not
appear to be so cut off in the estimation of men; [desiring further] to
check and hold back our people whom God has given to us, lest, in the
event of such injury, they refuse utterly to obey any longer the Roman
Pontiff, as a hard and cruel pastor: [for these causes] and believing,
from reasons probable, conjectures likely, and words used to our injury
by his Holiness the Pope, which in divers manners have been brought to