t inconsistencies in which he was involved. In
1528 he was in some fear of death from the plague; fear of death is
fatal to the peace of a guilty conscience, and it might well have made
Henry pause in his pursuit after the divorce and Anne Boleyn. But
Henry never wavered; he went on in serene assurance, writing his love
letters to Anne, as a conscientiously unmarried man might do, making
his will,[581] "confessing every day and receiving his Maker at every
feast,"[582] paying great attention to the morals of monasteries, and
to charges of malversation against Wolsey, and severely lecturing his
sister Margaret on the sinfulness of her life.[583] He hopes she will
turn "to God's word, the vively doctrine of Jesu Christ, the only
ground of salvation--1 COR. 3, etc."; he reminds her of "the divine
ordinance of inseparable matrimony first instituted in Paradise," and
urges her to avoid "the inevitable damnation threatened against (p. 210)
advoutrers". Henry's conscience was convenient and skilful. He
believed in the "ordinance of inseparable matrimony," so, when he
wished to divorce a wife, his conscience warned him that he had never
really been married to her. Hence his nullity suits with Catherine of
Aragon, with Anne Boleyn and with Anne of Cleves. Moreover, if he had
never been married to Catherine, his relations with Mary Boleyn and
Elizabeth Blount were obviously not adultery, and he was free to
denounce that sin in Margaret with a clear conscience.

[Footnote 581: _L. and P._, iv., 4404.]

[Footnote 582: _Ibid._, iv., 4542.]

[Footnote 583: _Ibid._, iv., 4131. Wolsey writes
the letter, but he is only giving Henry's
"message". The letter is undated, but it refers to
the "shameless sentence sent from Rome," _i.e._,
sentence of divorce which is dated 11th March,
1527.]

* * * * *

Dr. Knight had comparatively little difficulty in obtaining the
dispensation for Henry's marriage with Anne Boleyn; but it was only to
be effective after sentence had been given decreeing the nullity of
his marriage with Catherine of Aragon; and, as Wolsey saw, that was
the real crux of the question.[584] Knight had scarcely turned his
steps homeward, when he was met by a courier with fresh instructions
from Wolsey to obtain a further concession from Clemen