ts birth, but the doubt which had been raised
could not perish with it. Doubt on such a subject once mooted might not be
left unresolved, even if the raising it thus publicly had not itself
destroyed the frail chance of an undisputed succession. If the relations of
Henry with Queen Catherine had been of a cordial kind, it is possible that
he would have been contented with resentment; that he would have refused to
reconsider a question which touched his honour and his conscience; and,
united with parliament, would have endeavoured to bear down all
difficulties with a high hand. This at least he might have himself
attempted. Whether the parliament, with so precarious a future before them,
would have consented, is less easy to say. Fortunately or unfortunately,
the interests of the nation pointed out another road, which Henry had no
unwillingness to enter.

On the death of Prince Arthur, five months after his marriage, Henry VII.
and the father of the Princess alike desired that the bond between their
families thus broken should be re-united; and, as soon as it became clear
that Catherine had not been left pregnant (a point which, tacitly at least,
she allowed to be considered uncertain at the time of her husband's
decease), it was proposed that she should be transferred, with the
inheritance of the crown, to the new heir. A dispensation was reluctantly
granted by the pope,[117] and reluctantly accepted by the English ministry.
The Prince of Wales, who was no more than twelve years old at the time, was
under the age at which he could legally sue for such an object; and a
portion of the English council, the Archbishop of Canterbury among them,
were unsatisfied,[118] both with the marriage itself, and with the adequacy
of the forms observed in a matter of so dubious an import. The betrothal
took place at the urgency of Ferdinand. In the year following Henry VII.
became suddenly ill; Queen Elizabeth died; and superstition working on the
previous hesitation, misfortune was construed into an indication of the
displeasure of Heaven. The intention was renounced, and the prince, as soon
as he had completed his fourteenth year, was invited and required to
disown, by a formal act, the obligations contracted in his name.[119] Again
there was a change. The king lived on, the alarm yielded to the temptations
of covetousness. Had he restored Catherine to her father he must have
restored with her the portion of her dowry which had been alr