ened on as for ever fatal to the intelligence and
character of Henry and his Ministers.

The Pope, after reviewing the later history of England, the distractions
caused by rival claimants of the crown, after admitting the necessity of
guarding against the designs of the ambitious, and empowering Henry to
marry again, was made to address the King in these words:[27]--

"In order to take away all occasion from evil doers, we do in the
plenitude of our power hereby suspend _hac vice_ all canons forbidding
marriage in the fourth degree, also all canons _de impedimento publicae
honestatis_ preventing marriage in consequence of clandestine espousals,
further all canons relating to precontracts clandestinely made but not
consummated, also all canons affecting impediments created by affinity
rising _ex illicito coitu_, in any degree even in the first, so far as the
marriage to be contracted by you, the petitioner, can be objected to or in
any wise be impugned by the same. Further, to avoid canonical objections
on the side of the woman by reason of former contract clandestinely made,
or impediment of public honesty or justice arising from such clandestine
contract, or of any affinity contracted in any degree even the first, _ex
illicito coitu_: and in the event that it has proceeded beyond the second
or third degrees of consanguinity, whereby otherwise you, the petitioner,
would not be allowed by the canons to contract marriage, we hereby license
you to take such woman for wife, and suffer you and the woman to marry
free from all ecclesiastical objections and censures."

The explanation given by Wolsey of the wording of this document is that it
was intended to preclude any objections which might be raised to the
prejudice of the offspring of a marriage in itself irregular. It was
therefore made as comprehensive as possible. Dr. Lingard, followed by Mr.
Brewer, and other writers see in it a transparent personal application to
the situation in which Henry intended to place himself in making a wife of
Anne Boleyn. Two years subsequent to the period when this dispensation was
asked for, when the question of the divorce had developed into a battle
between England and the Papacy, and the passions of Catholics and
Reformers were boiling over in recrimination and invective, the King's
plea that he was parting from Catherine out of conscience was met by
stories set floating in society that the King himself had previously
intrigued with