attacks of so many and so powerful enemies, the King of England ever has stood by that see with sword and pen, with voice and with authority.  Yet he alone is to reap no benefit from his labours.  He has saved the papacy from ruin, that others might enjoy the fruits of the life which he has preserved for it.  We see not what answer can be made to this; and meanwhile we perceive a flood of miseries impending over the commonwealth, threatening to bring back upon us the ancient controversy on the succession, which had been extinguished only with so much blood and slaughter.  We have now a king most eminent for his virtues, and reigning by unchallenged title, who will secure assured tranquillity to the realm if he leave a son born of his body to succeed him.  The sole hope that such a son may be born to him lies in the being found for him some lawful marriage into which he may enter; and to such marriage the only obstacle lies with your Holiness.  It cannot be until you shall confirm the sentence of so many learned men on the character of his former connection.  This if you will not do, if you who ought to be our father have determined to leave us as orphans, and to treat us as castaways, we shall interpret such conduct to mean only that we are left to care for ourselves, and to seek our remedy elsewhere.  We do not desire to be driven to this extremity, and therefore we beseech your Holiness without further delay to assist his Majesty’s just and reasonable desires.  We entreat you to confirm the judgment of these learned men; and for the sake of that love and fatherly affection which your office requires you to show towards us, not to close your bowels of compassion against us, your most dutiful, most loving, most obedient children.  The cause of his Majesty is the cause of each of ourselves; the head cannot suffer, but the members must bear a part.  We have all our common share in the pain and in the injury; and as the remedy is wholly in the power of your Holiness, so does the duty of your fatherly office require you to administer it.  If, however, your Holiness will not do this, or if you choose longer to delay to do it, our condition hitherto will have been so much the more wretched, that we have so long laboured fruitlessly and in vain.  But it will not be wholly irremediable; extreme remedies are ever harsh of application; but he that is sick will by any means be rid of his distemper; and there is hope in the exchange of miseries, when, if we cannot obtain what is good, we may obtain a lesser evil, and trust that time may enable us to endure it.

“These things we beseech your Holiness, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to consider with yourself.  You profess that on earth you are His vicar.  Endeavour, then, to show yourself so to be, by pronouncing your sentence to the glory and praise of God, and giving your sanction to that truth which has been examined, approved, and after much deliberation confirmed by the most learned men of all nations.  We meanwhile will pray the all-good God, whom we know by most sure testimony to be truth itself, that He will deign so to inform and direct the counsels of your Holiness, that we obtaining by your authority what is holy, just, and true, may be spared from seeking it by other more painful methods.”