Quid mirum si Rex tot irati numinis indiciis admonitus coeperit cogitare rem male illis succedere qui vellent hoc nomine cum Dei legibus litem instituere ut diutius cum homine amicitiam gerere possent.  Quid deinceps egit?  Quid aliud quam quod decuit Christianissimum regem?  Filium ad se accersiri jubet, accersitur.  Adest, adsunt et multi nobilissimi homines.  Rex filium regno natum hortatur ut secum una cum doctissimis ac optimis viris cogitavit nefarium esse putare leges Dei leges Dei non esse cum papa volet.  Non ita longa oratione usus filium patri obsequentissimum a sententia nullo negotio abduxit.  Sponsalia contracta infirmantur, pontificiaeque auctoritatis beneficio palam renunciatum est.  Adest publicus tabellio—­fit instrumentum.  Rerum gestarum testes rogati sigilla apponunt.  Postremo filius patri fidem se illam uxorem nunquam ducturum.”—­Apomaxis RICARDI MORYSINI.  Printed by Berthelet, 1537.

[120] See LINGARD, sixth edition, vol. iv. p. 164.

[121] HALL, p. 507.

[122] He married Catherine, June 3, 1509.  Early in the spring of 1510 she miscarried.—­Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII. vol. i. p. 83.

Jan. 1, 1511.  A prince was born, who died Feb. 22.—­HALL.

Nov. 1513.  Another prince was born, who died immediately.—­LINGARD, vol. iv, p. 290.

Dec. 1514.  Badoer, the Venetian ambassador, wrote that the queen had been delivered of a still-born male child, to the great grief of the whole nation.

May 3, 1515.  The queen was supposed to be pregnant.  If the supposition was right, she must have miscarried.—­Four Years at the Court of Henry VIII. vol. i. p. 81.

Feb. 18, 1516.  The Princess Mary was born.

July 3, 1518.  “The Queen declared herself quick with child.” (Pace to
Wolsey:  State Papers, vol. i. p. 2,) and again miscarried.

These misfortunes we are able to trace accidentally through casual letters, and it is probable that these were not all.  Henry’s own words upon the subject are very striking:—­

“All such issue male as I have received of the queen died incontinent after they were born, so that I doubt the punishment of God in that behalf.  Thus being troubled in waves of a scrupulous conscience, and partly in despair of any issue male by her, it drove me at last to consider the estate of this realm, and the danger it stood in for lack of issue male to succeed me in this imperial dignity.”—­CAVENDISH, p. 220.

[123] “If a man shall take his brother’s wife it is an unclean thing.  He hath uncovered his brother’s nakedness.  They shall be childless.”—­Leviticus xx. 21.  It ought to be remembered, that if the present law of England be right, the party in favour of the divorce was right.

[124] Letters of the Bishop of Bayonne, LEGRAND, vol. iii.

[125] Legates to the Pope, printed in BURNET’S Collectanea, p. 40.