obligation, but that it always wanted, and still wants, the strength and sanction of law; and therefore we sentence that it is not lawful for the said most illustrious Prince, Henry VIII., and the said most serene Lady Catherine, to remain in the said pretended marriage; and we do separate and divorce them one from the other, inasmuch as they contracted and consummated the said pretended marriage de facto, and not de jure; and that they so separated and divorced are absolutely free from all marriage bond with regard to the foresaid pretended marriage, we pronounce, and declare by this our definitive sentence and final decree, which we now give, and by the tenour of these present writings do publish.  May 23rd, 1533.”—­BURNET’S Collectanea, p. 68, and LORD HERBERT.

[434] HALL.

[435] Ibid.

[436] Ibid. p. 801.  Hall was most likely an eye-witness, and may be thoroughly trusted in these descriptions.  Whenever we are able to test him, which sometimes happens, by independent contemporary accounts, he proves faithful in the most minute particulars.

[437] FOXE, vol. v. p.  III.

[438] Northumberland to Henry VIII.:  State Papers, vol. iv. pp. 598-9.

[439] Hawkins to Henry VIII.:  Ibid. vol. vii. p. 488.

[440] BURNET. vol. iii. p. 115.

[441] State Papers, vol. i. p. 398.

[442] Papers relating to the Nun of Kent:  Rolls House MS.

[443] ELLIS, first series, vol. ii. p. 43.

[444] Cotton M.S. Otho X, p. 199. State Papers, vol. i. p. 397.

[445] State Papers, vol. i. p. 403.

[446] Cromwell had endeavoured to save Frith, or at least had been interested for him.  Sir Edmund Walsingham, writing to him about the prisoners in the Tower, says:—­“Two of them wear irons, and Frith weareth none.  Although he lacketh irons, he lacketh not wit nor pleasant tongue.  His learning passeth my judgment.  Sir, as ye said, it were great pity to lose him if he may be reconciled.”—­Walsingham to Cromwell:  M.S.  State Paper Office, second series, vol. xlvi.

[447] ELLIS, first series, vol. ii. p. 40.

[448] “The natural body and blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here, it being against the truth of Christ’s natural body to be at one time in more places than one.”  The argument and the words in which it is expressed were Frith’s.—­See FOXE, vol. v. p. 6.

[449] The origin of the word Lollards has been always a disputed question.  I conceive it to be from Lolium.  They were the “tares” in the corn of Catholicism.

[450] 35 Ed. I.; Statutes of Carlisle, cap. 1-4.

[451] Ibid.

[452] 25 Ed. III. stat. 4.  A clause in the preamble of this act bears a significantly Erastian complexion:  come seinte Eglise estoit founde en estat de prelacie deins le royaulme Dengleterre par le dit Roi et ses progenitours, et countes, barons, et nobles de ce Royaulme et lours ancestres, pour eux et le poeple enfourmer de la lei Dieu. If the Church of England was held to have been, founded not by the successors of the Apostles, but by the king and the nobles, the claim of Henry VIII. to the supremacy was precisely in the spirit of the constitution.