dred
thousand crowns as her dowry. The juvenile bridegroom enjoyed the honors
and pleasures of married life for a few months, and then died.

This event was a great domestic calamity to the king, not because he
mourned the loss of his son, but that he could not bear the idea of the
loss of the dowry. By the law and usage in such cases, he was bound not
only to forego the payment of the other half of the dowry, but he had
himself no right to retain the half that he had already received. While
his son lived, being a minor, the father might, not improperly, hold the
money in his son's name; but when he died this right ceased, and as
Arthur left no child, Henry perceived that he should be obliged to pay
back the money. To avoid this unpleasant necessity, the king conceived
the plan of marrying the youthful widow again to his second boy, Henry,
who was about a year younger than Arthur, and he made proposals to this
effect to the King of Aragon.

The King of Aragon made no objection to this proposal, except that it
was a thing unheard of among Christian nations, or heard of only to be
condemned, for a man or even a boy to marry his brother's widow. All
laws, human and divine, were clear and absolute against this. Still, if
the dispensation of the pope could be obtained, he would make no
objection. Catharine might espouse the second boy, and he would allow
the one hundred thousand crowns already paid to stand, and would also
pay the other hundred thousand. The dispensation was accordingly
obtained, and every thing made ready for the marriage.

Very soon after this, however, and before the new marriage was carried
into effect, King Henry the Seventh died, and this second boy, now the
oldest son, though only about seventeen years of age, ascended the
throne as King Henry the Eighth. There was great discussion and debate,
soon after his accession, whether the marriage which his father had
arranged should proceed. Some argued that no papal dispensation could
authorize or justify such a marriage. Others maintained that a papal
dispensation could legalize any thing; for it is a doctrine of the
Catholic Church that the pope has a certain discretionary power over all
laws, human and divine, under the authority given to his great
predecessor, the Apostle Peter, by the words of Christ: "Whatsoever thou
shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever thou shalt
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."[C] Henry seems not