past he had noticed in reading the Bible the
severe penalty inflicted by God on those who
married the relicts of their brothers"; he at
length "began to be troubled in his conscience, and
to regard the sudden deaths of his male children as
a Divine judgment. The more he studied the matter,
the more clearly it appeared to him that he had
broken a Divine law. He then called to counsel men
learned in pontifical law, to ascertain their
opinion of the dispensation. Some pronounced it
invalid. So far he had proceeded as secretly as
possible that he might do nothing rashly" (_L. and
P._, iv., 5156; _cf._ iv., 3641). Shakespeare,
following Cavendish (p. 221), makes Henry reveal
his doubts first to his confessor, Bishop Longland
of Lincoln: "First I began in private with you, my
Lord of Lincoln" ("Henry VIII.," Act II., sc. iv.);
and there is contemporary authority for this
belief. In 1532 Longland was said to have suggested
a divorce to Henry ten years previously (_L. and
P._, v., 1114), and Chapuys termed him "the
principal promoter of these practices" (_ibid._,
v., 1046); and in 1536 the northern rebels thought
that he was the beginning of all the trouble
(_ibid._, xi., 705); the same assertion is made in
the anonymous "Life and Death of Cranmer" (_Narr.
of the Reformation_, Camden Soc., p. 219). Other
persons to whom the doubtful honour was ascribed
are Wolsey and Stafileo, Dean of the Rota at Rome
(_L. and P._, iv., 3400; _Sp. Cal._, iv., 159).]

However that may be, before the Bishop's negotiations were (p. 198)
completed the first steps had been taken towards the divorce, or, as
Wolsey and Henry pretended, towards satisfying the King's scruples as
to the validity of his marriage. Early in April, 1527, Dr. Richard
Wolman was sent down to Winchester to examine old Bishop Fox on the
subject.[559] The greatest secrecy was observed and none of the
Bishop's councillors were allow