ersed in the ways of the Papal Curia, he
despatched his secretary, Dr. William Knight, with two extraordinary
commissions, the second of which he thought would not be revealed "for
any craft the Cardinal or any other can find".[577] The first was to
obtain from the Pope a dispensation to marry a second wife, without
being divorced from Catherine, the issue from both marriages to be
legitimate. This "licence to commit bigamy" has naturally been the
subject of much righteous indignation. But marriage-laws were lax (p. 207)
in those days, when Popes could play fast and loose with them for
political purposes; and, besides the "great reasons and precedents,
especially in the Old Testament," to which Henry referred,[578] he
might have produced a precedent more pertinent, more recent, and
better calculated to appeal to Clement VII. In 1521 Charles V.'s
Spanish council drew up a memorial on the subject of his marriage, in
which they pointed out that his ancestor, Henry IV. of Castile, had,
in 1437, married Dona Blanca, by whom he had no children; and that the
Pope thereupon granted him a dispensation to marry a second wife on
condition that, if within a fixed time he had no issue by her, he
should return to his first.[579] A licence for bigamy, modelled after
this precedent, would have suited Henry admirably, but apparently he
was unaware of this useful example, and was induced to countermand
Knight's commission before it had been communicated to Clement. The
demand would not, however, have shocked the Pope so much as his modern
defenders, for on 18th September, 1530, Casale writes to Henry: "A few
days since the Pope secretly proposed to me that your Majesty might be
allowed two wives. I told him I could not undertake to make any such
proposition, because I did not know whether it would satisfy your
Majesty's conscience. I made this answer because I know that the
Imperialists have this in view, and are urging it; but why, I know
not."[580] Ghinucci and Benet were equally cautious, and thought the
Pope's suggestion was only a ruse; whether a ruse or not, it is (p. 208)
a curious illustration of the moral influence Popes were then likely
to exert on their flock.

[Footnote 577: Henry VIII. to Knight in Corpus
Christi College, Oxford, MS., 318, f. 3, printed in
the _Academy_, xv., 239, and _Engl. Hist. Rev._,
xi., 685.]

[Footnote