to Clement, could he not dispense with
human laws, if he was able to dispense with divine at pleasure?[592]
Obviously because divine authority could take care of itself, but papal
prerogatives needed a careful shepherd. Even this principle, such as
it was, was not consistently followed, for he had annulled a dispensation
in Suffolk's case. Clement's real anxiety was to avoid responsibility.
More than once he urged Henry to settle the matter himself,[593] as
Suffolk had done, obtain a sentence from the courts in England, and
marry his second wife. The case could then only come before him as a
suit against the validity of the second marriage, and the accomplished
fact was always a powerful argument. Moreover, all this would take
time, and delay was as dear to Clement as irresponsibility. But Henry
was determined to have such a sentence as would preclude all doubts of
the legitimacy of his children by the second marriage, and was as
anxious to shift the responsibility to Clement's shoulders as the Pope
was to avoid it. Clement next urged Catherine to go into a nunnery,
for that would only entail injustice on herself, and would involve the
Church and its head in no temporal perils.[594] When Catherine (p. 214)
refused, he wished her in the grave, and lamented that he seemed
doomed through her to lose the spiritualties of his Church, as he had
lost its temporalties through her nephew, Charles V.[595]

[Footnote 590: _L. and P._, iv., 5152, where
Henry's ambassadors quote this precedent to the
Pope. _Cf. ibid._, v., 45, for other precedents.]

[Footnote 591: The sentence was actually pronounced
by the Cardinal of Ancona, and the date was 11th
March, 1527, just before Henry commenced
proceedings against Catherine. Henry called it a
"shameless sentence"; but it may nevertheless have
suggested to his mind the possibility of obtaining
one like it.]

[Footnote 592: _L. and P._, iv., 5966.]

[Footnote 593: _Ibid._, iv., 3802, 6290.]

[Footnote 594: _Ibid._, iv., 5072. "It would
greatly please the Pope," writes his secretary
Sanga, "if the Queen could be induced to enter some
religion, because, although this course would be