there
was no need of either dispensation or brief. This assertion seems to
have shaken Henry; certainly he began to shift his position, and,
early in 1529, he was wishing for some noted divine, friar or other,
who would maintain that the Pope could not dispense at all.[616] This
was his first doubt as to the plenitude of papal power; his marriage
with Catherine must be invalid, because his conscience told him so; if
it was not invalid through defects in the dispensation, it must be
invalid because the Pope could not dispense. Wolsey met the objection
with a legal point, perfectly good in itself, but trivial. There were
two canonical disabilities which the dispensation must meet for
Henry's marriage to be valid; first, the consummation of Catherine's
marriage with Arthur; secondly, the marriage, even though it was not
consummated, was yet celebrated _in facie ecclesiae_, and generally
reputed complete. There was thus an _impedimentum publicae honestatis_
to the marriage of Henry and Catherine, and this impediment was not
mentioned in, and therefore not removed by, the dispensation.[617]

[Footnote 614: _Ibid._, iv., 5376-77, 5470-71,
5486-87. For the arguments as to its validity see
Busch, _England under the Tudors_, Eng. trs., i.,
376-8; Friedmann, _Anne Boleyn_, ii., 329; and Lord
Acton in the _Quarterly Rev._, cxliii., 1-51.]

[Footnote 615: She made this statement to Campeggio
in the confessional (_L. and P._, iv., 4875).]

[Footnote 616: _Ibid._, iv., 5377, 5438; _Sp.
Cal._, iii., 276, 327.]

[Footnote 617: _L. and P._, iv., 3217. See this
point discussed in Taunton's _Cardinal Wolsey_,
chap. x.]

But all this legal argument might be invalidated by the brief. (p. 220)
It was useless to proceed with the trial until the promoters of the
suit knew what the brief contained. According to Mendoza, Catherine's
"whole right" depended upon the brief, a statement indicating a
general suspicion that the bull was really insufficient.[618] So the
winter of 1528-29 and the following spring were spent in efforts to
get hold of the original brief, or to induce Clement to declare it a
forgery. The Queen was made to write to Charles that it was absolutely
essential to her case that the brief should b