he young
princess.[***] And when the negotiations were afterwards opened with
France, and mention was made of betrothing her to Francis or the duke
of Orleans, the bishop of Tarbe, the French ambassador, revived the same
objection.[****] But though these events naturally raised some doubts
in Henry's mind, there concurred other causes, which tended much to
increase his remorse, and render his conscience more scrupulous.

* Morison's Apomaxis, p. 13.

** Morison's Apomaxis, p. 13. Heylin's Queen Mary, p. 2.

*** Lord Herbert, Fiddes's Life of Wolsey.

**** Rymer vol. xiv. p. 192, 203. Heylin, p. 3.

The queen was older than the king by no less than six years; and the
decay of her beauty, together with particular infirmities and diseases,
had contributed, notwithstanding her blameless character and deportment,
to render her person unacceptable to him. Though she had born him
several children, they all died in early infancy, except one daughter,
and he was the more struck with this misfortune, because the curse of
being childless is the very threatening contained in the Mosaical law
against those who espouse their brother's widow. The succession, too, of
the crown was a consideration that occurred to every one, whenever
the lawfulness of Henry's marriage was called in question; and it was
apprehended, that if doubts of Mary's legitimacy concurred with the
weakness of her sex, the king of Scots, the next heir, would advance his
pretensions, and might throw the kingdom into confusion. The evils, as
yet recent, of civil wars and convulsions arising from a disputed title,
made great impression on the minds of men, and rendered the people
universally desirous of any event which might obviate so irreparable a
calamity. And the king was thus impelled, both by his private passions
and by motives of public interest, to seek the dissolution of his
inauspicious, and, as it was esteemed, unlawful marriage with Catharine.

Henry afterwards affirmed that his scruples arose entirely from private
reflection; and that on consulting his confessor, the bishop of Lincoln,
he found the prelate possessed with the same doubts and difficulties.
The king himself, being so great a casuist and divine, next proceeded to
examine the question more carefully by his own learning and study;
and having had recourse to Thomas of Aquine, he observed that this
celebrated doctor, whose authority was great in the church, and absolute
w