an to marry his brother's widow.
They consented only to say that a marriage within those degrees was
contrary to the divine law; but the question of the pope's power was left
unapproached.[280]

It will not be uninteresting to follow this judgment a further step, to the
delivery of it into the hands of the king, where it will introduce us to a
Sunday at Windsor Castle three centuries ago. We shall find present there,
as a significant symptom of the time, Hugh Latimer, appointed freshly
select preacher in the royal chapel, but already obnoxious to English
orthodoxy, on account of his Cambridge sermons. These sermons, it had been
said, contained many things good and profitable, "on sin, and godliness,
and virtue," but much also which was disrespectful to established beliefs,
the preacher being clearly opposed to "candles and pilgrimages," and
"calling men unto the works that God commanded in his Holy Scripture, all
dreams and unprofitable glosses set aside and utterly despised." The
preacher had, therefore, been cited before consistory courts and
interdicted by bishops, "swarms of friars and doctors flocking against
Master Latimer on every side."[281] This also was to be noted about him,
that he was one of the most fearless men who ever lived. Like John Knox,
whom he much resembled, in whatever presence he might be, whether of poor
or rich, of laymen or priests, of bishops or kings, he ever spoke out
boldly from his pulpit what he thought, directly if necessary to particular
persons whom he saw before him respecting their own actions. Even Henry
himself he did not spare where he saw occasion for blame; and Henry, of
whom it was said that he never was mistaken in a _man_--loving a _man_[282]
where he could find him with all his heart--had, notwithstanding, chosen
this Latimer as one of his own chaplains.

The unwilling bearer of the Cambridge judgment was Dr. Buckmaster, the
vice-chancellor, who, in a letter to a friend, describes his reception at
the royal castle.

"To the right worshipful Dr. Edmonds, vicar of Alborne, in Wiltshire, my
duty remembered,--

"I heartily commend me unto you, and I let you understand that yesterday
week, being Sunday at afternoon, I came to Windsor, and also to part of Mr.
Latimer's sermon; and after the end of the same I spake with Mr. Secretary
[Cromwell], and also with Mr. Provost; and so after evensong I delivered
our letters in the Chamber of Presence, all the court beholding. The kin