of
Canterbury,[420] submitted to it the two questions, on the resolution of
which the sentence which he was to pass was dependent.

The first had been already answered separately by the bench of bishops and
by the universities, and had been agitated from end to end of Europe--was
it lawful to marry the widow of a brother dying without issue, but having
consummated his marriage; and was the Levitical prohibition of such a
marriage grounded on a divine law, with which the pope could not dispense,
or on a canon law of which a dispensation was permissible?[421]

The pope had declared himself unable to answer; but he had allowed that the
general opinion was against the power of dispensing,[422] and there could
be little doubt, therefore, of the reply of the English convocation, or at
least of the upper house. Fisher attempted an opposition; but wholly
without effect. The, question was one in which the interests of the higher
clergy were not concerned, and they were therefore left to the dominion of
their ordinary understandings. Out of two hundred and sixty-three votes,
nineteen only were in the pope's favour.[423]

The lower house was less unanimous, as might have been expected, and as had
been experienced before; the opposition spirit of the English clergy being
usually then, as much as now, in the ratio of their poverty. But there too
the nature of the case compelled an overwhelming majority.[424] It was
decided by both houses that Pope Julius, in granting a licence for the
marriage of Henry and Catherine, had exceeded his authority, and that this
marriage was therefore, _ab initio_, void.

The other question to be decided was one of fact; whether the marriage of
Catherine with Prince Arthur had or had not been consummated, a matter
which the Catholic divines conceived to be of paramount importance, but
which to few persons at the present day will seem of any importance
whosoever. We cannot even read the evidence which was produced without a
sensation of disgust, although in those broader and less conscious ages the
indelicacy was less obviously perceptible. And we may console ourselves
with the hope that the discussion was not so wounding as might have been
expected to the feelings of Queen Catherine, since at all official
interviews, with all classes of persons, at all times and in all places,
she appeared herself to court the subject.[425] There is no occasion in
this place to follow her example. It is enough that F