holic spirit.

The general features of the case were then recapitulated. His marriage with
his brother's wife had been pronounced illegal by the principal
universities of Europe, by the clergy of the two provinces of the Church of
England, by the most learned theologians and canonists, and finally, by the
public judgment of the church.[603] He therefore had felt himself free;
and, "by the inspiration of the Host High, had lawfully married another
woman." Furthermore, "for the common weal and tranquillity of the realm of
England, and for the wholesome rule and government of the same, he had
caused to be enacted certain statutes and ordinances, by authority of
parliaments lawfully called for that purpose." "Now, however," he
continued, "we fearing that his Holyness the Pope ... having in our said
cause treated us far otherwise than either respect for our dignity and
desert, or the duty of his own office required at his hands, and having
done us many injuries which we now of design do suppress, but which
hereafter we shall be ready, should circumstances so require, to divulge
... may now proceed to acts of further injustice, and heaping wrong on
wrong, may pronounce the censures and other penalties of the spiritual
sword against ourselves, our realm, and subjects, seeking thereby to
deprive us of the use of the sacraments, and to cut us off, in the sight of
the world, from the unity of the church, to the no slight hurt and injury
of our realm and subjects:

"Fearing these things, and desiring to preserve from detriment not only
ourselves, our own dignity and estimation, but also our subjects, committed
to us by Almighty God; to keep them in the unity of the Christian faith,
and in the wonted participation in the sacraments; that, when in truth they
be not cut off from the integrity of the church, nor can nor will be so cut
off in any manner, they may not appear to be so cut off in the estimation
of men; [desiring further] to check and hold back our people whom God has
given to us, lest, in the event of such injury, they refuse utterly to obey
any longer the Roman Pontiff, as a hard and cruel pastor: [for these
causes] and believing, from reasons probable, conjectures likely, and words
used to our injury by his Holiness the Pope, which in divers manners have
been brought to our ears, that some weighty act may be committed by him or
others to the prejudice of ourselves and of our realm;--We, therefore, in
behalf of all and e