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Henry FitzRoy and Henry VIII's ‘Scruple of Conscience’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
Extract
The history of Henry VIII's first ‘divorce’, a topic of so many implications, naturally has mysteries to be solved. Further study of contemporary documents can be expected to clarify much that still tantalizes us. Yet there is another aspect of the subject of Henry's marital status which has hardly been investigated, namely the state of the law on Henry's capacity to act if he were really incestuously married. If it were a fact that he was incestuously married, it must needs follow that he lacked some of the powers he would have had if he were not subject to this disability: and this is a fact of which his advisers will have taken notice. To bring legal material bearing on this aspect of the problem back into light may help to clear up one of the mysteries, namely how we are to explain the king's ambiguous attitude towards his marriage between the years 1525 and 1527.
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References
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4 Wriothesley, Martin C., Chronicle of England, 1 (London, 1885), 286–287.Google Scholar Grafton's Chronicle, 11 (London, 1809), 382-383. Pollard, A. F., Wolsey (London, 1953), p. 4 (divorce)Google Scholar; pp. 90-91 (Richmond). See also Brewer, J. S., Letters and Papers … Henry VIII, IV (introd.), cxli–cxlvii.Google Scholar
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26 Swinburn, fol. 201a. N. Boerius, Dec. Burd. (cited above), no. 127, n. 17, citing Baldus. Petrus Ducnazius (Pedro Ducñas), Fallentiae Regularum Iuris (Lyons, 1565), p. 386, col. a (reg. 366, lim. 7). This last work, which is rare, may be seen in the Bodleian Library, shelf-mark F.I.9.Jur. He could legitimize Richmond (G. Durandus, Speculum 1, I (De disp.), § Sunt quoque, No. 8: Lyons, 1538, fol. 34 b n) with Parliament's aid, but that would precipitately prejudice any son to be born legitimate.
27 The instinct not to anticipate events is actually put into words in 28 H. 8, c. 7, sec. 9
28 For his career see Letters and Papers, IV, 6149; Revue des Études Juives, xxvii, 49; Wood's Athenae Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, I, 259; Cooper's Athenae Cantabrigienses, I, 177; DNB.
29 The obscurity of the canon, and so of the common, law on this subject is well illustrated by the case of the 24th year of Henry viii which features in R. Brook, New Cases (see March, J., Some New Cases, 1651, p. 30 or Eng. Rep. 860, 73Google Scholar) and appears in his Graunde Abridgement (London, 1573), tit. Bastardie, n. 23.
30 Richard Pace to Henry viii: J. Le Grand, Histoire du Divorce de Henry VIII (1688), in (preuves), 1-4; Constant, 1, 52, n. 63 ad fin.; Hughes, P., Reformation in England, I (London, 1950), p. 157 Google Scholar, n. 2; Span. Cal., III, 2, pp. 193-194.
31 Chapuys to Charles v (May 19, 1536), cited P. Friedmann, Anne Boleyn, II (London, 1884), p. 176, also pp. 286-287; Wriothesley, p. 53.
32 Not as early as Mar. (Constant, 1, 46), for Lee's letter (cited above) is conclusive. Anne was at court from 1522. Wolsey's first letter to Casalc on the ‘divorce’ seems to be Letters and Papers, IV, 3913 (see Burnet, IV, 21 ff.), dated Dec. 5, 1527.
33 Mackie, pp. 314-316; Mattingly, pp. 181-182, 188.