Speech of the Lord Chancellor not to the purpose.
The chancellor, once more reminding the lords of the wars of the Roses, and the danger of a disputed succession, informed them that certain doubts had arisen affecting the legality of the king’s present marriage. The absence of a prospect of issue was the single palliative of the present proceedings. The chancellor injured the case, so far as it admitted of injury, by dwelling on the possibility of an issue of doubtful legitimacy. The questions raised, however, belonged, he said, to the canon law, and he proposed that they should be submitted to the clergy then sitting in convocation.
A delegacy of the two Houses waits upon the king.
The queen consents to accept the judgment of convocation.
When the chancellor had ceased, the peers desired to communicate with the other House. Six delegates were sent down to repeat the substance of what they had heard, and returned presently, followed by twenty members of the House of Commons, who signified a wish to speak with the king in person. The lords assented, and repaired in a body with the twenty members to Whitehall. The formality of state interviews may not be too closely scrutinized. They requested to be allowed to open to his Majesty a great and important matter, which his Majesty, they were well aware, had alone permitted them to discuss. His Majesty being confident that they would make no improper demands, they laid before him the proposition which they had heard from the woolsack, and added their own entreaties that he would be pleased to consent.[594] The king was gracious, but the canon law required also the consent of the queen; for which, therefore, the Duke of Suffolk, the Bishop of Winchester, and other noblemen were despatched to Richmond, and with which they soon returned.[595] Six years were spent over the affair with Queen Catherine: almost as many days sufficed to dispose of Anne of Cleves.
July 7. The convocation undertake the investigation.
Evidence is given in.
On the Wednesday morning the clergy assembled, and Gardiner, in “a luminous oration,”[596] invited them to the task which they were to undertake. Evidence was sent in by different members of the Privy Council whom the king had admitted to his confidence; by the ladies of the court who could speak for the condition of the queen; and, finally, by Henry himself, in a paper which he wrote with his own hand, accompanying it with a request that, after reviewing all the circumstances under which the marriage had been contracted, they would inform him if it was still binding; and adding at the same time an earnest adjuration, which it is not easy to believe to have been wholly a form, that, having God only before their eyes, they would point out to him the course which justly, honourably, and religiously he was at liberty to pursue.[597]
His personal declaration was as follows:[598]—
The king makes a declaration of his own conduct.