[101] Supplication of the Beggars; FOXE, vol. iv. p. 661. The glimpses into the condition of the monasteries which had been obtained in the imperfect visitation of Morton, bear out the pamphleteer too completely. See chapter x. of this work, second edition.
[102] FOXE, vol. iv. p. 658.
[103] 13 Ric. II. stat. ii. c. 2; 2 Hen. IV. c. 3; 9 Hen. IV. c. 8. Lingard is mistaken in saying that the Crown had power to dispense with these statutes. A dispensing power was indeed granted by the 12th of the 7th of Ric. II. But by the 2nd of the 13th of the same reign, the king is expressly and by name placed under the same prohibitions as all other persons.
[104] HALL, p. 784.
[105] 25 Hen. VIII. c. 22.
[106] 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24. Speech of Sir Ralph Sadler in parliament, Sadler Papers, vol. iii. p. 323.
[107] Nor was the theory distinctly admitted, or the claim of the house of York would have been unquestionable.
[108] 25 Hen. VIII. c. 22, Draft of the Dispensation to be granted to Henry VIII. Rolls House MS. It has been asserted by a writer in the Tablet that there is no instance in the whole of English history where the ambiguity of the marriage law led to a dispute of title. This was not the opinion of those who remembered the wars of the fifteenth century. "Recens in quorundam vestrorum animis adhuc est illius cruenti temporis memoria," said Henry VIII. in a speech in council, "quod a Ricardo tertio cum avi nostri materni Edwardi quarti statum in controversiam vocâsset ejusque heredes regno atque vitâ privâsset illatum est."-WILKINS'S Concilia, vol. iii. p. 714. Richard claimed the crown on the ground that a precontract rendered his brother's marriage invalid, and Henry VII. tacitly allowed the same doubt to continue. The language of the 22nd of the 25th of Hen. VIII. is so clear as to require no additional elucidation; but another distinct evidence of the belief of the time upon the subject is in one of the papers laid before Pope Clement.
"Constat, in ipso regno quam plurima gravissima bella sæpe exorta, confingentes ex justis et legitimis nuptiis quorundam Angliæ regum procreatos illegitimos fore propter aliquod consangunitatis vel affinitatis confictum impedimentum et propterea inhabiles esse ad regni successionem."—Rolls House MS.; WILKINS'S Concilia, vol. iii. p. 707.
[109] 28 Hen. VIII. c. 24.