King Henry VIII of England’s divorce, or annulment, of Catherine of Aragon in 1533 is one of the most infamous separations in history. And while we nearly all know the end result of the divorce proceedings, in hindsight who had the stronger case? In part 2 of the series, Victor Gamma considers how Henry tried to overturn the marriage through the English courts and then via the support of universities across Europe.
You can read part 1 on the background to the great divorce here.
King Henry VIII of England. Portrait by Hans Holbein.
Back to Henry VIII’s arguments for the divorce…
Henry’s second argument related to the dispensation granted by Pope Julius II. A dispensation is an exemption from the usual rules. The King argued that the dispensation for the marriage was null because no pope could not set aside the law of God as found in Leviticus. According to canon law, closely related couples were forbidden to marry. In other words the degree of affinity, or kinship, would present an impediment to the marriage. In Henry’s situation, he and Catherine were technically related since Catherine had been married to his brother. Also, Henry argued that the pope’s dispensation was invalid because it was based on the belief (which Henry repudiated) that Catherine’s marriage to Arthur had never been consummated. In Medieval thinking, it wasn’t a real marriage if it had never been consummated.
Henry Goes to Court
So how did Henry VIII’s case hold up? In 1527, the King was summoned to Cardinal Wolsey's palace in Westminster. The issue of Henry's relations with his brother's widow was to be the subject of an official pronouncement. Several experts in canon law were consulted. Much to the king’s chagrin, they overwhelmingly held that Henry’s marriage to his brother’s widow did not violate God’s law and therefore, Pope Julius' dispensation had been valid as well. After a thorough study of both scripture and the Church Fathers, ecclesiastical leaders such as Bishop John Fisher declared that no prohibition against such a marriage existed. Henry’s attempts to get Pope Julius’ original dispensation for his marriage to Catherine declared invalid did not fare any better. The current pope, Clement VII, would not agree to this. First, to declare an earlier pope’s dispensation mistaken would undermine respect for the office of the papacy. Moreover, he was at the time threatened by Emperor Charles V, Catherine’s uncle. Not wishing to offend Charles, Clement could do no more than grant Henry’s wish for a commission to investigate the case. Wolsey made one last effort to argue that Julius II’s dispensation contained technical defects. This, too, failed.
In the spring of 1529 at a Legatine court at Blackfriars, London, the public inquiry into the validity of the marriage took place. It was to be an inquisitorial procedure, attempting to discover the truth of the matter through questioning and investigation. The purpose of the court was to determine whether the marriage of Henry VIII to Catherine was valid according to Divine Law. Cardinal Campeggio, the pope’s legate, and Cardinal Wolsey, heard the case. It did not go well for Henry. Early in the proceedings he asserted that all the bishops shared his doubts about the marriage and had signed a petition to investigate the matter. At this point the indomitable Bishop John Fisher violently protested that he had not signed any such petition and that his name had been forged. As to Fisher’s credibility, one contemporary wrote of him: "He was in holiness, learning and diligence in his cure (care of souls) and in fulfilling his office of bishop such that of many hundred years England had not any bishop worthy to be compared with him.” The bishop himself commented on the effort he put into the divorce issue: "The matter was so serious both on account of the importance of the persons it concerned, and the express command of the king, that I gave more labour and diligence to seeking out the truth lest I should fail him and others, than I ever gave to any other matter."
Henry brushed Fisher’s protest aside only to face another unexpected resistance. His wife Catherine, upsetting the procedures of the court, knelt before the king and eloquently pleaded her case. After finishing her speech she then left the court, never to return. In her absence testimony was heard regarding the issue of whether consummation between Catherine and Arthur had taken place. Much of it was flimsy. The Earl of Shrewsbury, for example, assumed that prince Arthur had consummated his marriage because he himself had done so at the age of fifteen. Another witness based his opinion on Arthur’s “sanguine complexion” after his wedding night. Others testified of comments Arthur made which implied the couple had marital relations. One had to ask why this ‘evidence’ was not brought up during the time Pope Julius was examining the case in order to grant a dispensation. Great caution must be exercised for this ‘evidence’ which mysteriously appeared only when the King needed it. The hard fact was, whether or not the queen was a virgin when she married Henry was impossible to prove.
The court dragged on until Cardinal Campeggio, the papal legate, adjourned the court for the summer recess in July of that year. The court never re-convened nor did it ever issue any ruling. While the court was still in session, pope Clement rejected Henry’s annulment petition.
Henry Changes Tactics
Still lacking a resolution in his favor, Henry next appealed to the Universities of Europe. Henry prided himself on his scholarly abilities and felt confident in a positive result. Did the universities’ response help prove or disprove his case? Their findings generally reflected the wishes of the rulers they served. In France, for instance, they found in favor of Henry because it served the political purposes of King Francis I. Likewise, Oxford and Cambridge lent their support to their own King Henry. Enormous sums of money were spent to bribe scholars to find in favor of divorce, making many of the verdicts questionable. The Spanish scholars weighed in against divorce and in Italy opinion was divided. In short, the stalemate continued. In the war of pamphlets that accompanied this debate, John Fisher emerged as the chief opponent of the king’s argument. He so thoroughly shredded the arguments of the king’s supporters that Henry’s followers began to focus on another line of attack on another front - the original dispensation of Julius II Ad Librum Secundum issued in 1503.
How did Henry fare on this front? First of all, pains were taken to avoid the mistake of bestowing the sacrament of marriage on a couple that had an impediment. In the late Middle Ages, such dispensations were common, particularly amongst royal families wishing to preserve the bloodline. And in such a case as Henry and Catherine the impediment of affinity was not normally held to be a violation of divine law. Moreover, the king would by implication, be condemning dozens of papal dispensations granted during the previous two centuries. Despite this, Henry argued that "The marriage [to Catharine] is against human and divine law. If the papal dispensation is put forward as an argument, it may be answered that the pope's authority does not extend to degrees prohibited by divine law.” In other words, the pope had exceeded his power. But Bishop Fisher effectively destroyed that argument in a letter to Cardinal Wolsey:
"(I) Cannot see any sound reason to show that it is prohibited by divine law for a brother to marry the wife of a brother who has died without children; and considering the fullness of authority given by our Lord to the pope, who can deny that the latter may give dispensation to that effect, for any serious cause?. . . As the pope, therefore, has more than once by his act declared that it is lawful to dispense in this case...this alone should determine the question....that the dispensation is within the pope's power."
Additionally, Fisher brought up the bull of Innocent III, Deus qui Ecclesiam, in which Innocent had allowed converted Latvians to remain in marriages with their brothers' widows, providing the brothers had died childless. That effectively buried Henry’s case against Pope Julius II’s dispensation.
Now you can read part 3 on Catherine’a case for the divorce here.
What do you think of Henry VIII’s divorce of Catherine of Aragon? Let us know below.
Sources
Campbell, Phillip.”The Canon Law of the Henry VIII Divorce Case,” Senior Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Social Studies Department of Madonna University, Livonia, MI. Presented June 14th, 200.9
Fraser, Antonia, The Wives of Henry VIII. New York:Vintage Books,1994.
Guy, John, Tudor England. Oxford University Press, 1988.
Haig, Christopher, The English Reformation: Religion, Politics and Society Under the Tudors. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993
Lehman, H. Eugene Lives of England's Reigning and Consort Queens.
"June 21 - Catherine of Aragon steals the show" The Anne Boleyn Files and Tudor Society, June 20, 2019 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV9DknPWlJA
McGovern, Thomas, “ Bishop John Fisher: Defender of the Faith and Pastor of Souls,” Catholic Culture.org, 1987.
