. Thomas Cranmer and the English reformation . clare to his govern- • Calendar of Venetian State Papers^ 1509-19, p. 479 ; this inter-esting and important fact was only revealed by the publication of theVenetian State papers in 1866. Before that date, the earliest sug-gestion of the divorce was believed to have been made by Henrysconfessor, Longland, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. The anonymousauthorof the Life and Death of Cranmer, (iVa^. Ref., p. 219) statesthat Henry was persuaded of the invalidity of his marriage by Long-land, and his assertion is supported by a letter written in 1532, inwh
. Thomas Cranmer and the English reformation . clare to his govern- • Calendar of Venetian State Papers^ 1509-19, p. 479 ; this inter-esting and important fact was only revealed by the publication of theVenetian State papers in 1866. Before that date, the earliest sug-gestion of the divorce was believed to have been made by Henrysconfessor, Longland, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. The anonymousauthorof the Life and Death of Cranmer, (iVa^. Ref., p. 219) statesthat Henry was persuaded of the invalidity of his marriage by Long-land, and his assertion is supported by a letter written in 1532, inwhich the date of Longlands suggestion is assigned to 1522, or1523 (Z. and P., v., 1114). So, too, in 1536 the northern rebelsthought that Longland was the beginning of all the trouble {ibid.,xi., 705) and compare Shakespeare, Henry VIII., Act II., sc. iv.,where Henry says: ** First I began in private with you, my Lordof Lincoln. Other persons credited with the original proposal arethe Bishop of Tarbes, Wolsey, and Stafileo, Dean of the Copyright Photo., Walker & CATHERINE OF ARAQON. 1533] The Divorce of Catherine 31 ment that the laws of England did not permit awoman to mount the English throne.* There was,of course, no such law; nevertheless, that seemedto be the theory on which the succession had beenregulated. The Empress Matilda, the only womanwho had tried to grasp the English sceptre, had beendriven from the land after a bloody civil war. Johnof Gaunt had maintained in Parliament that thecrown descended only through males, and the Lan-castrian kings had in practice made good the claimthat Henry IV., the son of Edward youngerson, had a better title than Philippa, the daughterof an elder. In 1485 Margaret Beaufort was theLancastrian heir to the throne, yet she was passedover in favour of her son Henry VII., who had nojot of hereditary right which he did not derive fromher. Why should the Princess Marys title be anybetter than that of Margaret B
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