Oh-boy, James. “You just done did it” as my daughter used to say many years ago. GKC “ain’t gonna like that.”
Well said, my friend, well said.
Oh, I dunno, Tomster. One point of history I know even more of than
AC is Horny Hank and his hormones. I kinda like it when he appears.
Henry sought, as we all know, a decree of nullity with respect to his marriage to Catherine, for a couple of reason I’ll pass over, and in a move that was commonplace for his time. He actually tried hard to follow the rules of the day, and, as such things went, he had a fair case. He proposed, in his
Causa, that he was involved in a marriage that was invalid due to the Levitical prohibition, in that he had married his brother’s widow. His contention was that the dispensation issued by Julius II, to permit this, was
ultra vires, the impediment beyond even the Pope’s power to dispense, in that it was of Divine Law and not Church law. Such impediments do exist; no one can dispense from an impediment of consanguinity in the first degree, direct, for example . Whether the Levitical prohibitions fell in this area was a point that was in debate for centuries, and had changed, but it was at least a valid case, and as strong as would normally be required, for a successful suit.
But, embedded in the case was a stronger one, that Henry ignored, though Wolsey pressed it on him: an undispensed impediment of the justice of the public honesty. Henry didn’t follow that idea, and, in truth, he would probably not have prevailed if he had, though either case was quite as strong as was normal in those days. What he wanted; relief for dynastic purposes (and for La Boleyn, to be sure), was both commonplace, and one of the reasons the entire system of impediments, dispensations and annulments was set up and evolved. The other reason was to permit the Church to control the sacrament of matrimony as a sacrament. It got considerably out of hand, Trent, Session XXIV reined it in a little.
Regardless of which case Henry submitted to the
Rota, after Catherine had appealed to Rome,he was going to lose. As stated, his case was quite strong enough for the usual dynastic reasons, far stronger, for example than the case his sister successfully submitted the same year Henry started. But in the usual case, one didn’t find appearing the Holy Roman Emperor. The impediment/dispensation/annulment system was as much political as theological, by design, and Henry ran smack into a stronger political opponent than he and the Pope combined. Henry lost. And he had enough political power to make a rejoinder. He did.
As you might guess, this is the Reader’s Digest condensed version. Much more detail available, as required.
Don’t assume you know what I think of Henry. You can’t predict Anglicans.
GKC
and also having to tolerate her two kids.:slapfight:
and welcoming chaos in his spiritual as well as his domestic life he will live happily ever after? 
