Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/418

 351 Tin: OBSEQUIES OF QUEEN KATHARINE OF ARRAGON spring. She reiiiaini'd in wiilowhood for seven years, great part of which time she was in much pecuniary embarrass- ment, through the rapacity of lier father-in-law, and in other respects she seems to have passed her hfe very unha})pily. After this time of trouble she was again married (1509), to the brother of her deceased husband. The near relation- ship betwixt herself and Henry VIII. created a temporary obstacle to the union, but on the death of his father, it was celebrated with extraordinary pomp and magnificence. The Privy Council looked very favoural)ly upon this alliance. The Archbishop of Canterbury, however, opposed it as unlawful, whilst it was defended by Bishop Fox, with so many arguments of expediency, in which he did not fail to adduce the dispensation granted by Julius II., that all the difficulties were overcome. For sixteen years Henry hved witii Katharine of Arragon without feeling any scruple about the illegality or iniquity of the marriage. It has been asserted, and it is the impartial duty of an inquirer to give the monarch the benefit of his conscientious misgiving, that two years before he commenced any proceedings for a divorce, he was doubtful of the legitimacy of ][ary under such an union, and felt far. from confident that any power was dispensable that could set aside the moral obligations of the Levitical law. Thei-cfore, it would be an act of injustice towards the character of a king who iias so nnich need to ask the favourable judgment of a more dispassionate age, to deny that he was utterly devoid of a sense of the conse- quences of profiigacy and guilt. Even our own day, three centuries since these transactions blackened the page of English history, can scarcely venture to lay claim to the merit of unbiassed expi'cssion of ojiinion. Kor the ]irinci])les afiecting the validity <'(" tliis niai-riage yet I'ciii.'iin unsettled by lawyers and tiieologians, wliilst there are still increasing reasons for discussing the religions diiVerences which ai'ose ill that i-(.'iL;"ii with iiK^deratioii ;iiiil cii.'irity. We ai"e relieved lujwever, from the diflieiilty ol' now giving them any consi- deration at all, since without examining whether the disj)en- sation or tin; divorce was the nmre impolitic or uiilioly act, we hav(? rathei" to look upon theni as (jiiestioiis judicially settleil, than as calling, at j)resent, for a new investigation and decision. All that relat<'S to the actu.il illustration of the hiibjcci is biieflv State<l. H^Iie ^,)ll(rii ;is lse|)| for a