Page:Divorce of Catherine of Aragon.djvu/220

 of change of purpose. He had presented her to the French Court as his intended Queen. And on such a matter he was not to be moved by the personal objections of his subjects. The month allowed in the brief went by. She was still at the court, and the continued negotiations with the Nuncio convinced Catherine's friends that there was mischief at work behind the scenes. Their uneasiness was increased by the selection which was now made of a successor to Archbishop Warham.

Thomas Cranmer had been Lord Wiltshire's private chaplain, and had at one time been his daughter's tutor. He had attended her father on his Embassy to the Emperor, had been active in collecting opinions on the Continent favourable to the divorce, and had been resident ambassador at the Imperial court. He had been much in Germany. He was personally acquainted with Luther. He had even married, and, though he could not produce his wife openly, the connection was well known. Protestant priests in taking wives were asserting only their natural liberty. Luther had married, and had married a nun. An example laudable at Wittenberg could not be censurable in London by those who held Luther excused. The German clergy had released themselves from their vows, as an improvement on the concubinage which had long and generally prevailed. Wolsey had a son and was not ashamed of him, even charging his education on English benefices. Clerical marriages were forbidden only by the Church law, which Parliament had never been invited to sanction, and though Cranmer could not introduce a wife into society he was at least as fit for archi-episcopal rank as the great Cardinal. He was a man of high natural gifts, and ardent