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 in the presence of the lady's father, mother and brother, two other friends of the lady, and a Canterbury priest. But Chapuys was relating only the story current at the time in society. Nothing authentic has been ascertained.… The fact that the marriage had taken place was concealed till the divorce could be pronounced by a Court protected by Act of Parliament, and perhaps with the hope that the announcement could be softened by the news that the nation might hope for an heir.

Dispatch was thus necessary with Cranmer's Bulls. He himself spoke without reserve on the right of the King to remarry, "being ready to maintain it with his life." Chapuys and the Nuncio both wrote to request the Pope not to be in a hurry with the confirmation of so dangerous a person. The Pope seemed determined to justify the suspicions entertained of him by his eagerness to meet Henry's wishes. It is certain that the warning had reached him. He sent the Bulls with all the speed he could. He knew, perhaps, what they were needed for.

Henry meanwhile was preparing to meet the Parliament, when the secret would have to be communicated to the world. The modern reader will conceive that no other subject could have occupied his mind. The relative importance of things varies with the distance from which we view them. He was King of England first. His domestic anxieties held still the second place. Before the opening, as the matter of greatest consequence, a draft Act was prepared to