Page:The Queens of England.djvu/314

 274 THE QUEENS OF ENGLAND. caught the sow by the ear." He sent for Cranmer, took him into his especial favor, and from this event may be dated the commencement of that great reformation which followed. The dislike entertained by Anne Boleyn to Wosley had by degrees influenced Henry against him; and in October, 1529, the procurator-general having accused him of violation of the statue of praemunire, the king deprived him of the great seal, and conferred it on Sir Thomas More. Other changes followed, and Wosley, being declared culpable, was disgraced and com- manded by the king to quit the palace at York, and retire to the house appertaining to the bishopric of Winchester. Neverthe- less, after sOme time, Henry felt a return of his partiality for his old favorite, and restored him to the sees of York and Win- chester. By the advice of Cranmer, Henry sent learned men to France, Italy, Germany, and Switzerland, to consult the universities in these places on the divorce, and the decisions of all were unanimous that the dispensation granted by Julius the Second for the marriage of Henry and Katharine, being against the divine law, could not be valid. Henry now got the greatest men of his kingdom to address the pope in order to obtain the divorce. The letter was strong and fearless, and gave Clement to understand that they considering the king's case as their own, any longer delay to his wishes might endanger the pope's in- terests in England. This measure produced the effect of Clement's offering to give permission to Henry to have two wives — an expedient that did not at all satisfy either Henry or his subjects. Determined to carry his point, yet fearful that Clement might send a bull of excommunication against him to England, the king issued a proclamation, that no bulls from Rome that could be prejudicial to the prerogatives of the crown, should be henceforth received, under the most heavy penalties ; thus excluding, by anticipation, the censures he looked for. The king left no means untried to obtain Katharine's consent to the divorce. He sent nobles and bishops to try to persuade her to withdraw her appeal to the pope, or to allow the affair to be judged by eight persons considered qompetent. But noth- ing could .move her to yield to either of these proposals ; and Henry, furious at being defeated, separated from her on the 14th of June, 1 53 1, having ordered her to retire to one of the royal residences in the country. In October, 1532, Henry and Francis the First encountered each other between Calais and