already married, and he had hoped that sentence might be given in his favour in time to anticipate the publication of the ceremony. But he was perfectly satisfied that justice was on his side; and was equally confident of obtaining the verdict of Europe, if it could be fairly pronounced. Now, therefore, under the altered circumstances, he accepted the offered alternative. He anticipated with tolerable certainty the effect which would be produced at Rome, when the news should arrive there of the Dunstable divorce; June 29.and on the 29th of June, he appealed formally, in the presence of the Archbishop of York, from the Pope's impending sentence, to the next general council.[1]
Of this curious document the substance was as follows:—It commenced with a declaration that the King had no intention of acting otherwise than became a good Catholic prince; or of injuring the Church or attacking the privileges conceded by God to the Holy See. If his words could be lawfully shown to have such a tendency, he would revoke, emend, and correct them in a catholic spirit.
The general features of the case were then recapitu-- ↑ Of the Archbishop of York, not of Canterbury: which provokes a question. Conjectures are of little value in, history but inasmuch as there must have been some grave reason for the substitution, a suggestion of a possible reason may not be wholly out of place. The appeal in itself was strictly legal; and it was of the highest importance to avoid any illegality of form. Cranmer, by transgressing the inhibition which Clement had issued in the winter, might be construed by the Papal party to have virtually incurred the censures threatened, and an escape might thus have been furnished from the difficulty in which the appeal placed them.
