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God's law;" and that "no reservation or prohibition, God's law except, shall trouble or impeach any marriage without the Levitical degrees." This act (though its meaning is far from clear) has been termed the Magna Charta of Matrimony, and was intended as a definitive settlement of the law; but there is a subsequent statute (1 Mary, sess. 2, c, 1,) by which Henry's marriage with Catherine is solemnly pronounced to have been from the beginning "a just, true, and holy union, in strict accordance with God's law and his holy word"[1]
It is obvious that these legislative declarations did not originate in moral or religious motives. They were political measures, having for their main objects the gratification of the sovereign's wishes and the settlement of the succession to the crown. In Mary's reign, it became necessary to sanction all marriages in the same degree of affinity as that of her mother, Catherine of Arragon. In Elizabeth's, it was thought necessary to discredit them in order to set up the marriage with Anne Boleyn; and the twist then given to opinion lasted for more than half a century—in fact, so long as the Protestant succession was at stake.
The table hung up in churches was prepared
- ↑ See an elaborate commentary on all the Acts, Vaughan's Rep. S2S. They are very numerous, and it is extremely difficult to distinguish what is repealed from what is not.
