Disregarding these reproofs the earl had in the meanwhile procured a bull of divorce from the pope, which he now communicated to the prelates, but they treated it with less respect than documents issued by such an authority usually commanded, and again (London, May 26) formally repeated their conviction that the "Countess Joanna, that good lady, his consort, who so languished in expectation of his good pleasure and favour, was nevertheless his true and lawful wife, and that he could never be legally separated from her while she lived, for any reason that they had heard."
"Veismes bien, sire, et avisames la tenour de la bulle par la quelle nostre sente pere le pape despensa sur le mariage entre yus, et sayoms toutz et creoms pour tant que la dite contesse est votre droite femme, et que jamais, tant comme elle est en vie, vus ne purrez estre departi de li pour nule cause que nus avoms entendu―cele bone dame vostre compaigne et vostre vraie et droite femme qui tant languist en attendant vostre bone volunte et vostre grace.
As there was indeed a remote cousinship between the parties, each being connected with the royal family, this pretext seems to have prevailed at Rome, however sternly the English prelates rejected its efficacy, and refused to recognise such foreign jurisdiction.
Maud de Neirford had attempted to procure the divorce of the earl and countess on this plea of nearness of blood,[1] probably in the diocesan court of Norwich, and a citation in this suit was even served on the countess in the king's palace, for which audacious breach of privilege the officer was immediately sent to the Tower. The earl on his side showed similar imprudence, for the king in council with the Bishops of Norwich and Hereford, the Earl of Lancaster,[2] and other nobles (optimates) charged John Langton, the Bishop of Chichester, to consider whether it was not "time to draw the sword of the Lord to pluck out and destroy such vice," inasmuch as the earl, "unlike a true Christian or son of holy mother Church, had no ways blushed to lead such an odious and execrable life, disregarding all good counsel, and had broken into parks" (this offence is put first), and, moreover, on the day
- ↑ There is no mention of any plea of previous contract with herself in the Lambeth Register.
- ↑ This earl's wife was, in 1317, perhaps in revenge, forcibly abducted by the Earl de Warenne from Canford to Reigate, and after a divorce married to Richard St. Martin; the Earl of Lancaster was afterwards defeated, and executed in 1322 by his orders.
