was reluctantly granted by the Pope,[1] and reluctantly accepted by the English ministry. The Prince of Wales, who was no more than twelve years old at the time, was under the age at which he could legally sue for such an object; and a portion of the English council, the Archbishop of Canterbury among them, were unsatisfied, both with the marriage itself, and with the adequacy of the forms observed in a matter of so dubious an import. The betrothal took place at the urgency of Ferdinand. In the year following Henry VII. became suddenly ill; Queen Elizabeth died; and, superstition working on the previous hesitation, misfortune was construed into an indication of the displeasure of Heaven.[2] The intention was renounced, and the prince, as soon as he had completed his fourteenth year, was invited and required to disown, by a formal act, the obligations contracted in his name.[3] Again there was a change. The King lived on,
- ↑ It was for some time delayed; and the Papal agent was instructed to inform Ferdinand that a marriage which was at variance a jure et laudabilibus moribus could not be permitted nisi maturo consilio et necessitatis causâ.—Minute of a brief of Julius the Second, dated March 13, 1504, Rolls House MS.
- ↑ Lord Herbert, p. 114.
- ↑ Lord Herbert, p. 117, Kennett's edition. The act itself is printed in Burnet's Collectanea, vol. iv. (Nares' 1 edition) pp. 5, 6. It is dated June 27, 1505. Dr Lingard endeavours to explain away the renunciation as a form. The language of Moryson, however, leaves no doubt either of its causes or its meaning. 'Non multo post sponsalia contrahuntur,' he says, 'Henrico plus minus tredecim annos jam nato. Sed rerum non recte inceptarum successus infelicior homines non prorsus oscitantes plerumque docet quid recte gestum quid perperam, quid factum superi volunt quid infectum. Nimirum Henricus Septimus nullâ ægritudinis prospectâ causâ repente in deteriorem valetudinem prolapsus est, nec unquam potuit affectum corpus pristi-
