The Pope, when the commission was appointed for the trial of the cause in England, had given a promise in writino-that the commission should not be revoked. It seemed, therefore, that the legates would be compelled, in spite of themselves, to pronounce sentence; and that the settlement of the question, in one form or other, could not long be delayed. At the pressure of the crisis in the winter of 1528–9, a document was produced alleged to have been found in Spain, which furnished a pretext for a recall of the engagement, and opening new questions, indefinite and inexhaustible, rendered the passing of a sentence in England impossible. Unhappily, the weight of the King's claim (however it had been rested on its true merits in conversation and in letters) had, by the perverse ingenuity of the lawyers, been laid on certain informalities and defects in the original bull of dispensation, which had been granted by Julius II. for the marriage of Henry and Catherine. At the moment when the legates' court was about to be opened, a copy of a brief was brought forward, bearing the same date as the bull, exactly meeting the objection. The authenticity of this brief was open, on its own merits, to grave doubt; and suspicion becomes certainty when we find it was dropped out of the controversy so soon as the immediate object was gained for which it was produced. But the legates' hands were instantly tied by it. The 'previous question' of authenticity had necessarily to be tried before they could take another step; and the 'original' of the brief being in the hands of the Emperor, who refused to send it into England, but offered to send it to Rome, the
