Defense of the Unity of the Church Book III
Defense of the Unity of the Church Book III is in Defense of the Unity of the Church.
Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
Even now I have more certain signs than these of the Lord's wrath against you. Only with the greatest grief can I recount them. If they are annoying for you to hear, as they are for me to recount, you my Prince should bear the burden of this harsh discussion. For proper comprehension of this discussion could be a remedy for all your evils. Unless you understand this, there will never be any hope for your salvation. Thus it happens that if I wish to be true to myself and my duty, I must of necessity explain these things; and you, if you would cherish your own salvation, must listen to them attentively. Therefore, as you hear these things, at least consider that I have come to you as a physician who comes to one seriously and dangerously troubled. Wherefore, if I seem to act somewhat unkindly toward you, if I seem to cut through your soul, if I seem, finally, to burn with passion, at least think that I act thus because I see no other method for obtaining your salvation. The violence of the disease excludes more gentle remedies. These may even seem to be extreme to you, but in the judgment of all others they are most gentle. They say that they marvel at my foolishness in thinking there is any occasion for preparing remedies for such a desperate disease.
But charity does not fear the shame of foolishness. As long as a sick man breathes, there cannot be grounds for despair. And I, indeed, shall not cease to attempt everything that is within my power. But I would so like to discharge my duty in this connection that I might penetrate your interior with an iron instrument. I would remove your diseased blood, I would cut away your unsound limbs. Thus, both you whose salvation is being considered and also I myself who cannot touch or behold foulness without great horror of soul would both be free from all trouble. For once, however, my spirit may be strengthened to venture upon this. For why, indeed, should I shudder or avoid touching your wounds? You consider them of such little importance you think they deserve no sorrow. In fact, you rejoice over your good health in those very things that I—simple man that I am— call wounds. Certainly they are inflicted upon you by yourself and not conferred by chance or by any external violence. It is this, my Prince, that makes me grieve so bitterly. For first I behold that you do not realize the danger of this very great evil. Then I behold that you, a wise and prudent man, have caused all this yourself since the finest and most faithful men have been dissuading you in vain. But now come with me, and along with me recognize your wounds. Is it not a serious wound for one to be deprived of all honor, all generosity of soul, all esteem? Is not this especially true in the case of one who was most zealous for true honor, of one indeed who excelled all others of his rank as most renowned, of one who flourished with the greatest of true glory?
You, a man of your age and with such experience, are miserably burning with passion for the love of a girl [Queen Anne Boleyn of England (age 34)]. She, indeed, has said that she will make herself available to you on one condition alone. You must reject your wife whose place she desires to hold. This modest woman (age 34) does not want to be your concubine! She wants to be your wife. I believe that she learned from the example of her sister [Mary Boleyn (age 36)] if in no other way, how quickly you can have your fill of concubines. She, however, was anxious to surpass her sister (age 36) by retaining you as a lover. This woman, pleasing to the one by whom she appeared to be so ardently loved, desired to be joined to you by an indissoluble bond. She desired to remain with you perpetually. And in this passionate longing you responded mutually. In fact you actually surpassed her so that you thought it would be the greatest achievement of your fortunes, the height of happiness, if your legitimate and just wife were cast out of your marriage and it were permitted you to be united with this woman in matrimony and to live with her forever. 
And how many other things! Certainly it cannot be said that this was the height of happiness for you both. For yours, by your passionate longing, was even greater than hers. Therefore, it remained for you to discover a way in which you might fulfill your very great and very impotent desires. This was most difficult for you to accomplish. Your wife was endowed with great nobility and virtue. You had her companionship for many years and, in particular, you received from her a daughter now grown to womanhood. This daughter, without controversy, was to be the heir of the kingdom. She bore the name of princess from her days of swaddling clothes. It did not seem easy for you to expel your wife from the royal marriage couch. Then all acts of earlier times would be confused and even the succession to the kingdom would be uncertain. But in the face of all these things no more appropriate plan came to your assistance than for you to say that you were prevented by divine law from any longer keeping your wife with whom there has never been any conjugal bond from the very beginning. For this was a question concerning the salvation of your soul, something more important than even your kingdom itself and all the succession. This method seemed most plausible. Nothing at all was lacking except patrons who would undertake its defense and so strengthen the affair that it would have valid arguments. There was no lack of such patrons in the great group of those professing theology. These men had often disputed many more abstruse things in their universities. The question had only just been proposed. It would not have to look around eagerly for patrons. It would have the King for its special protector. And these men did not seek any further.
What you desired for your own gratification was anticipated by that man [Thomas Cranmer] whose desire was his own gratification. He sent his priests and his grave theologians as tokens of his manifest will. They not only affirmed that it was permissible for you to dismiss your wife, but they also said you would sin grievously if you retained her for a single instant. They said that if you did not permanently repudiate her they would denounce it as a very grave offense against God. This, first of all, was the origin of the narrative. But the authority of the pontiff was on the opposing side. With a papal dispensation, you had your first wife. If some scruple concerning a precept of the law could be introduced, he might protect your security. Nor was the strength of this precept so great that it could not be remitted or over-looked for a legitimate reason. This had often been customarily done justly in degrees of affinity and consanguinity. But here when your case appeared to be tottering, the ministers of this girl supported it on her behalf. In this connection they recounted the different opinions of writers among whom were learned and renowned men who affirmed that the pontiff had no right to grant something that was not permitted by divine law.
So here when your cause had almost been extinguished by mention of the dispensation of the pontiff, it began to revive. Now you were not without hope of certain victory. It appeared that it was a subject open for discussion and that the question could be properly asked whether the pontiff could give a dispensation in this matter. Nor was there any doubt that this question would have many supporters when it was brought forth into the disputations of the universities, for it had the King as its very great patron fighting on its behalf with all his authority and resources. Nor were you at all mistaken in your opinion that your cause would find supporters if it sought refuge in the universities. It found some among those who were moved more by their insatiable desires than they were by their reputation. But they were not as prompt as you had hoped. This question that at first seemed agreeable to those who had undertaken its support, was disapproved in all the universities in your own kingdom. Even its defenders were influenced by all kinds of outrages. Now would this question ever stand firmly by any general agreement of a learned philosophical gathering, unless royal threats were found to be of greater influence than prayers usually are over the minds of so many men. These royal letters filled with threats were presented to the heads of the universities. As assistants with abundant resources these threats sustained the weakening defense. They restored integrity to the campaign. But if it were necessary for you to use these resources at home, it is not my business to say here what you used abroad; that is, among the universities of foreign nations. For there your threats were of no avail. Dissension none the less continued to be fought out. Even if I were silent about this, who does not know about it?
But I shall return to your intentions, which I had begun to say that God had revealed to me. You did not make such a grave and serious mention of the divine law for some scruple of conscience. Rather you sought this precept as a false'witness to assist you in covering up the shameful disposition of your mind. By the deceitful mention of this scruple you would smear with false colors the malice of your act; you would even dignify it. But how did God reveal this to me? Not by Himself, indeed, as He has often revealed many things to others. He revealed it by this adultress whom you have led into your wife's marriage-bed. This woman, I say, whom you now have with you—since you have repudiated your legitimate wife—this woman revealed all your intentions to me. You ask how this can be? I shall tell you, indeed, if first you reply to the things I ask.
If you abandoned your wife because the law persuaded you that it was necessary to pronounce such a marriage abominable, should you not take the greatest care not to contaminate yourself again with a similar marriage? Should you not abstain absolutely from such persons who were in a similar or even worse condition than your first wife was? Surely you cannot act otherwise if the reason of a law is to influence you in any way. They who suggested such a marriage to you or who mentioned it in any way should be objects of hatred to you. For what kind of a woman [Queen Anne Boleyn of England (age 34)] is this one with whom you are now associating in place of your repudiated wife? Is she not the sister of the girl [Mary Boleyn (age 36)] whom you first violated and whom you kept with you for a long time afterward as a concubine?2 How, therefore, do you inform us you are seeking refuge from an illicit marriage? Are you here ignorant of the law that no less explicitly forbids you to marry the sister of her with whom you have been made one body, than it forbids you to marry her who has been made one body with your brother? If one is to be abominated, so is the other. Do you not know this law? But you do know it best of all! How do I know this? Because at the same time you rejected the dispensation of the pontiff to marry the wife of your brother, you were striving with great effort to obtain from this same pontiff permission to marry the of her who had been your concubine.3 Could you have so made this petition, if previously it was not established that the pontiff had the right of giving a dispensation in the first case? Therefore, does not this woman whom you now consider your wife, show most clearly what your intentions were? Does not God, by her character alone even if she were silent, make it certain to all that you mentioned this law not to be restrained by the mandate of God but to honor your own passionate longing?
Note 2. This inconsistency in Henry VIIl's "divorce" plea arose from the fact that on his own admission he had previously had illicit relations with Anne Boleyn's (age 34) sister Mary (age 36). On the basis of grounds that Henry was using in his request to Pope Clement VII, Henry VIIl was actually asking Pope Clement to admit that Pope Julius Il had no authority for granting the very same request that Henry was asking Pope Clement to grant.
But there is something else that makes your intention here all the more clear. For this matter concerning your brother's wife is much less important! Why is this so? Because, although you married your wife whose nakedness the law forbade you to uncover before the sight and eyes of the Church, nevertheless she came to you as a virgin. I do not think that you will say that the sister [Mary Boleyn (age 36)] of this woman [Queen Anne Boleyn of England (age 34)] whom you now possess was left a virgin by you. Now whatever the law might seem to do regarding your first wife, it has no effect at all if it can be established that your first wife was untouched by your brother. For that law forbids you to uncover the nakedness of your brother. This precept applies to a situation where the bodies were joined in the marriage act. Therefore, by the words "uncover the nakedness of your brother" it was forbidden that she should be your wife. But where there were not bodies joined in the marriage act, there was no nakedness of your brother that might be uncovered. Here the prohibition of the law does not hold. But how greatly it does hold in the case of her whose sister you clearly violated!
