566.
** Burnet, vol.ii.p.

133.

Guicciard.
Had this connection of France with the court of Rome taken place a few years sooner, there had been little difficulty in adjusting the quarrel with Henry.

The king's request was an ordinary one; and the same plenary power of the pope which had granted a dispensation for his espousing of Catharine, could easily have annulled the marriage.

But, in the progress of the quarrel, the state of affairs was much changed on both sides.
Henry had shaken off much of that reverence which he had early imbibed for the apostolic see; and finding that his subjects of all ranks had taken part with him, and willingly complied with his measures for breaking off foreign dependence, he had begun to relish his spiritual authority, and would scarcely, it was apprehended, be induced to renew his submissions to the Roman pontiff.