and P._, iv., 4942.] [Footnote 556: "There will be great difficulty," wrote Clerk, "_circa istud benedictum divortium_." Brewer interpreted this as the earliest reference to Henry's divorce; it was really, as Dr.Ehses shows, in reference to the dissolution of the precontract between Francis I.and Charles V.'s sister Eleanor (_Engl.Hist.

Rev._, xi., 676).] [Footnote 557: _L.

and P._, iv., 3231.] [Footnote 558: _Ibid._, iv., 4231, 4942.

Henry's own account of the matter was as follows: "For some years past he had noticed in reading the Bible the severe penalty inflicted by God on those who married the relicts of their brothers"; he at length "began to be troubled in his conscience, and to regard the sudden deaths of his male children as a Divine judgment.

The more he studied the matter, the more clearly it appeared to him that he had broken a Divine law.