On one hand, it is attributed to Henry's passion for Anne Boleyn, on the other, to doubts of the validity of Henry's marriage, raised by the Bishop of Tarbes in 1527, while negotiating a matrimonial alliance between the Princess Mary and Francis I.These are the two most popular theories, and both are demonstrably false.[490] Doubts of the legality of Henry's marriage had existed long before the Bishop of Tarbes paid his visit to England, and even before Anne Boleyn was born.

They were urged, not only on the eve of the completion of the marriage, but when it was first suggested.

In 1503, when Henry VII.

applied to Julius II.

for a dispensation to enable his second son to marry his brother's (p.