[The following is in regards to Henry VIII attempting to divorce his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.]
The dull, one-sided hearings were broken by only one moment of unexpected drama. Warham was droning through a list of the bishops who had put their names to a document endorsing the King’s position, a list of all the bishops in England, royal officials and royal appointees to a man.
A tall, emaciated figure, deep-eyed and lantern-jawed, rose suddenly from the listening bench.
”That is not my hand nor seal!” John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, challenging the judgement of his peers, and the ire of his king.
”You were in hand with me to have my hand and seal,” he went on harshly to Warham, “as others of my lords have already done, but then I said to you that I would never consent to such an act.”
”True,” Warham put in hastily, less abashed to confess forgery than frightened at seeing a man he liked and respected putting his head in the lion’s jaws, “but at the last you were persuaded I should subscribe your name for you, and put a seal to it myself, and you would allow it.”
”Under your correction, my lord,” said Fisher icily, “there is no thing more untrue.”
It was a challenge flung down. Fisher followed it later, with a speech for the defense, a blunt assertion of the law, “Whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder,” which Campeggio found as eloquent and well reasoned as it was bold and surprising, and in further support of the Queen’s cause Fisher handed in a “book,” a formal brief or extended pleading, copies of which were soon passing from hand to admiring hand among the learned of Europe.
Source:
Mattingly, Garrett. “Part III: The Divorce of Henry VIII (1527-1536); Chapter Two, Section iv” Catherine of Aragon. New York: Quality Paperback , 1990. 288-89. Print.
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