+Source.+--25 H. VIII. cap. 22. (_Statutes of the Realm_, III. 471.)
... In consideration whereof, your said most humble and obedient
subjects, the nobles and Commons of this realm, calling further to
their remembrance that the good unity, peace and wealth of this realm,
and the succession of the subjects of the same, most especially and
principally above all worldly things consists and rests in the
certainty and surety of the procreation and posterity of your
Highness, in whose most royal person, at this present time, is no
manner of doubt nor question; do therefore most humbly beseech your
Highness, that it may please your Majesty, that it may be enacted by
your Highness, with the assent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal,
and the Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the
authority of the same, that the marriage heretofore solemnized between
your Highness and the Lady Katherine, being before lawful wife to
Prince Arthur, your elder brother, shall be, by authority of this
Present Parliament, definitively, clearly and absolutely declared,
deemed, and adjudged to be against the laws of Almighty God, and also
accepted, reputed, and taken of no value nor effect, but utterly void
and annulled, and the separation, thereof, made by the said
Archbishop, shall be good and effectual to all intents and purposes;
any licence, dispensation, or any other act or acts going afore, or
ensuing the same, or to the contrary thereof, in anywise
notwithstanding; and that every such licence, dispensation, act or
acts, thing or things heretofore had, made and done or to be done, to
the contrary thereof, shall be void and of none effect; and that the
said Lady Katherine shall be henceforth called and reputed only
dowager to Prince Arthur, and not Queen of this realm, and that the
lawful matrimony had and solemnized between your highness and your
most dear and entirely beloved wife Queen Anne, shall be established,
and taken for undoubtful, true, sincere, and perfect ever hereafter,
according to the just judgement of the said Thomas, Archbishop of
Canterbury, metropolitan and primate of all this realm, whose grounds
of judgement have been confirmed, as well by the whole clergy of this
realm in both the Convocations, and by both the universities thereof,
as by the Universities of Bologna, Padua, Paris, Orleans, Toulouse,
Anjou, and divers others, and also by the private writings of many
right excellent well-learned men; which grounds so confirmed, and
judgement of the said Archbishop ensuring the same, together with your
marriage solemnized between your Highness and your said lawful wife
Queen Anne, we your said subjects, both spiritual and temporal, do
purely, plainly, constantly, and firmly accept, approve and ratify for
good and consonant to the laws of Almighty God, without end or
default, most humbly beseeching your Majesty, that it may be so
established for ever by your most gracious and royal assent.