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THE DIVORCE QUESTIO.V.
business transactions connected with that suppression
of the smaller monasteries which was carried out in
1524-
The suggestion made by Cromwell to Henry met
with no unwilling acceptance, for it offered a solution
of the difficulties which surrounded him with reference
to the divorce question. His counsel was
that the king should repudiate papal jurisdiction
altogether, and obtain the freedom he desired by a
judgment issuing from his own ecclesiastical courts.
It was not long before this was accomplished. The
death of Archbishop Warham in 1532 opened the
way for the elevation of one whose name, next to
that of Cromwell, occupies a more prominent place
in the annals of the divorce, and generally as regards
the English Reformation, than that of any other
single individual. Warham was succeeded in the
primacy by Cranmer. He had recommended himself
to Henry by having sometime before expressed
himself in favour of a settlement of the controversy
respecting the divorce by a reference to the two
universities, whose decision should be accepted without
its being submitted to the final adjudication of
the pope. He had also written a book in which he
laid it down that the dispensation for Henry's marriage
with Katherine being contrary to the law of
God, and the decisions of councils and fathers of
the Church, must be regarded as utterly devoid of
authority. He had also been sent to Rome to maintain
the king's cause at the papal court. On the
30th March, 1533, he was consecrated Archbishop of
Canterbury, application having been previously made