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In the year 1529 sat the memorable Court presided over by Cardinals Campeggio and Wolsey, which was to try the validity of Henry’s marriage with his brother’s widow. It was held in the great hall of the Dominican Friars. No more important case was ever tried in an English Court of Law, nor one which had wider or deeper consequences. Upon this case depended the national Faith; the nation’s fidelity to the Pope; its continued adhesion to the ecclesiastical order as it had developed during fifteen hundred years. This trial belongs to the national history.

In October of that year (1529) the King, enraged by the Legate’s delay in the marriage business, deprived Wolsey of the Seals, seized his furniture and plate, and ordered him to leave London. In November of the same year, at a Parliament held in the Palace of Bridewell, a Bill was passed by the Lords disabling the Cardinal from being restored to his dignities. In February 1530 Wolsey was restored to his Archbishopric but without his palace, which the King kept for himself; he was summoned to London on a charge of treason, but he fell ill and died on the way.