English Domestic Relations 1487 1653

rds any actual reform of the Roman Catholic doctrines or church government was the appointment of a committee, in accordance with the act of 25 Henry VIII, ca. 19 (1534), to draw up a new platform for the ecclesiastical doctrine and discipline of England. In the meantime, however, it was provided that " suche canons constitucions ordynaunces and Synodals provynciall being allredy made, which be not contraryant nor repugnant to the lawes statutes and customes of this Realme nor to the damage or hurte of the Kynges preroga- tyve Royall, shall mowe styll be used and executed." l The loose terms herein contained were never more fully defined; and the evil practices in divorce cases, which continued unabated pending the action of the committee, led to the King's wholesale attempt in 1540 to stop divorces and separations altogether, except in cases of marriage within the forbidden degrees. Previous to this date, Strype tells us, divorces, or rather annulments of marriage, "mightily prevailed. . . . For it was ordinary to annull marriage and divorce man and wife on some pretext of precontract." The preamble to the famous act of 1540, known as 32 Hen. VIII, ca. 38, is very instructive in regard to the conditions of the time, and expresses practically the same opinions concerning ecclesiastical jurisdiction over marital affairs as were later proclaimed in Parliament in 1607 and by Milton in his pamphlet of 1659;1 but it is too long to quote in full. It may be abbreviated ...