Bishop Fisher, their bravest champion, protested in the House of Lords: "For God's sake, see what a realm the kingdom of Boheme was, and when the church fell down, there fell the glory of the kingdom.

Now with the Commons is nothing but 'Down with the church,' and all this meseemeth is for lack of faith only." [Sidenote: Marriage with Anne Boleyn] It had taken Henry several years to prepare the way for his chief object, the divorce.

His hand was at last forced by the knowledge that Anne was pregnant; he married her on January 25, 1533, without waiting for final sentence of annulment of marriage with Catharine.

In so doing he might seem, at first glance, to have followed the advice so freely tendered him to discharge his conscience by committing bigamy; but doubtless he regarded his first marriage as illegal all the time and merely waited for the opportunity to get a court that would so pronounce it.

The vacancy of the archbishopric of Canterbury enabled him to appoint to it Thomas Cranmer, [Sidenote: Cranmer] the obsequious divine who had first suggested his present plan.