#part of wolsey's downfall was seeded in believing the decretal commission was...

[fideidefenswhore]

In the decretal commission for Henry’s case, the ‘facts’ under scrutiny were three, all related to the original dispensation granted so that Henry could marry his sister-in-law: Had the marriage between Henry and Katherine been necessary to preserve the peace between England and Spain? Had Henry agreed to the marriage in order to preserve this peace? Had Henry VII, Isabella, or Ferdinand died before the dispensation went into effect? The questions were so posed that not only was it easy to arrive at the factually correct answers, but the answers themselves would be precisely those that would most effectively undermine the validity of the dispensation . . . it was to be laid down in the decretal commission that it required the facts in only one of the three matters to be investigated to prove inconsistent with what was stated in the dispensation for the marriage to be declared invalid.’’ Since the document was destroyed, it is impossible to determine how far Clement went along with this ruse, but given that it was destroyed by papal order one can safely assume that the solution it contained was in the king’s favor.

The Italian Encounter with Tudor England: A Cultural Politics of Translation, Michael Wyatt