The Bookseller's Sonnets by Rosenthal Andi

Author:Rosenthal, Andi [Rosenthal, Andi]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781846943423
Publisher: NBN_Mobi_Kindle
Published: 2010-05-11T04:00:00+00:00

16

“So Daniel was Jewish,” I said to Michael. “We were right.”

“But as a scholar at the court of Henry VIII?” He shook his head. “That must have been really uncomfortable, to say the least. From what I can understand of her words, it sounds as if he was there to try to make a case that the levirate marriage made between Henry and Katherine was invalid.”

“Perhaps,” I said sarcastically, “you could define levirate marriage for those of us who didn’t go to law school?”

“It’s a standard marriage regulation rooted in ancient biblical law,” he said. “When a woman is widowed, and she hasn’t had any children, by law, she is supposed to marry the brother of her dead husband.”

“What if the brother was already married?” I asked, puzzled.

“Well, we’re talking about a time when men had more than one wife, before the notions of traditional marriage were invented. This law is definitely pre-Church, and pre-monogamy.”

I rolled my eyes. “That figures. I suppose it was to keep her dowry in the man’s family,” I frowned. “So much for the old biblical saw of ‘pleading for the widow.’”

“Well, right, it did have a lot to do with the dowry, but it was more about the children, and the ability to maintain inheritance through the line of the firstborn. This way, even though the widow was in the brother’s care, the arrangement guaranteed that her children would inherit.”

“I thought she didn’t have any children. Isn’t that the point?”

“Yes. The right of inheritance applies to the children that the widow would have with her dead husband’s brother. Any children she had with him would inherit before any children he had with other wives, because children of a levirate marriage were considered to be the descendents of the woman’s original husband, who was usually an older brother. So, the law of levirate marriage reinforced the inheritance through firstborn sons.”

“And this is relevant because Katherine of Aragon was married to Henry’s older brother,” I finished. “And there were no heirs from that marriage.”

“Exactly,” Michael said. “And she failed to provide a male heir during her marriage to Henry – though she did have a girl, Mary, who became queen, as did Mary’s half-sister, Elizabeth, who was Anne Boleyn’s daughter.”

“Ah, yes. Anne Boleyn – the second of his wives, and the first to be beheaded.”

“Right,” Michael said. “The whole reason that Anne became Henry’s wife was because the line of male succession was at risk. Katherine of Aragon was put aside, and the Church of Rome along with her.”

I shuddered, remembering our visit from the two priests. “I don’t even want to think about the Church of Rome right now.”

Michael smiled sympathetically. “I don’t blame you. So that’s what happened to Katherine of Aragon. After that, it was one wife after another. The next one was Anne Boleyn, who was also put aside, though rather more dramatically than Katherine.”

“I’ll say.”

“Even though the line of succession through the firstborn male was fulfilled by Edward VI,” he continued, “who

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.