52 CHARACTERS OF THE REFORMATION
but the modern idea of merely taking a thing
by force from other Christians and then ratifying
your theft by treaty occurred to no one.
The way in which States increased their powers
or (as they would have put it) the way in which
reigning families increased their powers, was
by making marriages which would bring them
in either large sums of money or new territories
from which further taxes could be gathered.
Therefore purely political arrangements were
made by which quite young people, sometimes
infants, were betrothed; the betrothal was not
valid in the eyes of the Church, of course, until
it had been ratified by the younger people after
they had come to the proper age, but the two
powers would hasten to have the marriage
celebrated as soon as possible after the earliest
canonical age allowed by the rules of the Church.
Therefore young people of this rank were often
married at such an age as saw the marriage of
Catherine and Henry VIPs heir, Prince Arthur.
The marriage did not become a real marriage
as a rule until somewhat later. All this must
be borne in mind when we consider the case
of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIIFs
divorce from her.
This young Prince Arthur, younger even
than his wife, died four and a half months after
the marriage, on April 2, 1502; and young