Cranmer, in a letter, describes it as a divorce, but it was clearly not a dissolution of a marriage in the modern sense but the annulment of a marriage which was said to be defective on the grounds of affinity—Catherine was his deceased brother's widow. In his decree, Cranmer uses the words, "...dictum matrimonium..., ut praemittitur, contractum et consummatum, nullum et omnino invalidum fuisse et esse..." Gilbert Burnet (1825) (Latin). The History of the Reformation of the Church of England ... in Six Volumes. Volume I, Part II. London: W. Baynes and Son. p. 153. https://books.google.com/books?id=-u83AQAAMAAJ
