Henry naively imagined that an annulment of his marriage to Katherine would be straightforward. There were ample precedents to this effect: among them, Louis XII of France had divorced his wife to marry Anne of Brittany, and Henry’s own sister Margaret, the widow of James IV, had managed to have her second marriage dissolved. In April 1527, Henry informed Wolsey in confidence of his deep ‘scruples’ about the validity of his marriage, but to spare himself embarrassment concealed from him his intention to make Anne his queen. By taking this evasive approach, he hamstrung Wolsey from the outset. Henry’s argument was that the papal bull of dispensation secured by his father from Pope Julius II in 1504, granting him permission to marry his deceased brother’s widow, was in contravention of Scripture and should never have been issued. He maintained that he and Katherine were living in sin, on account of which God had denied him living sons by her. Henry therefore asked Wolsey in his capacity as a leading churchman to ‘examine’ his case and ‘cleanse’ his conscience by arranging a divorce.