ABSTRACT
Lustful or conscience-stricken, or both, Henry VIII, the king with six wives, never did obtain a divorce. Nor did anyone else, royal or no, during his reign or for 130 years after, as divorce was unknown in England. John Manners, Lord Roos, future Earl and later Duke of Rutland, has the honour of the first English divorce. In 1670 his wrecked marriage with Lady Ann Pierrepont, daughter and co-heiress of the Marquis of Dorchester, came before Parliament. Two years earlier he had obtained a private Act of Parliament which declared the three sons Lady Ann bore, after leaving him in 1659, to be bastards; this would keep the boys — ‘spurious issue’ — from inheriting his titles and lands. Parliament favoured him with a second private Act, divorcing him from Lady Ann and permitting him to remarry so as to attempt to maintain his line and titles.
