Avalon, sorry to insist again and but I read in a quite reliable book about the history of Church law that pope Julius II. did not send a proper dispensation because the French had bribed him in order to make sure the marriage between Henry (later Henry VIII.) and Catherine of Aragon would not be valid. When king Henry VII., Catherine's father in law, realized that, he did not allow his son Henry (later Henry VIII.) to marry Catherine out of the fear that God might be against the marriage.
When Henry VIII. became king aged 18, he married Catherine. After numerous stillborn children with only a girl, Mary Tudor, as surviving child, Henry VIII. became superstitious and asked for an annulment. Normally this would have been granted without any problems. But there was the problem with German emperor Charles V., Catherine's nephew through his mother, Joana of Aragon and Castile the heir of Spain and through his father Philipp of Habsburg's inheritance the most powerful lord in Germany and thus elected Holy Roman emperor . Charles V. had marched into Rome and taken the successor of Julius II, pope Clemens VII. prisoner and forced him to reject Henry's request.
So according to this rather scientific book about Church law, Henry VIII. was right to feel that spiritually his marriage was invalid (according to Catholic law) and that Julius II. had tricked them. The emperor insisted on the other hand that there had been no reason for a dispensation in the first place as the marriage between Catherine and prince Arthur had not been consumated according to Catherine. Thus it hadn't been valid and there had been no need for a dispensation for the new marriage. Henry at first had believed that, too (thus he was very slow in enforcing the issue) but when he realized that there wouldn't be an heir he spiritually started believing in the invalidity of his marriage- he saw their childlessness as sign of God according to the words in the bible, that a marriage between a man and his brother's wife should remain childless. Catherine argued that they had a child - Mary - but she could not shake Henry's belief that God had sent a sign to him. So he proceeded.
When he could not get justice from the Vatican due to the emperor's insistence on the marriage, he split from Rome but did not change the system of the church. That was done during the minority of his son Edward as king by Edward's guardians who favoured the reformation.
Sorry to go into details but I think it's interesting in view of the discussion about divorces and the Church of England that Henry VIII. never wanted a divorce as he was a spiritual man and believed in God. If he had accepted divorce, maybe Anna Boleyn and her cousine Catherine Howard had lived a little bit longer....
