Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-g5fl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-27T16:09:06.061Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

58 - How King Fernando informed the King of Castile that he could not marry his daughter

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2024

Amélia Hutchinson
Affiliation:
University of Georgia
Juliet Perkins
Affiliation:
King's College London
Philip Krummrich
Affiliation:
Morehead State University, Kentucky
Get access

Summary

After the marriage took place in secret, even though the annulment was made public, the king realized that he was still bound by the promise which he had made to King Enrique in respect of marrying his daughter and had to disengage himself from it. At that time, the King of Castile was in Toro, where he was holding Cortes with a view to lowering the values of coins which he had previously set very high because of the war and the payment of wages, which was ruinous to the country, and also in order to command the Jews and Moors of his kingdom to wear emblems whereby they would be recognized as such. There then arrived messengers from King Fernando. Through them, he asked King Enrique not to take amiss the fact that he was unable now to marry his daughter, because he was married to a Portuguese lady by the name of Dona Leonor Teles de Meneses. In spite of this, however, it was his wish to continue to be his ally and give orders to restore to him the towns and villages which he held in Castile, as had been arranged in their treaty.

King Enrique was angered and greatly distressed at this news, because King Fernando had abandoned the marriage to his daughter, which had been negotiated between them, and had married such a woman, to the great detriment of his honour and good standing. Even though, because of this breach of the treaty, he could have reacted to it by resorting to a just war or by other means, nevertheless he was so anxious to maintain peace and stability that he gave way on this matter, in order that King Fernando should remain his ally and give back to him the towns and villages which had declared for him.

His answer to the messengers was that, since King Fernando was disinclined to marry his daughter, he would not make an issue out of it, for she could not fail to achieve an equally noble marriage elsewhere, and he urged him to stand by all the other items which were contained in their treaty. Having received this reply, the messengers took their leave of him and returned to Portugal.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Chronicles of Fernão Lopes
Volume 2. The Chronicle of King Fernando of Portugal
, pp. 106 - 107
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×