Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/255

MARRIAGE OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA, 111 III. 14 6 9. was publicly celebrated, on the morning of the chapter 19th of October, in the palace of John de Vivero, the temporary residence of the princess, and subse- quently appropriated to the chancery of Valladolid. The nuptials were solemnized in the presence of Ferdinand's grandfather, the admiral of Castile, of the archbishop of Toledo, and a multitude of per- sons of rank, as well as of inferior condition, amounting in all to no less than two thousand. ^^ A papal bull of dispensation was produced by the archbishop, relieving the parties from the impedi- ment incurred by their falling within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity. This spurious document Was afterwards discovered to have been devised by the old king of Aragon, Ferdinand, and the arch- bishop, who were deterred from applying to the court of Rome by the zeal with which it openly es- poused the interests of Henry, and who knew that Isabella would never consent to a union repugnant to the canons of the established church, and one which involved such heavy ecclesiastical censures. A genuine bull of dispensation was obtained, some years later, from Sixtus the Fourth ; but Isabella, whose honest mind abhorred every thing like arti- fice, was filled with no little uneasiness and mortifi- cation at the discovery of the imposition. ^^ The 68 Carbajal, Anales, MS., ano 69 The intricacies of this affair, 1469. — Alonso de Palencia, Coro- at once the scandal and the stum- nica, MS., part. 2, cap. 16. — Zu- bling-block of the Spanish histori- rita, Anales, lib. 18, cap. 26. — See ans, have been unravelled by Sefior a copy of the official record of the Clemencin, with his usual perspi- marriage, Mem. de la Acad., torn, cuity. See Mem. de la Acad., vi. Apend. 4. See also the Ilust. 2. tom. vi. pp. 105- 116, Ilust. 2.