Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. I.djvu/211

67 III. MARRIAGE OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA. 67 sufficiently ridiculous and humiliating. ^ In 1455, chapter he espoused Joanna, a Portuguese princess, sister of Alfonso the Fifth, the reigning monarch. This lady, then in the bloom of youth, was possessed of personal graces and a lively wit, which, say the historians, made her the delight of the court of Portugal. She was accompanied by a brilliant train of maidens, and her entrance into Castile was greeted by the festivities and military pageants, which belong to an age of chivalry. The light and lively manners of the young queen, however, which seemed to defy the formal etiquette of the Castilian court, gave occasion to the grossest suspicions. The tongue of scandal indicated Beltran de la Cueva, one of the handsomest cavaliers in the kingdom, and then newly risen in the royal graces, as the person to whom she most liberally dispensed her favors. This knight defended a passage of arms, in presence of the court, near Madrid, in which he maintained the superior beauty of his mistress, against all comers. The king was so much de- lighted with his prowess, that he commemorated the event by the erection of a monastery dedicated to St. Jerome ; a whimsical origin for a religious institution. ® 5 Pulgar, Cronica de los Reyes of Toledo, " t^ot impoienda respeo- Catolicos, (Valencia, 1780,) cap. tiva, owing to some malign influ- 2. — Alonso de Palencia, Coronica, ence " ! MS., part. 1, cap. 4. — Aleson, An- 6 La Clede, Hist, de Portugal, ales de Navarra, torn. iv. pp. 519, torn. iii. pp. 325, 345. — Florez, 520. — The marriage between ReynasCatholicas, tom. ii. pp. 763, Blanche and Henry was publicly 766. — Alonso de Palencia, Co- declared void by the bishop of Se- ronica, MS., part. 1, cap. 20, 21. — govia, confirmed by the archbishop It does not appear, however, whom