Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/29

5 INQUISITION IN ARAGON. 5 Nothing of interest occurred in the foreign rela- chapter tions of the kingdom, during the period embraced , by the preceding chapter ; except perhaps the mar- caYharfneV riage of Catharine, the young queen of Navarre, with Jean d'Albret, a French nobleman, whose '^^^ • extensive hereditary domains, in the southwest corner of France, lay adjacent to her kingdom. This connexion was extremely distasteful to the Spanish sovereigns, and indeed to many of the Navarrese, who were desirous of the alliance with Castile. This was ultimately defeated by the queen-mother, an artful woman, who, being of the blood royal of France, was naturally disposed to a union with that kingdom. Ferdinand did not neg- lect to maintain such an understanding with the malcontents of Navarre, as should enable him to counteract any undue advantage which the French monarch might derive from the possession of this key, as it were, to the Castilian territory. ^ In Araffon, two circumstances took place in the Liberation ^ . . . ^ of Catalan period under review, deserving historical notice. *^'■'"^• The first relates to an order of the Catalan peasan- try, denominated vassals de remenza. These per- was detained during the queen's tion over every other in the king- illness, who there gave birth to dom, secular or ecclesiastical. The her youngest child, DoiTa Catalina, affair was ultimately referred to the afterwards so celebrated in English arbitration of certain learned men, history as Catharine of Aragon. named conjointly by the adverse A collision took place in this city parties. It was not then deter- between the royal judges and those mined, however, and Pulgar has of the archbishop of Toledo, to neglected to acquaint us with the whose diocese it belonged. The award. Reyes Catolicos, cap. 53. latter stoutly maintained the pre- — Carbajal, Anales, MS., afio tensions of the church. The queen 1485. with equal pertinacity asserted the ^ Aleson, Annales de Navarra, supremacy of the royal jurisdic- torn. v. lib. 35, cap. 2.