" On a cold October morning in 1469, a royal wedding took place in the city of Valladolid. The bride was a light-haired, 18-years-old princess. The groom was a pale-skinned prince whith a high voice and long, straight hair. But the preparations for the big day had been more tan a bit unusual.
Like today, most royal weddings were extravagant public occasions, but this one was small and took place in secret. The princess had come to the city under armed guard because her half-brother, King Henry IV of Castile, wanted to arrest her. The prince had travelled to the wedding disguised as a merchant. He was almost killed when a guard threw a rock at him as he passd by a castle on his way from Saragossa. The ´happy couple´had met for the first time just four days before the wedding. They were so por they had to borrow money to pay for the celebrations! Not exactly the glamour you´d expect of a royal wedding.
The ceremony itself was also, well, a bit weird. officially, the wedding wasn´t even legal because the princess had promised not to marry without her half-brother Henry IV´s permission. She didn´t have his permission - that´s why he wanted to arrest her. to complicate things even more, the bride and groom were second cousins. This meant they needed special permission from the Pope to get married. This could take a long time, so the Archbishop of Toledo ( who conduced the ceremony), decided to use the signature and seal of a dead pope instead. Ingenious!... but this didnt´t really help to make the wedding look more legal, did it?! "
Ferdinad and Isabella
Simon Baskett
Oxford University Press. Madrid, 2013
Acaba de llegarme una entretenida colección de relatos históricos en inglés publicados por Oxford Educación con títulos tan sugerentes como
- Columbus´s first voyage
- Julius Caesar
- Roman Hispania
- How to survive the world´s coldest climates
Muy, muy recomendable, textos amenos y fáciles de entender.
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