48 - What led King Fernando to amass the gold which he sent to Aragon and what was its total value

Summary

Though we have already had something to say about the betrothal of King Fernando to Princess Leonor of Aragon, it now behoves us to relate the remainder of this occurrence as it later ensued, so that the existing confused account might be brought out into the open and subjected to greater clarity, and so that we might relieve it of all the stifling uncertainties that arise from the wretched narratives produced by a number of authors.

The first uncertainty is about what led the king to send so much gold and silver to Aragon and about what its total value was; the second one is about who in Aragon was the recipient of this treasure and what was done with it, once there; the third one concerns the failure to bring the princess to Portugal and the abandonment of the marriage; the fourth one concerns whether the count's departure from the court of the King of Aragon met with his favour, and why he returned to Portugal and by what means; and the fifth one is about why the count did not go back to Aragon, and whether the King of Aragon kept the treasure against the wishes of King Fernando. Our answer to these uncertainties has been achieved after a great deal of hard work and investigation as to where the truth lay in each case, so that the accurate account in respect of all of them now follows.

King Fernando, as we have already said, entered negotiations with a view to marrying Princess Leonor of Aragon in order to win her father's assistance against King Enrique, with whom he, King Fernando, was at war. He was betrothed to her through Don Juan de Villaragut, who came as proctor for the princess, as you have already heard. If we leave aside the other clauses of the agreements drawn up between them, then one of them was that the King of Aragon should make war on King Enrique for two consecutive years and that in this war King Fernando would undertake to pay for 1,500 lances at his own expense.