EL HECHO DE LOS TRATADOS DEL MATRIMONIO

PRETENDIDO POR EL

PRINCIPE DE GALES

CON LA SERENISSIMA

INFANTE DE ESPANA MARIA,

TOMADO DESDE SUS PRINCIPIOS

PARA MAIOR DEMOSTRACION DE LA VERDAD, Y AJUSTADO CON LOS PAPELES
ORIGINALES DESDE CONSTA

COUNCIL OF THE CAMDEN SOCIETY

FOR THE YEAR 1869-70.

President,

WILLIAM TITE, ESQ. M.P., F.R.S., V.P.S.A.

JOHN BRUCE, ESQ. F.S.A. Director.

WILLIAM CHAPPELL, ESQ. F.S.A. Treasurer.
WILLIAM DURRANT COOPER, ESQ. F.S.A.
JOHN FORSTER, ESQ. D.C.L.

EDWARD FOSS, ESQ. F.S.A.

SAMUEL RAWSON GARDINER, ESQ.
THE VEN. ARCHDEACON HALE.

JOHN MACLEAN, ESQ. F.S.A.

SIR FREDERIC MADDEN, F.R.S.
FREDERIC OUVRY, ESQ. Treas. S.A.

EDWARD RIMBAULT, LL.D. F.S.A.

EVELYN PHILIP SHIRLEY, ESQ. M.A. F.S.A.
WILLIAM JOHN THOMS, ESQ. F.S.A. Secretary.
HIS EXCELLENCY M. VAN DE WEYER, F.S.A.
SIR THOMAS E. WINNINGTON, BART. M.P.

The COUNCIL of the CAMDEN SOCIETY desire it to be understood that they are not answerable for any opinions or observations that may appear in the Society's publications; the Editors of the several Works being alone responsible for the same.

PREFACE.

THE Copy (Add. MSS. 14,043) in the library of the British Museum from which the following pages are printed, was, according to a note on the fly-leaf, in the handwriting of Sir F. Madden, "Purchased of Thos. Rodd, 11th March, 1843." When I was fortunate enough to light upon it a few years ago, I was at once struck with its value as a full statement of the Spanish case against James and his son, though I was unable at the time to form any opinion of the correctness of the facts alleged in it. Subsequent researches, however, at Simancas and in our own libraries, have convinced me that the narrative is not merely welcome as an argument from a side from which no argument has hitherto reached us, but that it is—if we take into consideration the probability that many facts were doubtless kept from the knowledge of the writer, and if due allowance be made for his religious and political position—a thoroughly trustworthy representation of the facts as they would naturally appear to a Spanish catholic.

The book, as Don Pascual de Gayangos has obligingly informed me, has never before been printed, though it is not unfrequently to be found in MS. in Spanish libraries.

My only knowledge of the writer, excepting from these pages, and from occasional notices of him as taking part in theological discussions, or as the author of various memorials on the subject