King, Georgiana Goddard: A brief account of the military orders in Spain (New York: The Hispanic Society of America, 1921)

IN SPAIN
195
insisted on D. Gonzalo Martel, in 1284,
who was de los muy modernos, but he died
in three months by a fall from his horse
and the old men came back: in 1324, for
instance, the knights in the field had to
serve under the Master of Calatrava.
The accident was unlucky for the Mas-
ter, Martel, but it was of a piece with all
the ill-luck that hangs over the King his
friend. This King D. Sancho the Bold
was perhaps such another unhappy warrior
as his father’s grandfather, Alfonso IX of
Leon, ill-starred in life, ill-spoken of there-
after, for no wrongdoing of his own but by
perversity of fate. He married his second
cousin Dona Maria, the daughter of the
Lord of Molina, S. Ferdinand’s knightly
younger brother, and the Pope, though the
degree was so remote, withheld his dis-
pensation at the instance of the King of
France, saying that D. Sancho had usurped
the kingdom from his nephew D. Alonso
who by his mother, the Princess Blanche,
was a nephew of the King of France. The
correspondence of another Pope, Innocent
VI, with another French Blanche, the
Fit
figure for
classic
tragedy
AND MONOGRAPHS