luns to their recoenition. ALLIANCES AND DEATHS. 361 the ancient usao;e of the country ; and the Ara- chapter ... IV. gonese, as Martyr remarks in one of his Epistles, '- — " were well known to be a pertinacious race, who would leave no stone unturned, in the maintenance of their constitutional rights." ^° These apprehensions were fully realized ; for, no objectj sooner was the object of the present meeting laid before cortes in a speech from the throne, with which parliamentary business in Aragon was always opened, than decided opposition was manifested to a proceeding, which it was declared had no pre- cedent in their history. The succession of the crown, it was contended, had been limited by re- peated testaments of their princes to male heirs, and practice and public sentiment had so far co- incided with this, that the attempted violation of the rule by Peter the Fourth, in favor of his own daughters, had plunged the nation in a civil war. It was further urged that by the will of the very last monarch, John the Second, it was provided that the crown should descend to the male issue of his son Ferdinand, and in default of such to the male issue of Ferdinand's daughters, to the entire exclu- sion of the females. At all events, it was better to postpone the consideration of this matter until the result of the queen of Portugal's pregnancy, then far advanced, should be ascertained ; since, should it prove to be a son, all doubts of constitu- tional validity would be removed. 30 Peter Martyr, Opus Epist., ana, Hist, de Espana, torn. ii. lib. epist. 194. — Abarca, Reyes de 27, cap. 3. Aragon, torn. ii. fol. 334. — Mari- VOL. II. 46
