Protestants capable of wearing the cross of St. Louis in France, which was given only for ninety-nine years to heretics, who forfeited it, if still unconverted at the end of that period. Laymen were named Cardinals only for twelve months, being bound within that period to take Deacon's orders; but then the same plenary power which elevated them could extend its favours to an indefinite renewal of the expired dis-
then ceased to be valid. This disputed right reacted on Charles V., if we can trust a State-paper recently recovered out of the dusty records of Simancas, by weighing among the grounds that induced him to wed the Portuguese Infanta Isabella, with the view of conciliating the friendship of the King of Portugal, under whose protection the disinherited Dona Juana was then still living.—See Bergenroth, Calendar of Negotiations, vol. ii. p. cxxvi. and p. 396. [See Appendix A.]
Amongst the curiosities of Papal history that are little borne in mind, is the fact that the chair of St. Peter has been occupied by father and son—Pope Silverius (536) having been son to the canonized Pope Hormisdas. In this instance the Pope had become a widower before election. But in the third portion of the Annales Bertinianorum, written by the celebrated Archbishop Hincmar, and to be found in Pertz, Mon., Germanica, vol. i., there is given an account of the abduction of the daughter and the wife Stephania of Pope Adrian in 868—that is to say, a period to which the Archbishop was a contemporary witness. The story is narrated with much detail, and with the names of all the parties implicated.
