Page:On papal conclaves (IA a549801700cartuoft).djvu/223

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APPENDIX A.

It may perhaps be thought by some that Mr. Bergenroth has been hasty in giving credence to the existence of so astounding a dispensation, on the mere testimony of a posterior Spanish State-paper, however grave its nature may be. But in a collection of documents drawn from the Vatican Records, edited by their Keeper, Father Theiner, printed in the Vatican Palace, and issued with the imprimaturof the Court of Rome, we possess irrefragable evidence of two Papal utterances in the matter of marriages, which certainly fall very little short of this dispensation in laxness of morality. They are to be found in the Vetera Monumenta Poloniæ, 4 vols. folio, Rome, 1864. The first case is that of Casimir the Great of Poland (1333–70), who married Anne, daughter of the Duke of Lithuania, and, on her death, Adelaide of Hesse, who, 1336, returned to her father, being indignant at her husband.s infidelities. Casimir then became enamoured of his cousin, Hedwig, daughter of Henry Duke of Sagan, and, though Adelaide was alive, went through a marriage ceremony with her. At first he vainly sought, through his nephew, Louis of Hungary, to get a dispensation from Rome. For a while Urban V. would not hear