Sometimes power that is wielded dishonestly and violently, in order to accomplish its objective, makes certain people marry very much against their conscience. It forces them to agree to something against their wishes, so that, taking each other as husband and wife in this way, neither of them ever freely consents to it. Thus, as far as God is concerned, they are never married even if they both live a long time. This kind of thing happened to Count Alfonso, the son of King Enrique, who was married to Dona Isabel, daughter of King Fernando, in Santarém, as you have heard.

At the beginning of the betrothal and immediately afterwards, the count was not pleased about it, always showing through words and gestures that it was against his will. On the journey and afterwards in Castile, he never spoke to her, nor named her his wife, nor gave her a single jewel. She lived like this in the king's household until she was old enough to marry. Then the king told the count to receive her publicly and go through a marriage as he ought to do, but the count opposed him and did not want to do it. For this reason, there arose such bitter words between the king and the count his son that the latter, fearing prison or dishonour, fled the kingdom and travelled to France and Avignon, complaining to the King of France and Pope Gregory about how his father the king was forcing him to marry that daughter of the King of Portugal whom he had never wanted as a wife.

Seeing the wilfulness that his son displayed in this act, the king ordered the seizure of his son's income and lands, giving some of them to his brother the duke. He also ordered the lands to be seized from some of those who had left the kingdom with the count. The countess saw what was happening, and one afternoon in February, while the king was in Valladolid, she came to him in a place called the Paraíso [Paradise] and, in the presence of Queen Juana and others, she rejected the betrothal as well as the marriage that she had entered into with the count, saying that if he was not happy to be married to her, then neither was she pleased to be married to him, and she had documents drawn up stating this.