[19] Blancas somewhere boasts, that no one of the kings of Aragon has been stigmatized by a cognomen of infamy, as in most of the other royal races of Europe. Peter IV., "the Ceremonious," richly deserved one.
[20] Zurita, Anales, tom. i. fol. 102.
[21] Zurita, Anales, tom. i. fol. 198.—He recommended this policy to his son-in-law, the king of Castile.
[22] Sempere, Histoire des Cortès, p. 164.
[23] Zurita, Anales, lib. 4, cap. 96.—Abarca dates this event in the year preceding. Reyes de Aragon, en Anales Históricos, (Madrid, 1682-1684,) tom. ii. fol. 8.
[24] Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 192, 193.—Zurita, Anales, tom. i. fol. 266 et alibi.
[25] Zurita, Anales, tom. ii. fol. 126-130.—Blancas, Commentarii, pp. 195-197.—Hence he was styled "Peter of the Dagger;" and a statue of him, bearing in one hand this weapon, and in the other the Privilege, stood in the Chamber of Deputation at Saragossa in Philip II.'s time. See Antonio Perez, Relaciones, fol. 95.
[26] See the statute, De Prohibità Unione, etc. Fueros y Observancias, tom. i. fol. 178.—A copy of the original Privileges was detected by Blancas among the manuscripts of the archbishop of Saragossa; but he declined publishing it from deference to the prohibition of his ancestors. Commentarii, p. 179.
[27] "Haec itaque domestica Regis victoria, quae miserrimum universae Reipublicae interitum videbatur esse allatura, stabilem nobis constituit pacem, tranquillitatem, et otium. Inde enim Magistratus Justitiae Aragonum in eam, quam nunc colimus, amplitudinem dignitatis devenit." Ibid., p. 197.
[28] Martel, Forma de Celebrar Cortes, cap. 8.—"Bracos del reino, porque abraçan, y tienen en si."—The cortes consisted only of three arms in Catalonia and Valencia; both the greater and lesser nobility sitting in the same chamber. Perguera, Cortes en Cataluña, and Matheu y Sanz, Constitucion de Valencia, apud Capmany, Práctica y Estilo, pp. 65, 183, 184.