sent for that purpose. She was married and crowned on the Lord's day before the beginning of Septuagesima, being the ides of February; and was with due honor endowed with the county of Saint Angelo, the city of Siponto, the city of Vesta, and many other castles and places. Whereupon, the king of Sicily executed in her favour his charter, as follows : The Charter of William, king of Sicily, which he executed in favour of Joanna, daughter of Henry, king of England, as to lier dowry. " In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, Amen. Amid the other blessings of peace, the nuptial tie binds and fastens the most strongly the unison and the concord of human affairs; a rite, both venerable from the weightiness of its obligations, remarkable in the circumstances of its institution, and sanctioned by universal usage, from the beginning of the world and of time ; of which the virtues and the comeliness, inasmuch as it has derived its origin from Divine institution, have neither contracted blemish from sin, nor have been sensible of any diminution by desuetude, through the lengthened ages of past time. Moreover, to this venerable and mysterious institution this honor is added, that the consent of the man and of the woman to enter matrimony, typifies the sacramental bond of Christ and His Church. Being therefore led by the nature of this great and mysterious institution, and by veneration for the same, we, William, by the favour of the Divine grace, king of SicUy, and of the dukedom of ApuBa, and of the principaBty of Capua, do unite unto ourselves by the laws of matrimony and the bond of wedlock, with the Divine sanction and under happy auspices, the maiden Joanna, of royal blood, and the most illustrious daughter of Henry, the mighty king of the English ; to the end, that her fideBty and chaste affection may produce the blessings of the married state, and that by her a royal offspring may, by the gift of God, hereafter succeed us in the kingdom, which, both by reason of its endowment withaB virtues, and of its title by birth, by the Divine grace, both may and ought to be raised to the throne of this realm. But, inasmuch as it is befitting our exalted position that so noble and Blustrious an aBiancc should be honored with a becoming dowry, by this present writing we do give, and as a dowry, do grant to the before-named queen, our most dearly be