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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 December 2023
King Pedro had written to the Pope and to the King of Aragon when King Afonso died to inform them of his father's death and of his own accession as King of Portugal. Each having taken the trouble to reply to him, their replies arrived at this time. The Pope's letter read as follows:
Innocent, bishop and servant of the servants of God, to my dearly beloved son in Christ Dom Pedro, most noble King of Portugal, greetings and our apostolic blessing. When, well-beloved son, through your letters and by public rumour we received confirmation that the most illustrious sovereign of noble memory, King Afonso, your father, had left this world, his death was and still is for us a great sorrow and sadness. Furthermore, it is not without reason that we should feel this way, when in our heart we remember the noble qualities and virtues which greatly honoured His Royal Highness. That was the reason why we loved him dearly, wishing that of all the princes in the world the Lord should make him prosper and extend his realm, with prolonged days of happiness until, at the end of his honourable old age, he left to you, his first-born, the governance of, and succession to, the kingdom in lasting peace with your neighbours.
Since the Lord God, in Whose hands rests the power to bestow life as well as death upon each and every one of us, was pleased, in His mercy, to take him from this world, we bring our grief and sadness to a final end, finding consolation in the Lord who gives and deprives and takes away whensoever it pleases Him. The same One whom we firmly trust will grant a just reward and glory to the soul of the king, your father, in heaven on high, for whilst he lived in this world he strove to serve Him meritoriously and pleased Him with his honourable virtues.
Accordingly, dearest son, we devoutly advise you to find consolation in the Lord God and to consider in your heart how to succeed to the governance established by your father who, setting an example of a life to lead, always showed himself to be a faithful Catholic.
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