Maria Padilla made little opposition to Alburquerque's project. Her uncle, Juan de Hinestrosa, himself conducted her to Don Pedro, and placed her, it may almost be said, in his arms. The complaisance was royally rewarded. Hinestrosa and the other relations of the favourite emerged from their obscurity, appeared at court, and soon stood high in their sovereign's favour, although the pliant uncle was the only one who retained it till the end of his career. Subsequently, before the Cortes of 1362, Don Pedro declared that he had been, from the first, privately married to Maria Padilla--thus invalidating his public union with Blanche of Bourbon, with whom he had never lived, and after whose death the declaration was made. He produced three witnesses of the marriage--the fourth, Juan de Hinestrosa, was then dead--who positively swore it had taken place in their presence. M. Mérimée, examines the question minutely, quoting various writers on the subject, and discussing it _pro_ and _con_; one of his strongest arguments in favour of the marriage, being the improbability that so faithful, loyal, and valiant a knight as Hinestrosa proved himself, would have consented, under any temptation, to play the base part of a pander. It would not be difficult, however, to trace contradictions nearly as great in the code of honour and morality of the chevaliers of the fourteenth century; and, very much nearer to our own times, it has frequently been seen how large an amount of infamy of that kind the royal purple has been held to cloak.