Alessandro Marries the English Princess and Restores His Family’s Fortune

Alessandro Marries the English Princess and Restores His Family’s Fortune turns a chance encounter on the road into a reversal of both romantic and financial fortunes. Alessandro, a Florentine reduced to wandering after his family’s wealth collapses, marries a princess who has fled England in disguise; her choice brings him rank and influence, releases his brothers from prison, and restores the family’s possessions. The story’s ascent depends not on inheritance alone, but on a concealed identity revealed, a private pledge made public, and generosity put to practical use.

Financial ruin and a journey home

Alessandro’s return begins against the prolonged political division between the King of England and his son. The conflict has cost Alessandro the castles that were his source of revenue. He waits in England for several years, hoping peace will restore both his interest and his capital, while his three brothers in Florence continue their extravagant spending and borrow more. Their expectation comes to nothing: their credit fails, creditors demand payment, and the brothers are arrested when their property proves insufficient to meet their debts. Their wives and children scatter in distress, with little prospect beyond continuing hardship.

Seeing that his own stay in England is futile and may endanger his life, Alessandro sets out for Italy alone. Leaving Bruges, he falls in with an abbot of white friars, a large retinue, and two elderly knights related to the English King. The knights explain that the newly elected abbot is travelling to Rome to seek papal confirmation of a dignity for which his youth makes him ineligible. They add that the matter must be kept secret. This apparently straightforward procession conceals the story’s central reversal: the person travelling as a young male churchman is an English princess.

The abbot’s secret and the private betrothal

The princess notices Alessandro, whose appearance, manners, and conversation please her. During the journey she draws him into conversation, and he frankly tells her his circumstances and offers his service. Later, at an inn, the abbot overhears Alessandro arranging his sleeping place and takes this as an opportunity to approach him. When Alessandro is puzzled by the abbot’s amorous touch, she reveals that she is a woman. He discovers the truth when she guides his hand to her breasts.

The princess explains that she has left home unmarried and is travelling to the Pope to seek a husband. Her father, the King of England, had intended to marry her to the elderly King of Scotland. She says that she fell in love with Alessandro as soon as she saw him and has resolved to take him as her husband; if he will not accept, he must leave. Alessandro, judging from her company and retinue that she is noble and wealthy, and seeing that she is fair, agrees. She gives him a ring and makes him pledge himself to her before an image of Christ. Their betrothal and intimacy take place privately, while the rest of the company remains unaware of where Alessandro has spent the night.

The secret made public in Rome

After continuing with the party to Rome, the princess brings Alessandro and the two knights before the Pope. She explains that she fled with a large part of her father’s treasure because he meant to give her to the King of Scotland, and that she feared such a marriage might lead her, through the frailty of youth, to act against divine law and her royal honour. She presents Alessandro as the husband whom she believes God has placed before her, acknowledges their commitment before God, and asks the Pope to bless their marriage publicly.

Alessandro is astonished to learn that his bride is the King of England’s daughter. The knights are even more shocked and so angry that they might have harmed the couple had they been elsewhere. The Pope first calms them and reconciles them with the princess and Alessandro. He then arranges a splendid feast attended by cardinals and other distinguished guests. The princess appears in royal dress and Alessandro in fine clothes; their public standing now contrasts with the secret encounter at the inn and with Alessandro’s recent life as a financially diminished wanderer. The Pope solemnly celebrates the marriage anew and sends them away with his blessing. The story thus distinguishes the couple’s private pledge from its subsequent public recognition and ceremonial confirmation.

Restitution, reconciliation, and an uncertain coda

The couple travels to Florence, where their arrival is already known. The princess pays the brothers’ creditors in full, secures the brothers’ release, and restores them and their wives to their possessions. Her intervention turns wealth into a direct remedy for the consequences of their failed borrowing and extravagance; it is not merely a reward to Alessandro, but a restoration of the households that the debt crisis had scattered and impoverished.

Alessandro and the princess leave Florence with Agolante and travel to Paris, where the King receives them honourably. The two knights return to England and persuade the King to restore his daughter to favour and welcome both her and his son-in-law. The King makes Alessandro a knight and grants him the Earldom of Cornwall. Alessandro then uses his new standing and abilities to reconcile the King with his son, bringing peace and wider benefit to the island. Agolante recovers the sums owed to him and his brothers and returns to Florence wealthy. Alessandro and the princess live together for many years; the tale adds, with explicit qualification, that some people say his wit, valour, and the aid of his father-in-law later enabled him to conquer Scotland and become its King.