tenderness and devotion, but this did not soften the hard heart of the
guardian. Andronicus even went so far as to endeavor, to make the Greek
Church declare the marriage null and void on the ground that it had been
contracted by a union without the consent of his guardian. But the
patriarch and clergy, sympathizing with the lovers, and alarmed at the
ludicrous position in which they would be placed, took advantage of the
interesting condition of the bride to refuse to gratify the spleen of
the chagrined emperor.

At this time also, Eudocia, the mother of Alexius, who was in partial
durance in the imperial palace at Constantinople, saw an opportunity of
obtaining her freedom and of returning to her dominions. Her brother
Andronicus was offended with her because she had rejected his proposal
to form a second marriage with the Krai of Servia.

She persuaded her brother that her influence over her son, who was
devotedly attached to her, would have far more weight in making the
young emperor agree to a divorce than the sentence of an ecclesiastical
tribunal whose authority he was able to decline; and to this end she
obtained her brother's permission to return to Trebizond. Upon arriving
at her son's court Eudocia was so much impressed with the conjugal
fidelity of her son Alexius that she at once approved of his conduct,
and supported him in his determination to resist the tyrannical
pretensions of his guardian. Eudocia is an excellent example of the
superiority of the Palaeologi women over their weaker and more selfish
brothers. In every situation, even in her months of exile from her
dominions, she maintained herself with dignity, and in her careful
rearing of her son and regard for his interests she exhibited motherly
traits of a high order.

In the next generation there was also an alliance between the royal
families of the two kingdoms. The emperor Basilius, second son of
Alexius II., married Irene Palaeologina, the natural daughter of
Andronicus III. of Constantinople. Basilius had no legitimate issue, but
falling in love with a beautiful lady of Trebizond, also named Irene, he
made her his mistress and conferred on her every possible honor. She
bore him four children. To insure the succession of one of his natural
sons, Basilius in 1339 persuaded or forced the clergy to celebrate a
public marriage with his Trebizontine mistress, though there is no
evidence that he obtained a divorce from his lawful wife Irene, bey