Surreal law facts

The truth is always stranger than fiction.

The 24-hour marriage

Leave it to the monarchy to once again test the speed limits of the law.

In the annals of matrimonial and marriage law. one marriage stands out as a record-maker. Peter the Cruel (of Castille, now part ofSpain) lived from 1334 to 1369. Also known as Pedro I, he was a tyrant but nonetheless quite creative when it came to pickup ruses.

In May 1354. at the age of 19. he fell head over heels with Dona Juana de Castro, sister of Fernando Perez de Castro. Though Pedro was already married to Blanche of Bourbon, he dismissed that as null and void, gathered two bishops to attest to this and to preside over the wedding, and proceeded to marry his new queen at the Church at Cuellar.

He consummated the marriage that night - we know this because Juana bore him a son. But the very day of his wedding, he received a very distressing courier - that an enemy army was poised to invade Castille and that Fernando, incensed at the trickery of his sister, had joined leagues with the enemy.

The next day. Pedro the Cruel disavowed his new marriage and left Juana never to see her again. A civil war ensued which was resolved only when Pedro agreed to honour his original marriage to Blanche.

.After losing yet another civil war in 1369, Pedro was beheaded by his own brother.

The instant lawyer

Alexander Hamilton, the famous American revolutionary studied law for only three (3) months before being called to the bar in July of 1783.

Born outside of the USA, in about 1757, he left college to join the fight against the British and became one of George Washington s officers.

Called he was and he was admitted after what must be the shortest legal education in record.

There must have been some hero worship in his admission test. Hamilton had been a hero of the War of Independence. Once certified as a lawyer, he was quick to accept a patronage appointment, named Receiver General for New York. In 1789, he was appointed Secretary of the Treasury for the United States of America. Leaving this position in 1795, he returned to his lucrative law practise only to die in July of 1804, in a duel he had provoked against the Vice-President of the United States, Aaron Burr.

Source www duhame.org.