IV. ARAGON TO THE UNION WITH CASTILE
[Sidenote: [1162-1475 A.D.]]
Owing to the alternate separations and unions of the Spanish kingdoms and their picturesque activities within their own realms as well as with each other and with foreign countries, the arrangement of the earlier chronicle has always puzzled historians. To carry one realm too far forward before going back to bring forward the other is destructive of a sense of synchronology, while the attempt to carry them simultaneously is as bewildering as it is difficult.
To carry Castile forward to that well-known time when Isabella wed Ferdinand of Aragon is to be compelled to retrace our steps for three centuries. It seems most convenient to do as follows: Leaving Castile at the moment of the death of that easily remembered monarch Pedro the Cruel, to take up Aragon and bring its history to the same point. But once reaching there it leaves but little more to be said to bring Aragon definitely to the marriage of its prince Ferdinand with the Castilian princess Isabella. This, then, we shall do, returning thence to take up the story of Castile after the death of Pedro the Cruel, after which time the chronicle lies straight and single.[a]
[Sidenote: [1196-1276 A.D.]]
That gallant monarch Alfonso II, the liberal art-loving patron of the troubadours, who was endowed with such brilliant princely qualities, had either by right of inheritance or success in arms extended his sway over a great part of southern France and curbed the might of the Saracens. In 1196 he was succeeded in Aragon, Catalonia, and Roussillon by his first-born son Pedro II, while the county of Provence and the rest of his possessions in France fell to Alfonso the younger brother. Pedro had himself crowned by Pope Innocent III, perhaps with the object of investing the authority of the crown with greater prestige in the eyes of the nobles. At his coronation he swore fealty to the pope and pledged himself to pay an annual tribute to the apostolic see. In order to defray this expense he introduced a new property-tax, the monedaje, to be levied upon the nobles, who had hitherto been exempt from taxation. The nobles and cities, incensed at the new impost and the abasement of the crown, formed a “union” in consequence of which the king was compelled at least to reduce the tax.
Pedro took part in the wars against the Albigenses as an ally of his brother-in-law, Raymond of Toulouse, and in 1213 he met his death in battle before the walls of the fortress of Muret, where he proved himself worthy of the reputation for heroic strength which he had won two years before in the famous victory of Ubeda in the plain of Tolosa. Pedro was a true son of his age; a brave warrior of mighty arm and gigantic stature, he was distinguished for chivalrous valour as well as for liberality and sumptuous tastes; a gallant knight, who honoured women in poetry and song and won repute among the troubadours of his day, though he was harsh and unloving to his virtuous consort, Maria de Montpellier, granddaughter of the Byzantine emperor Manuel. His knightly and royal qualities were often overcast by debauchery, superstition, and religious fanaticism.
JAMES THE CONQUEROR (1213-1276 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1213-1276 A.D.]]
James,[37] the son of Pedro and Maria, had to win by arms the throne which his uncles contested with him, before he could resume the war of conquest against the Saracens at the head of the chivalry of Aragon and Catalonia. He then prosecuted it with such success as to gain for himself the surname of “the conqueror.” He began by a campaign of four years’ duration, in which he subjugated Majorca and the rest of the Balearic Islands, so long the headquarters of a ruthless system of piracy and the terror of all Christian seaboard states of the Mediterranean.
The Catalans, whose important trade suffered great loss at the hands of hostile pirates, took a particularly active part in the conquest, and many Catalan knights and nobles were therefore endowed with fiefs in the islands. A matter of even greater consequence to the future of the kingdom of Aragon was James’ expedition against Valencia, which the Spaniards regarded as a sacred inheritance from the great Cid Campeador, the first Spanish conqueror. James invaded the territory of Valencia with a great army of Catalan and Aragonese knights, which was joined by many volunteers from southern France and even from England. The emir Jomail ben Ziyan was forced to capitulate, and the capital was vigorously besieged and reduced to submission (1238). The Saracen population migrated elsewhere, either voluntarily or under compulsion, their property was assigned to Christian settlers, Catalans occupied the cities, and the land was given in fee among the victorious barons and knights. Within the next few days the other towns fell into the hands of the Aragonese conquerors, the chief of them being the strongholds of Jativa, situate upon a hill in the midst of a fertile and lovely country, and the town of Denia; and Moslem dominion was soon confined to the kingdom of Granada and its strong, rock-built capitals, for the kings of Castile and Portugal were likewise pushing their frontiers forward on the Guadiana and the Guadalquivir.
James was one of the greatest monarchs of his century, and not only because in the course of a reign of sixty-three years he extended the kingdom he had inherited in every direction, nor because he conquered Majorca and Valencia, nor even because in the closing years of his life he fought with youthful ardour against the infidels in Murcia, who had revolted afresh against their Christian conquerors with the help of the Merinids from Africa, nor that he fought, as is reported, thirty battles against the Moors; but because with the might of a conqueror he combined the endowments of a wise and humane ruler. He was clement and merciful to the Moslem who sued him for mercy, and greatly as he had the propagation of Christianity at heart (he is said to have founded nearly two hundred churches in the countries he conquered) he showed tolerance and consideration for their faith and their religious and civil laws, and defended the independence of his crown against the pretensions of the papal see.
[Sidenote: [1266-1282 A.D.]]
But he was pre-eminent, above all things, as a lawgiver; it was he who made the first compilation of the laws of Aragon; he founded the maritime laws of Catalonia,[38] he promoted navigation and trade, laid the basis of the free constitution of Barcelona, and was the author of a new political organisation in Valencia. The Catalonian language, intellectual culture, and the art of poetry likewise enjoyed his patronage; Jordi of Valencia, to whom Petrarch owes many beautiful passages,[39] and other minstrels lived at his court, which was not lacking in brilliance and splendour. But his unfortunate idea of dividing the dominions he had inherited and conquered among his sons caused him many pangs and wrought great confusion in the kingdom of Aragon. Several treaties of partition were agreed upon during his reign, and invariably brought rebellion and civil war in their train. The great dismemberment he contemplated was only prevented by the fact that the eldest infante, Alfonso, the son of his marriage with Leonora of Castile, whom he afterwards divorced, died before his father, and the third of the sons whom Violante [or Yolande] of Hungary bore him sank into an early grave. Thus the great provinces of Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia passed on united into the hands of Pedro III, and only the Balearic Islands, with Montpellier, Roussillon, and some of his other possessions fell to the younger brother, James, as a separate kingdom. Fernan Sanchez, a natural son of the king, was drowned in the river Chica by order of his brother the infante Pedro, after a futile attempt at rebellion, and his property was sequestrated. James not only sanctioned the deed but testified his satisfaction at it, so greatly had the unnatural strife hardened his usually noble heart.[b] He died in 1276 and was succeeded by his son.
PEDRO III AND HIS SICILIAN WARS
Pedro III lost no time in restoring tranquillity in Valencia; but scarcely was this object effected, when many of his rebellious barons, whose constant end was the curtailment of the royal prerogative and the oppression of the poor, broke out into an open insurrection. He reduced them to obedience. In two years they again rebelled, but with no better success: they were invested in the fortress of Balaguer, which was at length compelled to surrender, and were for some time detained prisoners.
[Sidenote: [1282-1285 A.D.]]
But the most important transactions of Pedro were with Sicily. On the death of Manfred, who had perished at Benevento in battle with Charles of Anjou, whom the pope had invested with the fief, the French prince took undisturbed possession of the Two Sicilies. When Conradin had attained his sixteenth year, knowing the hatred borne to the French rule by the Sicilies, and that the Ghibelline faction was at his command, he resolved to vindicate his rightful claims. Despising the papal thunders, which had consigned him while living to every ill that life can suffer, and when dead to the goodly fellowship of Dathan, Abiram, and the devil, he invaded Italy, passed, in contempt of the church, through the city of Rome, where he was hailed with enthusiasm, and proceeded towards Naples. He was defeated by his formidable adversary; was taken prisoner in the retreat; was tried, condemned, and executed at Naples. The Ghibellines, and all who revered the rights of blood, now turned their eyes towards Constanza, daughter of Manfred and queen of Aragon, while the Guelfs and all who recognised the papal supremacy over the kingdom continued the zealous asserters of the rights of Charles, the pope’s feudatory. But the tyrannical government of Charles, his rapacity and injustice, soon made him hateful to the whole body of his subjects. The oppressed inhabitants of Sicily despatched messengers with renewed complaints to Nicholas III, to Michael Palæologus, emperor of Constantinople, and, above all, to Pedro of Aragon, whom they regarded in right of Constanza as lawful ruler, and whom they urged to expel the tyrant without delay.
Pedro was overjoyed at this opportunity of extending his dominions; but to fight against the pope, the king of France, brother to Charles of Sicily, and the whole party of the Guelfs, was too momentous an undertaking to be lightly commenced. He first secured a considerable sum from the Greek emperor, to whom the Sicilian usurper was obnoxious; he next collected a fleet, assembled his barons, gave liberty to his rebel subjects, whom he had placed in confinement; but took care to conceal his purpose. It seems, however, to have been divined both by the pope and the French king, who, alarmed at the extent of his preparations, demanded for what object they were intended. By pretending that his expedition was to be directed against Barbary, and by even sending an ambassador to the pope (Martin IV), soliciting an indulgence for all who joined him in warring against the infidels, he hoped to lull the suspicions of Europe. But Martin, who was not to be deceived, contumeliously dismissed the ambassador. This circumstance did not discourage Pedro, whose armament was prosecuted with an alacrity inspired by the hope of success. An accident which, operating like a spark on the inflammable temper of the Sicilians, forced them into open insurrection, hastened his departure. The citizens of Palermo rose as one man, and destroyed every Frenchman on whom they could lay hands. Their example was followed by other towns--by none more heartily than Messina; so that scarcely a Frenchman was left alive from one extremity of the island to another. Such is the famous massacre which posterity has called the Sicilian Vespers. [Burke[g] estimates the number of slain at 28,000.]
When Pedro learned that the Messenians were courageously repelling the assaults of Charles of Anjou, who had passed over from Naples to reduce them, and when a deputation from Palermo arrived, beseeching him to accept the crown, he laid aside his extreme caution, and proceeded towards the western coast of the island. In August he landed at Trapani, where his reception was enthusiastic; he hastened to Palermo, where he was joyfully proclaimed king of Sicily. The inhabitants of Messina, still invested by Charles, besought the new monarch to relieve them, and to receive their homage. Pedro hastened to their aid. Charles now raised the siege, and conducted his powerful armament towards the ports of Calabria; it was pursued by that of Aragon, headed by Don James, a son of Pedro, who took twenty vessels, with four thousand prisoners. But the young prince, listening only to his ardour, instead of returning to Messina, pursued Charles to a fort in Calabria, which he attempted to take; where, being repulsed with some loss, he re-embarked his troops. His father, indignant at his failure, deprived him of the naval command, which was intrusted to a more experienced chief, Roger de Lauria.
No sooner did Pope Martin hear of Pedro’s proclamation at Palermo and Messina, of the enthusiasm shown towards the monarch by the Sicilians, and of the flight of Charles, than he excommunicated the Aragonese. A defiance next followed between the two rivals; who agreed to decide their quarrel by combat, one hundred knights on each side, in the city of Bordeaux, in June the following year. Until the appointed day arrived, Pedro employed himself in causing his queen, who had arrived from Aragon, to be acknowledged by the Sicilians, and in reducing some of the forts on the Neapolitan coast. Leaving Constanza and his son, Don James, in the government of the island, he returned into his states, for the purpose, as was believed, of preparing for the combat. But that combat never happened, nor, amidst the conflicting statements of historians, can we easily decide to which of the royal rivals the disgrace of its failure must be imputed. It is certain that Pedro caused one hundred knights to be selected for the occasion, and that he appeared secretly at Bordeaux, attended by three horsemen only, and returned to his dominions before the lists were opened. For this extraordinary proceeding he appears to have had sufficient reason. He found that a considerable number of troops were silently moving towards the south of France, with the view, as he feared, of seizing his person. If the Aragonese writers are to be credited, the seneschal of Bordeaux, whom he consulted on the subject, informed him that the field was not a safe one, and advised him not to risk his person. This account is the more probable, from the fact that Pope Martin had previously condemned the combat, and had required the English king, Edward I, to whom Bordeaux belonged, and who was to be present on the occasion, not to guarantee a fair field, nor to be present, either in person or by his seneschals. What confirms the suspicion that some treachery was meditated is that, though the English monarch was thus enjoined not to visit the field, in other words, was given to understand that the battle would not take place, no such intimation was made to the king of Aragon.
While Pedro remained in Aragon, his admiral, Roger de Lauria, reduced the greater part of Malta (1284). He afterwards defeated a French fleet within sight of Naples, taking the prince of Salerno, the son of Charles, prisoner. The vindictive pope now proclaimed a crusade against the excommunicated king of Aragon: his legate zealously preached it in France, declaring Pedro deprived of the crown, which he conferred on Charles de Valois, who was thus to possess both it and that of the Two Sicilies. Fortunately for Pedro both Sicily and Aragon required other weapons than a furious churchman could wield before they could be drawn from his sway.
Though the same indulgences as were awarded to all who warred for the Holy Sepulchre were promised to such as engaged in this Spanish crusade; though vast numbers, among whom was James, king of Majorca, brother and vassal of the Aragonese king, flocked to the standard of Philip; though that monarch lost no time in penetrating, by way of Roussillon, into Catalonia, at the head of one hundred thousand men, these formidable preparations ended in nothing. If Gerona, after a long and bloody siege, capitulated, the French fleet was almost annihilated near Rosas by the famous Roger de Lauria. The ranks of the invaders were so thinned by pestilence and the sword, that Philip, leaving a garrison in Gerona, immediately returned to Perpignan, where he died. The rear of his army in this retreat was dreadfully harassed by Don Pedro, who recovered Gerona with facility.
Pedro had just despatched his eldest son Alfonso with a small armament to dethrone his brother Don James, as a punishment for the aid which that prince had lent to the invaders, when death surprised him at Villafranca del Panades (1285). In his will he left Aragon and Catalonia to Alfonso, and Sicily to his second son, Don James.
Though Alfonso III heard of his father’s death immediately after his disembarkation, he refused to return until he had dethroned his uncle. As James was not much beloved by the inhabitants of these islands, whom he had offended by his exactions, the enterprise was successful. The dethroned king had still Montpellier, Conflans, and other possessions in France: to these he retired, but they appear the same year to have been laid waste by Roger de Lauria, the able and intrepid admiral of Aragon.
POLITICAL GROWTH
[Sidenote: [1283-1336 A.D.]]
During Alfonso’s absence, the nobles of Aragon had assembled in Saragossa, to provide for the due administration of justice. Some of them were not a little scandalised that he should have assumed in the Balearic Isles the title of king, since, by ancient custom, it could be assumed only after he had sworn before the assembly of the states to observe the customs, privileges, immunities, and laws of the realm. No sooner did they hear of his return to Valencia, than they despatched several of their body to wait upon him, and to express their surprise at his thus arrogating to himself the supreme power without their formal sanction. He justified himself by replying that the crown was his by right of succession, and that there would be time enough to guarantee the constitutions of the realms at the ceremony of his coronation. Accordingly, when that ceremony took place in the cathedral of Saragossa, he fulfilled the conditions of the compact.[c]
Under Pedro III, the knightly monarch,--“girded,” as Dante says, “with the cord of every virtue,”--the Aragonese, exasperated by the burdensome taxes which the king was compelled to levy for his costly enterprises, had extorted such great privileges and liberties in the General Privilege of Saragossa (1283) that after Pedro’s successor, Alfonso III, a man of milder temper, had amplified the Privilegium,[40] by fresh concessions to the union of the nobles, the kingdom of Aragon was less like a hereditary monarchy than a republican commonwealth with a responsible chief. The king was not only bound to secure the consent of the estates of the kingdom (cortes) in all important public affairs, especially for the declaration of war, the conclusion of peace, the enactment of laws, the imposition of taxes, and the selection and appointment of the advisers of the crown (the ministers), but it was further decreed that “without previous sentence of the justiciary and the cortes of Saragossa, the king might not proceed against any member of the union by way of capital punishment, imprisonment, or other injury, and that should he nevertheless do so, the union had power to exclude him and his descendants from succession to the throne, without thereby incurring the guilt of wrong-doing or disloyalty.”
On Alfonso’s death without issue (1291) he was succeeded by his brother James II, up to that time king of Sicily, a well-meaning, kindly, and (as the surname he bears in history testifies) “just” sovereign, who thought more of perfecting the laws and constitution and maintaining peace and prosperity amongst his people than of enlarging the borders of his kingdom. He handed Sicily over to his brother Frederick as a separate kingdom; but on the other hand, after protracted wars with the Genoese, he won the island of Sardinia which the pope had bestowed upon him in fee. A war against the Moors, which he undertook in conjunction with Ferdinand, king of Castile, led to no important results. In an attempt to break down the overweening power of the aristocratic families, James had the assistance of the great jurist Martínez de Salanova; the power of the justiciary was strengthened.
But the greatest benefits which James conferred upon the Aragonese nation was a law enacted in the assembly of Tarragona, by virtue of which the kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, the county of Barcelona, and the suzerainty of Majorca were united in perpetuity and incapable of division by will or gift, though each was to remain a kingdom possessed of its separate constitution and cortes. The king, however, reserved the right of assigning to his sons and other members of his family the possession of particular cities and castles, a right of which his successors frequently availed themselves to excess, and which often provoked internecine quarrels and feuds.[b]
King James died in 1327, and was succeeded by his second son, Alfonso, his first son having voluntarily renounced his claims that he might, tradition says, give himself up more completely to his vices.[a]
Alfonso IV was doomed to much annoyance from the recent conquest of Sardinia. In 1330 the Genoese, incensed that the Catalans, their rivals in commerce, should have obtained a settlement in seas which they considered as exclusively their right, not only fomented a spirit of disaffection among the islanders, but sent a fleet to invest the capital. A bloody war ensued, the details of which would afford little interest. To stay these hostilities the pope frequently interfered, but without effect; the Genoese insisted on an ample indemnification for the expenses of their armaments; the Aragonese would consent to none. Thus the warfare raged during the whole of this prince’s reign. Alfonso, like his predecessors, was not averse to encourage the rebellions which at this period almost continually afflicted Castile; but without deriving any ultimate advantage from his ungenerous policy. If the internal state of his own kingdom was tranquil, it was not so in his own house. His eldest son and destined successor, Don Pedro, offended that he had bestowed on Alfonso--another son, by a second wife--some domains of the crown, complained loudly of his prodigality. The queen, Leonora of Castile, at whose instigation the alienation had been made, cherished a deep resentment against her stepson. Pedro despised her anger; and, to incense her the more, seized on Jativa, which had been assigned to her on her marriage with his father, and loudly proclaimed his intention of revoking every grant made by the king, whenever he should succeed to the sovereignty. It was not in Alfonso’s power to stifle these dissensions, which not only imbittered his peace but aggravated the hydropsical disease under which he had long suffered. He died at Barcelona, in 1336.
[Sidenote: [1336-1347 A.D.]]
No sooner had Pedro IV ascended the throne, than Queen Leonora, apprehensive of the consequences of her late quarrel with him, fled to Fraga, whence she implored the protection of her brother Alfonso, king of Castile. Alfonso naturally espoused his sister’s cause. The pope despatched a legate to exhort the two kings to settle their dispute by negotiations, and to insist on justice being done to Queen Leonora. Their deliberations ended in nothing, beyond a suspension of actual hostilities. Some years having elapsed, in 1345 the king, so far from wishing to do his stepmother justice, endeavoured to seize the domains belonging to his two brothers, Ferdinand and Juan, on the pretext that the revenues of the crown were materially injured by the prodigality of their common father. On the representations of the Castilian king, he again suspended, though he was far from abandoning, his purpose. The troubles which agitated his kingdom will account for this temporary forbearance.
He offended his barons, in 1347, by purposing to set aside the order of succession, as established by Don Jayme el Conquistador (James the Conqueror), which, on the failure of direct heirs male, called in the collateral male branches--or, in other words, which enforced the Salic law. As Pedro, by his queen Maria of Navarre, had only a daughter--the infanta Constanza--his brother Don James was the presumptive heir to the crown. To secure the succession to his daughter, he assembled twenty-two theologians and civil jurists, nineteen of whom readily sanctioned her right. They knew that Doña Petronilla had not been excluded by the accident of sex; that in Navarre and Castile women were called to the succession; and they could not approve the arbitrary regulation of James I, nor recognise it as binding on his successors. But however weighty these reasons, they had no effect on the prince whom they tended to exclude, and who resolved to vindicate his supposed claims by force. Amid the elements of discontent which lay scattered on every side, he had no difficulty in collecting means of resistance.
From the causes just detailed, and from the restless ambition of his barons, who constantly aimed at diminishing the royal authority, a formidable confederacy was soon formed against the king. It consisted of prelates, barons, magistrates, and a majority of the great towns. They formed themselves into a political union, and bound themselves by oath never to cease their opposition to the king until their privileges rested on some surer guarantee than the royal engagement, and until the Salic law became fundamental in the state. At the head of this league was Don James. A similar one was soon formed in Valencia, under the guidance of the infante Ferdinand. Both diligently raised troops to take the field against the king. Conscious of their united strength, they now loudly demanded the convocation of the states, which accordingly met at Saragossa, and which were, as usual, opened by the monarch. Among the demands made by the union, not the least obnoxious was the nomination of the public officers by themselves--a concession which, as before related, James II had been constrained to grant, and which they insisted should thenceforward be held as a fundamental law of the realm. Pedro showed great reluctance to sanction it; but on being told that, if he refused to do so, the states would immediately proceed to a new election, he no longer withstood the torrent. From that moment, however, he resolved to effect the destruction of the union, if not by force, by corruption. So well did he labour, so efficaciously were his gold and promises distributed that in a few days he gained over a few of the most influential members.
[Sidenote: [1347-1356 A.D.]]
The king soon closed the states, without yielding any further to the demands of the union, and hastened into Catalonia, with the avowed purpose of collecting troops, to reduce the whole body to obedience. That the leaguers did not prevent his departure was owing to the suspicions irresistibly forced on their minds that there was treachery in their camp, and that he had more secret adherents than they had expected. He was followed to Barcelona by the infante Don James, who sickened and died in that city, not without suspicions of poison. The union of Valencia, nowise discouraged by the ill success of that of Aragon, immediately invested the fortresses which held for the king, whose troops they defeated before Jativa. The infante Ferdinand, who was now proclaimed lieutenant-general of that province and head of the confederacy, with a force estimated at thirty thousand obtained a second victory over the royalists. Pedro now hastened from Barcelona, to crush in person this formidable rebellion.
He had soon an army on foot with which two of his generals attacked, defeated, and took Ferdinand.[41] The infante, however, from fear of the king’s vengeance, was conducted into Castile. Pedro himself advanced against Saragossa, the very stronghold of faction. One instance of ill fortune had damped, as much as success had encouraged, the rebels: they received him with great humility, renounced the privileges of the union, and threw themselves wholly on his mercy. Thirteen of the most obnoxious ringleaders were put to death; the rest he pardoned. In an assembly of the states, which he was no longer afraid of convoking, the ricos homes [or hombres] and deputies solemnly renewed the renunciation of the privileges claimed by the union; in presence of them all, the king tore in pieces the registered act of that body, but at the same time he confirmed his subjects in the possession of all their ancient rights. Aragon was now pacified; its union was no more: but Valencia remained in rebellion. Having assembled a formidable army, James marched into that province, and, in a general battle near the capital, triumphed over the leaguers. Valencia immediately surrendered at discretion.
[Sidenote: [1356-1365 A.D.]]
On the termination of these troubled scenes, Leonora and one of her sons took refuge in Castile. But misfortunes assailed them there, superior, perhaps, to any which would have befallen them in Aragon. How the infante Juan was murdered at Bilbao, and Leonora herself in the castle of Castro Xeres, by order of Pedro the Cruel, has been related in the reign of that monarch. Ferdinand, indeed, escaped the vengeance of the tyrant; but, as we shall soon see, a fate no less tragical awaited him. The misunderstanding between the two Pedros commenced in 1356, on the refusal of the Castilian to restore a prize made at sea by one of his Biscayan pirates. The second offence was committed by an admiral of Catalonia, who, under the eyes of the Castilian, captured two Pisan vessels--a power with which the Aragonese were at war--in the port of Santa Maria. With some justice, the Castilian remonstrated against the violation of a neutral port; and on the refusal of his brother sovereign to make satisfaction for it, he levied a heavy contribution on the Catalan inhabitants of Seville, and declared war against Aragon. Hostilities now commenced, with various success and many suspensions.
In general, the success of the war rested with the Castilian. In 1363, through the interference of the papal legate, the first peace was made, the secret conditions of which were of an atrocious character. Pedro of Aragon engaged not only to remove by death the obnoxious brothers of the Castilian, but his own, the infante Ferdinand. A servant of Count Henry of Castile dealt the victim a fatal blow. Henry himself was spared--doubtless because Pedro foresaw that his new ally of Castile would not fulfil his engagements; perhaps, also, because he himself had no disposition to do so. His anticipations were right: war was renewed by the Castilian. His operations were as indecisive as those of the former.
Seeing that the war did not and could not lead to any result, in 1365 Pedro concerted with the count of Trastamara the invasion of Castile, and the dethronement of the Castilian king. The aid which Henry obtained from France, the fate of his first and second invasions, we have already related. But the Aragonese king--so true it is that no honour can long subsist among the wicked--was never on good terms with the new king of Castile. He insisted on Murcia, which Henry, while count of Trastamara, had agreed to resign, in the event of his obtaining the Castilian throne; and on the refusal of that prince to dismember so important a province from the crown, not only coolness, but actual hostilities, between the two kingdoms were preparing. But those hostilities were soon averted by the papal legates; and the truce was, from time to time, prolonged, until 1374, when peace was finally arranged between the two monarchs.
[Sidenote: [1338-1386 A.D.]]
The foreign transactions of Pedro were of some importance. In 1338 began his misintelligence with Don James, king of Majorca, whose dethronement he appears to have meditated from the commencement of his reign. Though, in 1339, James did homage for his kingdom, his destruction was no less resolved; his unpopular rule afforded Pedro well-founded hopes of success.
In 1343, Don Pedro sailed with a very formidable armament, landed in Majorca, and was immediately joined by the islanders. Thus universally deserted, James fled, leaving the three islands in the power of his brother-in-law. In opposition to the remonstrances of the pope, who compassionated the misfortunes of the fugitive king, his possessions in France were threatened, and several places in Roussillon speedily reduced. This war beyond the Pyrenees appears to have been as disagreeable to the Catalans and to the Aragonese as it was to the pope; and only by force could the king obtain supplies for conducting it. The following year (1344) he declared by a solemn decree that the Balearic Isles should forever form an integral portion of the Aragonese crown; and again penetrated into Roussillon, the whole of which, except the capital, Perpignan, he speedily reduced. The unfortunate James was later killed in a skirmish.
To Pedro, as to his two predecessors, Sardinia proved a sharp thorn in the crown. His obstinacy in retaining possession of an island which experience had shown would never willingly own his sway, which cost him so many successive campaigns, drew on him the frequent remonstrances of his states, and the refusal of supplies. As if one ruinous war for an unattainable object were not sufficient, on the death of Frederick, king of Sicily, in 1377, who had married his daughter Constanza, he claimed that crown, and showed a disposition to arm in defence of his claim. But for the obstinacy of his eldest son and heir, Don Juan, who, in 1384, became a widower, whom he wished to marry with the young princess Maria, daughter of the late king Frederick, and now settled on the throne of Sicily, but who secretly formed the indissoluble connection with a French princess, the effect of his policy would have been an immediate union of the two crowns. It may, however, be doubted whether such a union was desirable; since from the distance of the two kingdoms, and the contiguity of the island to Naples, it could not long have been perpetuated.
[Sidenote: [1386-1387 A.D.]]
The ambition of Pedro was insatiable; but it was also senseless, as it grasped at impossibilities. Hearing that some people of Athens and Patras, who were of Aragonese extraction--the descendants of the crusaders, who had conquered this duchy--had risen to establish his domination, he sent an armament to their aid, and was ultimately acknowledged. It need, however, be scarcely observed that possessions so far removed from the seat of power would yield but a nominal allegiance, and would soon be lost. But there was no advantage, however small in magnitude or transient in duration, which he was not at all times ready to grasp--generally without much regard to the rights or feelings of others. The avidity with which, in 1386, he seized on the city of Tarragona, the government and sovereignty of which had long rested with the archbishops of that see, is affirmed by some historians to have been the cause of his death.[42] He died early in the month of January, 1387, after an agitated reign of fifty-one years.
The duplicity of this monarch was only equalled by his violence; of sincerity and justice he was wholly destitute; and in savage barbarity he was scarcely exceeded by his namesake of Castile.
With many of the vices and none of the virtues of humanity, he was neither loved nor respected; but, in return, he was feared. It is impossible not to admire his constancy in reverses: he deviated not from his purposes, nor suffered his mind to be depressed, in the most critical periods of his reign--and few princes were ever placed in circumstances more critical--yet he almost uniformly gained his end. Justice must also allow that, whatever were his personal vices, he was no enemy to the lowest class of his people. During the reign of this prince, the era of Cæsar was abolished, and the Christian adopted for the two chief kingdoms of Spain; in 1350 at Saragossa, and in 1383 at Segovia.[c]
Pedro IV enlarged the powers of the justiciary, enabling him to oppose his veto to usurpations on the part of the crown in the same way as to the encroachments of the feudal aristocracy; he provided for the swift and careful administration of justice; promoted the study of law, and showed favour to the legal and juridical profession. Whenever occasion offered and he was not prevented by the inhibitory intercession or legal warrant of the justiciary, he curbed the usurpations and arbitrary action of the great nobles and increased the privileges and power of the knights and burghers.[b]
[Sidenote: [1387-1408 A.D.]]
In 1387, Juan I was peaceably acknowledged. His accession was regarded with great apprehension by his stepmother, Sybilla (the late king led four ladies to the altar), who, since 1384, had been his open enemy. The reason of this animosity was here, as in former cases, the eagerness of the king to alienate the crown domains in favour of his new queen and her family, and the indignant opposition of the heir apparent. At one time, so vindictive was the queen that she had expelled the infante from the palace, and had probably instigated her uxorious husband to try him, and exclude him from the succession; but the protection of the grand justiciary of Aragon had screened him from her malice: now, it was her turn to dread his displeasure. Just before the death of Pedro, she fled from Barcelona, accompanied by her brother: they were pursued by the Catalonians; were brought back, and imprisoned until the pleasure of the new monarch, who then lay ill at Gerona, could be learned. On his recovery, he hastened to that city; caused the queen to be tried as a witch, who had enchanted the late king, and several of her kindred and servants as accomplices. Some of the latter were executed; and she herself would probably have shared the same fate, but for the interference of the papal legate, and more still for the facility with which she restored the fortresses conferred on her by her royal husband. These possessions were immediately transferred to the new queen.
The eagerness which the new king showed to gratify his queen Violante, surprised and offended the Aragonese. As her disposition was gay, she insisted on converting the palace into a theatre: balls, concerts, theatrical representations, and the exhibitions of the gaya ciencia, succeeded each other without intermission. As the Aragonese themselves were too sober or too dull to excel in such diversions, professors were brought from France, and even schools established for instruction in the idle art. It became not merely the relaxation, but the business of life; the duties of government were neglected or despised, until remonstrances both frequent and loud fell on the royal ear. Apparently, however, they produced little effect, beyond the convocation of the states at Monzon, to deliberate on this pernicious novelty. There the prelates, nobles, and deputies insisted that the king should expel from his palace his singers and dancers, his buffoons and his poets--above all, Doña Carraza Villaragut, one of the queen’s ladies, and the chief promoter of such fooleries. At first he resisted this interference with his royal recreations; but when he perceived that his barons were in earnest, that they were even preparing to arm for his moral reformation, he yielded: the fiddlers were dismissed, and with them the obnoxious lady.
The short reign of this prince was not without its troubles. An insurrection broke out among those most restless and faithless of subjects, the Sardinians. As usual, the efforts of his generals to repress it were but partially successful. The affairs of Sicily were not more promising. None of these commotions appears to have occasioned King Juan the least anxiety: he resumed his diversions, that of hunting especially, with as much eagerness as before, leaving the cares of government to his queen. One day, while occupied in this favourite occupation in the forest of Foja, he fell from his horse, and was killed on the spot.
On receiving intelligence of this catastrophe Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia proclaimed Don Martin, brother of the late king, who was then in Sicily supporting the rights of his son and daughter-in-law, sovereigns of that island. This choice gave great umbrage to Matthieu count de Foix, who had married the eldest daughter of Juan, and who contended that the crown belonged to him in her right. He collected troops and penetrated into Catalonia; but he found the inhabitants averse to his pretensions, and indignant at his proceedings. As the states were sitting at Saragossa, he now adopted the wiser mode of deputing ambassadors to that assembly, with instructions to espouse his rights, which, according to the laws of legitimate succession, were well founded. But Aragon had seen only one female sovereign, Doña Petronilla, and had for some time been inclined to consider the Salic law as tacitly in force. The count met with a repulse both there and at Barcelona; but he hoped that arms would be more effectual than arguments; and, with a second and more numerous army, he invaded Aragon. There he and his countess solemnly assumed the royal title and arms, and reduced several towns; but he was soon compelled to retire into Navarre.
[Sidenote: [1408-1412 A.D.]]
Having pacified Sicily, in appearance at least, and caused his son and daughter-in-law to be acknowledged by the rebels, Martin, who seems to have been in no anxiety about the security of his kingdom, proceeded to Sardinia and Corsica, with the view of restoring tranquillity also in those islands. The following year he convoked his prelates, barons, and deputies at Saragossa, and caused his son, the Sicilian king, to be acknowledged his successor; it was also decreed that Sicily and Aragon should forever be united under the same sceptre. No sooner had Martin arrived in Spain, than Sardinia again became the theatre of civil war. The Aragonese had acknowledged the rival pontiff, Benedict, and Boniface had conferred the fiefs of Sardinia and Sicily on the count de Molineto. In 1408, the Sicilian king marched against the rebels, who, with eighteen thousand infantry, did not refuse the battle. It ended in a complete triumph for the king, and was followed by the surrender of an important fortress. As the heat of the weather began to be intensely felt, the victor returned to Cagliari. That heat and the festivities consequent on his success threw him into a fever, which, though not in itself fatal, he is said to have rendered so by incontinence. He died on the 24th of July, 1409. On the death of this prince Martin and the Aragonese were anxious to name a successor to the crown.[c]
Civil war was imminent when King Martin departed this life (1410), leaving the succession of the kingdom by his last will and testament to him to whom it was lawfully due. By his death the male line of the counts of Barcelona became extinct--a dynasty which had vigorously and gloriously filled the throne of Aragon for nearly three centuries.
INTERREGNUM IN ARAGON (1410-1412 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1410-1414 A.D.]]
No nation whose political sagacity was less highly developed by a free constitutional and political system could have emerged from the two years of revolution upon which Aragon now entered without detriment to its liberty and legal institutions. For during the interregnum the kingdom fluctuated between two perils; it might either have broken up into its three constituent parts or succumbed to a military despotism.
Count James of Urgel, an ambitious and unscrupulous nobleman, counted the majority of the great nobles of Aragon, more particularly the partisans of the powerful family of Luna, among his adherents, the cortes of Catalonia was on his side, and what his title might lack he was prepared to make good by the sword, for the lower classes everywhere were in his service. The murder of the archbishop of Saragossa by his brutal associate Antonio de Luna, an act of violence in which he himself was not unconcerned, was intended to cow all resistance. The ricos hombres[43] saw in anticipation the return of the time when the right of the mailed fist should override the law, when the aristocracy, allied with the town rabble, should triumph over the middle classes, and the anarchy of the unions settle down upon the country once more. The danger was realised by the wise justiciary Cerdaño, his friends and those likeminded with him, chief among whom were Gil Ruiz de Lihori, governor of Aragon, and Berengar de Bardaxi, a man distinguished alike for genius and learning, and to their judicious and patriotic exertions the preservation of the ancient constitution is mainly due. Allying themselves with the freemen of the communes and the minor nobility, they endeavoured to force the decision into the hands of the cortes. Fortunately for them the great nobles were split up by faction, for the Urrea family sided with the constitutional party out of hatred to the Lunas, and their ranks were soon further reinforced by the accession of the Heredia family, to which the murdered archbishop belonged. The latter contrived that the infante Ferdinand should garrison the frontier with Castilian troops to prevent violent measures on the part of the count of Urgel.
Nevertheless the situation was full of peril, owing to the mutual jealousies of the three divisions of the kingdom; the cortes of each held separate consultations and each was anxious to give the casting vote. It was then that the patriotic energy of the men above mentioned intervened to save the kingdom from impending ruin. They proposed that a general parliament should be called together, and that the legal decision should be left to it, as King Martin had wished; representing at the same time to the separate assemblies that if the question of the succession were decided by the sword, the victor would dictate new laws at the sword’s point, as though to a conquered nation. According to their proposal the cortes of the three kingdoms were to elect committees for joint deliberation. By this time, however, they were all too deeply imbued with party spirit, and the cortes of Valencia refused to co-operate with the rest. Those two astute politicians Cerdaño and Bardaxi then ventured upon a bold stroke. They induced the cortes of Aragon and Catalonia to authorise them to nominate a committee of nine members at their own discretion from the three divisions of the country. This committee was to sit at Caspe on the Ebro, and after conscientiously examining the claims of all pretenders was to give its decision according to law. The Urgel party at Valencia tried to interfere, but the victory of the barons at Murviedro put an end to their resistance, and the patriotic caution and justice displayed by Cerdaño and Bardaxi in the selection of the nine secured general recognition and public confidence.
While the whole country was a prey to tumultuous passions, factions at strife one with another, civil war raging with all its accompaniments of crime, rape, and ignominy, these nine men--who were held in the highest esteem by all men, not only for learning and experience but also for strictness of morals and blameless life, and who, like Bardaxi, Ferrer, and Aranda Valseca, were among the first jurists of their day--undertook a laborious examination of the claims submitted to them by the agents of the various pretenders. The count of Urgel had the largest following, and if his Aragonese origin and his descent through the male line were taken into account he would necessarily have had the prior claim; but his despotic temper, always apt to choose methods of violence rather than of law, made them apprehensive of a tyrannic government if he were chosen, and the majority of the electoral college therefore decided in favour of Ferdinand, infante of Castile, whose mother Leonora had been the daughter of Pedro IV, and the wife of Henry II.
ARAGON UNDER RULERS OF THE ROYAL HOUSE OF CASTILE
No better choice could have been made, and accordingly the new king was acknowledged by the estates of the three united kingdoms as soon as he had confirmed the rights and liberties of the realm (1412). Ferdinand, who combined justice and clemency with vigour, restored tranquillity and order, and used his power to overawe the malcontents both in Aragon and in the islands. But the count of Urgel could not brook defeat. Ferdinand treated him with the utmost distinction, but in spite of all, impelled by his own ambition and incited by his imperious wife, he presently raised the standard of rebellion. He invaded and ravaged Catalonia with an army of mercenaries which the duke of Clarence had handed over to him in Guienne, but was defeated by Ferdinand (1413), and paid the penalty of his unlawful deeds by loss of fortune and perpetual imprisonment.
[Sidenote: [1414-1454 A.D.]]
In the following year Ferdinand added splendour to his accession to the throne by a gorgeous coronation at Saragossa. Thus the crowns of Castile and Aragon were worn by scions of the same reigning house, a prelude to the future union of the two kingdoms under Ferdinand’s grandson and namesake.
Through the prudence and patriotic zeal of one statesman and friend of the people, Aragon had passed through a dangerous crisis without injury to her government or liberties. Ferdinand of the ruling house of Castile, after he had taken the oath of fealty to the constitution, which he did according to custom, kneeling bareheaded before the justiciary, was recognised as king of the united realm and received the homage of the cortes. This upright and well-disposed monarch, Ferdinand, conscientiously observed the laws and even respected and acknowledged the excessive liberties and privileges of the rich commercial town of Barcelona on an occasion when it was extremely inconvenient to himself to do so; but he died after four years’ reign (1416).
His son, Alfonso V, busied himself during the greater part of his reign with the affairs of Naples. That newly acquired kingdom in the beautiful country of the Apennines, where a docile people bowed in obedience and submission to the will of the master, and where the senses were courted with a rich, luxurious life, elevated through social culture and adorned with art and science, was more congenial to Alfonso’s inclinations than his hereditary domain of Aragon with its rigorous legal forms and its earnest population; therefore he preferred a residence in Naples, whilst his native kingdom was governed by a regency. At its head was the king’s brother Juan, afterwards Juan II, a prince well-versed in statecraft and sharing, in regard to politics and public morality, the faithless principles of his time. Already as governor and regent he gave signs of that inclination to despotism and tyranny which later on, when he had succeeded his brother on the throne, he openly displayed, so that the estates took care to secure their constitution against invasion while there was yet time.
We have seen what importance and consideration were attached to the position of chief justice or justiciary of Aragon, the guardian and protector of the laws. To secure the office against violation and despotism of any kind, it was decreed that the holder should retain office for life, and could only be removed by the king with consent of the estates and on sufficient grounds (1442). There was no danger that a legal institution of this nature, standing as it did between the throne and the people, would be diverted against the laws of the country, since the justiciary was subject to a regular and close inquiry into the administration of his office from a committee of the states. Besides this, a navigation law which forbade foreign vessels to ship cargoes in any of the domains under the crown of Aragon was passed in the reign of Alfonso V (1454), an important enactment, which gave a new impulse to the maritime trade of Barcelona, the Catalan capital, at whose instigation the regulation was made. Thus, both in constitutional progress and in commercial policy, Aragon was the forerunner of the island kingdom of Britain.
[Sidenote: [1442-1458 A.D.]]
The reign of Juan, both as regent and afterwards as king, turns to a great extent on the acquisition of the kingdom of Navarre and the family quarrels which it kindled. In 1442 the mountain country on either side of the Pyrenees passed to the princely house of Aragon by the death of Blanche, wife of Juan, and previously the widow of King Martin. She had inherited Navarre from her father Charles III and by her will her patrimonial domains were to fall as an independent lordship to her eldest son Charles, prince of Viana. More as a matter of courtesy than a legal restriction the condition was added that, before assuming the government of the country, he should obtain the consent and approbation of his father. Juan seems at first to have made no difficulty to his son’s taking possession, so that Charles, while his father continued to bear the rank and title of king of Navarre, conducted the administration for several years as governor and ruler of his mother’s inheritance.
But when the prince of Aragon contracted a second marriage with Juana Henriquez, daughter of a Castilian admiral of the blood royal, rivalries were awakened which soon assumed a malevolent character. According to the disposition of her husband, the new consort, an imperious, ambitious, and enterprising young lady, was to conduct the government of Navarre in conjunction with the prince of Viana. But the divided rule did not satisfy her proud spirit; as queen of Navarre she desired to be the only person to issue orders, and exhibited an arrogant demeanour towards her stepson. The disagreement soon passed into open hostility when the two conflicting parties of the Beaumonts and the Agramonts took the opportunity to fight out their ancient quarrels in sanguinary encounters, and the Castilians, exasperated at the interference of Aragon in their internal politics, fanned the flame. At the instigation of the Beaumonts, Charles laid claim to the chief power, and at the head of his adherents led an army into the field against the queen and the Agramonts. Juan of Aragon, dominated by his wife’s superior intelligence, took part against his son. A battle was fought at Aybar, when the prince of Viana was defeated and made prisoner (1452). Some months before, in the little town of Sos in Aragon, the queen had given birth to a son who, as Ferdinand the Catholic, was afterwards to attain to such great historical importance.
After some time Charles of Viana was released from captivity; but the opposite party had in the meantime so successfully gained the upper hand in Navarre, that he could not maintain himself in the government. He betook himself to Naples to the court of his royal uncle Alfonso V, to beg for his intervention. The chivalrous, open bearing of the prince won him many friends and he was able to flatter himself with the prospect of being speedily reinstated in his mother’s inheritance by the aid of a powerful protector; but his uncle’s death rendered the hope vain (1458). By the dispositions of the late king’s will, his brother Juan was to succeed to his possessions in Spain, Sardinia, and Sicily, and his illegitimate son Ferdinand to the kingdom of Naples.
[Sidenote: [1458-1461 A.D.]]
The Neapolitans, who mistrusted the gloomy, equivocal character of the new prince, Ferdinand, tried in vain to persuade the chivalrous prince of Viana to come forward as a candidate for Naples, holding out to him the prospect of the people’s support. The magnanimous prince resisted the temptation; even in Sicily, to which he now turned, similar allurements awaited him; for there also the memory of his mother Blanche, who as the consort of King Martin had formerly won much affection in the island, procured him a good reception and many friends. But here again he withstood all seductive temptations; he contented himself with the generous assistance offered him by the gratitude of the islanders, and passed a long time in the quiet of a Benedictine cloister at Messina, occupied with scientific studies. He did not give up the thought of a reconciliation with his father and a restoration of his rights. After all he, as eldest son, was the rightful heir to the crown of Aragon, and the cortes of the three provinces were on his side. In this expectation he obeyed an invitation from his father to a personal interview at Iguala (1460). By a submissive and penitent demeanour towards the royal couple he endeavoured to put an end to the ancient enmity and win his father’s heart, but the queen, who wished to secure the succession to her own son Ferdinand, contrived to keep the distrust of her stepson still alive and by hostile insinuations to throw suspicion on everything he did. Whilst he was deceived by a delusive friendliness, he was surrounded by a web of intrigues. Above all there was exhibited a zealous eagerness to keep him from receiving any sort of homage or recognition of his rights on the part of the cortes.
Still the prince did not allow himself to be betrayed into taking an illegal step; only he became a suitor for the hand of the infanta Isabella of Castile, with the idea of thus procuring himself a lasting support for his claims to the throne. But it was just this alliance that was a thorn in the eye of the queen of Aragon; her policy had already singled out the princess for her own son, and she was to be the bond of a union between the two kingdoms. The prince of Viana’s project was endangering this plan in a formidable manner; it was therefore necessary to make an energetic decision. Charles was invited by his father to a meeting of the cortes at Lerida. The prince complied with the request in the hope of being recognised by the estates of the realm as heir to the throne. But immediately on his arrival he was arrested and taken to the inaccessible mountain fastness of Morella on the borders of Valencia; when the cortes showed signs of interposing with a protest, the assembly was dismissed. On the committee of estates demanding the cause of this remarkable proceeding, Juan darkly hinted at a plot, the inquiry into and punishment of which he must reserve for himself.
At the news of these occurrences the excitable Catalans took up the sword. Armed mobs advanced on Lerida and forced their way into the palace, while the king fled under cover of the night with a few companions to Fraga. The assailants were soon at the gates of Fraga, but the royal couple had already fled to the fortress of Saragossa. The flame of insurrection rapidly spread; in Navarre the Beaumonts, secretly supported and urged on from Castile, declared for the prince; in Aragon, in Valencia, in Sicily, the agitation was of a threatening character.
[Sidenote: [1461-1484 A.D.]]
King Juan could not resist these active manifestations of the popular desires. He set his son at liberty, recognised him as his rightful successor, and entrusted him with the office of governor-general of Catalonia. It was at this moment that the prince sickened, and soon the melancholy tidings of his death in his forty-first year were spread through the kingdom (September, 1461). There was a very natural suspicion that he had succumbed to a poison which had been brought to him in his captivity. Thus in the prime of life this noble and chivalrous prince, whose one crime was his lawful claim to the throne of Aragon, fell a victim to treacherous statecraft. Imbued as he was with devotion to the higher cultivation of the mind, had he succeeded to the throne he would have been a worthy rival of his Florentine contemporaries. The fruit of his profound studies was to be seen in a translation of Aristotle’s Ethics and a history of Navarre.
The tragedy did not end with Charles’ death; instead, a second one resulted from it. At his demise he had appointed as heiress of Navarre his elder sister Blanche, who had formerly been married to Henry IV of Castile and afterwards repudiated by him because she was childless. But Blanche had always sided with her brother and had long shared his exile; for this reason she was now to be overtaken by a similar fate. In conjunction with the faithless King Louis XI of France, the sovereigns of Aragon surrounded the unfortunate princess with a net of cabals and deceits in which she could not fail to meet destruction. For it was firmly resolved that the inheritance of Aragon should be obtained for her younger sister Eleanor, countess of Foix, so that on the latter’s death it might pass to her son Gaston de Foix, the husband of a sister of Louis. With this view, and in accordance with a treaty concluded between Aragon and France, Blanche was forcibly removed from Olit, where she had hitherto resided, and conducted across the mountains to be placed under the supervision of her sister. It was to no purpose that she appealed in a touching letter to her former husband, King Henry of Castile, and pledged him her maternal inheritance of Navarre as the price of her rescue; there was to be no refuge for her from the hands of a cruel father and an unloving sister. In 1462 she was taken to the strong fortress of Orthez in Béarn, where, after two years of painful captivity she succumbed to a poison, given her by the guilty hand of a traitor By this means Navarre was united to Foix and Béarn and the ground thus cleared for the subsequent partition of the ancient kingdom between France and Spain.
Eleanor lived ten years longer than her son Gaston de Foix, prince of Viana, who met his death through a wound from a lance at a tournament in Lisbon in the year 1469. When she died, her grandson Francis Phœbus, a handsome princely boy with shining golden hair, inherited the throne of Navarre, with his mother Magdalena, sister of Louis XI, as his guardian. But only four years later Francis Phœbus died suddenly, as it was believed of poison, and his sister Catherine, then thirteen years old, entered on the inheritance. In 1484 she married Jean d’Albret, whose extensive possessions in the southwest of France were thus united to the kingdom of Navarre. Magdalena, the queen’s mother, had arranged this marriage, which was very displeasing to the Spanish rulers.
RISING IN CATALONIA
[Sidenote: [1461-1469 A.D.]]
The king of Aragon had entered into such close relations with France chiefly because he needed her help against his own people. Far from the rebellious movements subsiding on the death of the prince of Viana, the indignation against the king and queen mounted still higher amongst the excitable Catalans. The imagination of the people painted the tragic fate of the king’s unfortunate son in the liveliest colours. Charles’ ghost was seen to glide by night through the streets of Barcelona; he was heard lamenting in piteous tones over his untimely end and calling for vengeance on his unnatural murderer. At last he came to be honoured as a saint. When Queen Juana took her ten-year-old son Ferdinand to Barcelona, that he might receive the homage of the Catalan estates, she soon saw herself threatened with a rising, so that she sought refuge in Gerona. The Catalan troops followed her, made themselves masters of the town and besieged the fortifications where Juana and the prince were bravely defended by a small garrison. Thereupon the king of Aragon concluded a treaty with Louis XI (1462), in consequence of which that monarch sent seven hundred lances with archers and fieldpieces to the aid of the beleaguered queen.
In return for this Juan promised him 200,000 gold crowns and gave him the counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne in pledge. The Catalans could not withstand such a force. They retreated to Barcelona for the purpose of organising more crushing resistance in that excitable town. They sought to represent in a memorial that the liberties of their commonwealth had been betrayed, and that therefore, since the good of the state must be the highest law, they were justified in repudiating their allegiance. They summoned the young men to take arms, and turned to Castile and then to Portugal to win their support in the secession from Aragon (1463). Don Pedro, constable of Portugal, did actually enter the country with a small force, to lay claim to the government of Catalonia, to which, as a scion of the house of Barcelona, he asserted an ancient hereditary right. But the enterprise did not prosper; little by little, partly with the sword, partly by means of gold, King Juan gained possession of the most important towns in the country, such as Lerida, Cervera, Amposta, and Tortosa. Still he could not succeed in breaking Barcelona’s bold spirit of resistance; even when the Portuguese infante died suddenly, the town would not hear of conciliation, and two distinguished burghers were beheaded in the market-place for their sympathy with Aragon (1466).
The Catalans now turned to the famous “king” René of Anjou, that he might add Barcelona to the other kingdoms whose royal title he bore without possessing a handful of their soil. René sent his son John, the chivalrous, adventurous duke of Calabria and Lorraine, with some thousand mercenaries, across the Pyrenees. Louis XI, always seeing his own advantage in disturbances in a neighbouring state, secretly favoured his compatriot’s enterprise, but without dissolving his alliance with Aragon on that account.
[Sidenote: [1469-1475 A.D.]]
This brave robber captain soon possessed himself of the northern district of Ampurdan and under the walls of Gerona he fought a battle with the queen, who in this time of trial showed heroic courage, and who since her husband’s blindness, the result of the hardships of war during the winter before Amposta, had directed the defence of the country in unison with her son. John’s chivalrous bearing towards the townspeople of Barcelona won for him such open sympathy that his public appearance always resembled a triumph. The embarrassment of King Juan of Aragon reached its highest point when his consort, who had been the very soul of the government and the guiding spirit of the war, succumbed to a long and painful illness at a time when the state coffers were completely drained, when the chief province of the kingdom was in revolt and partly in the possession of a bold leader of mercenaries, and new warlike complications were threatening with Navarre and Castile. But here too the proverb held good, “The darkest hour is that before the dawn.” In the same year, 1469, the king, now a very old man, had his sight restored by a skilful Jewish doctor, and Duke John of Calabria and Lorraine was called to his account, an event that filled the inhabitants of Barcelona with the deepest grief, which they exhibited by giving him an imposing funeral. He was laid to rest in the vault of the ancient rulers of Barcelona. It was only natural that here too the suspicion of poisoning should be raised, though it was without foundation.
The duke’s death could not break the defiant spirit of the Catalans; they steadfastly rejected every summons to yield. After a two years’ struggle, when the greater part of the country had fallen into the hands of the energetic old king, when the town bands were reduced by heavy losses to a very small number, and Barcelona was besieged by sea and land, then only did the stern Catalan spirit stoop to peace. King Juan sweetened their bitter cup of submission and homage. He confirmed their privileges and judicial government, granted universal amnesty and conceded to the foreign mercenaries, and any who might choose to join them, freedom to depart. After the conclusion of peace King Juan, mounted on a white charger, made a solemn entry into Barcelona (December, 1472). Thus the succession to the whole kingdom of Aragon of Ferdinand the Catholic, the husband of the infanta Isabella of Castile, was secured. The result had been arrived at with much difficulty, perhaps crime. A few months later the provinces of Roussillon and Cerdagne, which had been pledged to France, made great efforts to become reunited to Aragon. King Juan lent them his aid and, supported by his son, he defended the town of Perpignan with great heroism against the French. But Louis XI did not let his prize escape him. For the space of two years he made war on the town and the whole country with such overwhelming force that at last they were completely broken and submitted to the foreign yoke. The inhabitants of Perpignan, worn out by suffering and hunger, were expelled, in 1475, by the malice and cruelty of the French ruler.[b]
A few years previous to this, in 1469, the heir of King Juan II, Ferdinand of Aragon, had married Isabella of Castile, uniting thus the two countries into one Spain, as we have previously shown. Having thus brought Aragon’s history down to where it merges into that of Castile, we may return to Castile, which we left at the death of Pedro the Cruel.[a]
FOOTNOTES
[37] [Though this king is usually called “Jayme,” he spelled his own name “Jacme” in the Catalan form.]
[38] [Burke,[g] however, credits this entirely to Barcelona.]
[39] [This statement of Petrarch’s indebtedness is, however, open to discussion. There was another Jordi who lived in the fifteenth century and may have been the author of the poems in which resemblances to Petrarch are detected. This would make Petrarch the original. But the Spaniards generally attribute the poems to the contemporary of James the Conqueror, who has left an account of a storm which overtook that monarch’s fleet near the island of Majorca.]
[40] [This document has been well called Aragon’s Magna Charta, and it was secured in much the same manner. The Privilege was confirmed by the cortes of Saragossa in 1325, and torture of witnesses in criminal trials was abolished. In five years followed the Privilege of Union in which the king of Aragon was forced to authorise unions of his subjects to make war upon the sovereign in case of a denial of justice, or any attempt to act independently of the justiciar. We have to look to Poland for a like constitutional defiance of royalty.]
[41] [“The loss of the principal nobles of the union at Epila was a death-blow to the feudal cause in Aragon.”[d]]
[42] St. Thecla, patroness of the church of Tarragona, appeared to him, upbraided him with impiety, and gave him so good a box on the ear, or smack in the face, that he never recovered from it. “Está muy recibido que fue contigado de la mano de Dios, y se le aparecio en vision Santa Tecla, la qual le hirio de una palmada en el rostro, y que este fue la ocasion de su dolencia.”--Zurita.[e] Who would expect Ferreras,[f] a writer of the eighteenth century, to believe such a relation?
[43] [This does not mean “rich men,” as would seem at first sight; but rico here is related to the German word Reich, i.e., kingdom.]
V. HENRY OF TRASTAMARA AND ISABELLA OF CASTILE
[Sidenote: [1369-1479 A.D.]]
All Castile breathed more freely at the news of the death of Pedro the Cruel, and acknowledging Henry of Trastamara as king, did him homage. By a rule as judicious and just as it was vigorous he endeavoured to obliterate the dark blots which stained his accession.
Don Pedro’s race vanished from Castilian soil. On the death of his mistress Maria de Padilla shortly after the murder of the unhappy Blanche, Pedro had tried every means to secure the succession for her children. He brought sworn witnesses to testify that he had been joined with Padilla in lawful wedlock, and induced the estates to confer the first title to the throne upon her son Alfonso, and, in case of his death without issue, upon her three daughters, Beatrice, Isabella, and Constanza, in order of seniority. Alfonso, however, died the same year, and Beatrice followed soon after the frustration of her projected marriage with the heir of Aragon; while the two youngest, whom their father had taken with him when he fled to Guiennes, were detained as hostages by the Black Prince, who sent them to England, where they were married to two sons of Edward III (Constanza to John of Lancaster and Isabella to Edmund of York), and thus transmitted to the English dynasty their claims to the heritage of Castile.
[Sidenote: [1369-1373 A.D.]]
Henry assumed the government of Castile under difficulties. As the illegitimate son of King Alfonso XI, he met with strong opposition. Moreover his right to the throne was contested by others besides a large body of the Castilian nobility. King Ferdinand of Portugal, who had renewed the alliance which his father had concluded with Don Pedro, tried to win the crown of Castile for himself after the murder of the latter, on the ground that he, being the grandson of Beatrice, princess of Castile, was the only male descendant born in lawful wedlock. To support his claim he allied himself with Muhammed, the Moorish prince of Granada. Like Pedro IV of Aragon, he received with all honour the malcontent and fugitive Castilian nobles. He paid no heed to the murmurs of the Portuguese at their king’s liberality to foreigners, but marched into Galicia with an army, while the Moors took Algeciras; and the king of Aragon endeavoured to unite Molina, Almazan, Soria, and other frontier districts with his own dominions. At the same time the duke of Lancaster, uncle of Richard II, assumed the title of king of Castile in right of his wife, the eldest daughter of Don Pedro, and was acknowledged as such by the English court.
But Henry extricated himself from the difficulties that encompassed him in his own country with prudence and skill, and turned the disadvantages of his opponents to his own profit; and thus he succeeded in putting down all resistance and seated himself firmly on the throne of Castile, though he was still regarded by enemies as a usurper. The Moorish conquests were confined to Algeciras; the king of Portugal, who also styled himself “king of Castile,” carried on the war with so little success that the Spanish historian López de Ayala[b] says that it would have been more to his honour to have discontinued the campaign; the English had their hands full in their own country, and the Aragonese, besides having their attention diverted by a war in Sardinia, found themselves, by Henry’s shrewd contrivance, confronted with another adversary in the person of James III of Majorca, the pretender to the throne of the Balearic kingdom.
This adventurous infante, though married to Queen Juana of Naples, had entered the service of Pedro the Cruel and been taken prisoner at Montiel. Henry set him at liberty on payment of a heavy ransom by the wealthy queen of Naples, and thus fulfilled the double object of filling his own coffers and setting up a rival to his enemy. He had already taken possession of the abundant treasure which the fallen tyrant had amassed in the strong vaults of the castles of Seville and Carmona, and had obtained large subsidies besides from the estates of the kingdom at Medina del Campo; and was therefore able to pay off and discharge the mercenary troops which had carried him to victory and to surround himself with a well disciplined army. Bertrand du Guesclin and the leaders of other companies received gifts of towns and territory over and above their pay, and promptly sold them again.
The history of Castile for the next few years is like a diplomatic game of chess in which the French, the English, and the pope all played their parts as well as the sovereigns of the peninsula. And all did their best to win. While the faithless and fickle king of Portugal, who had given great offence to his own subjects by his marriage, made common cause with the duke of Lancaster and acknowledged him king of Castile in order to secure the assistance of England; and while the Roman see, alarmed at the alliance between Christian courts and the Mohammedans of Granada and Morocco exhausted itself in attempts at mediation, Henry concluded a treaty with France and invaded Portugal with an army. Viseu was occupied, Lisbon blockaded by land and sea and sorely damaged and wasted by fire, Coimbra was besieged, and only spared by the Castilians out of chivalrous gallantry, because Ferdinand’s consort Leonora was there waiting the birth of her child. Many Portuguese nobles with the king’s brother at their head abetted the Castilians out of disgust at Ferdinand’s marriage. At length the papal legate brought about a reconciliation, which was accelerated and rendered easier by Henry’s magnanimity and moderation (1373). The Portuguese king relinquished his alliance with the duke of Lancaster and England, banished from his dominions the malcontent Castilians who still refused to acknowledge Henry king, in spite of his chivalrous nature and high sovereign qualities, and joined the Franco-Castilian alliance. The war with Aragon was brought to an equally successful issue. Don Pedro concluded peace and alliance and restored the districts on the Castilian frontier which he had occupied in the course of the campaign.
[Sidenote: [1373-1380 A.D.]]
Biscay was also united to the kingdom of Castile on the death without issue of the infante Don Tello on whom the king had bestowed it in fee, but the province remained in possession of its ancient rights and liberties. When the daughter of Ferdinand de la Cerda, who had married the duke of Alençon, laid claim to Biscay and the whole of the Lara heritage in her own name and that of her children, Henry stipulated that her sons should reside in Spain. They refused, however, to resign the position they held in France, and he therefore declared the principalities fiefs that had lapsed to the crown. When Henry had further prevailed upon the king of Navarre to make peace with him by reimbursing the expenses he had incurred in the fortification of Logroño and Vitoria, Castile was once more complete within her ancient borders and his own sovereignty was firmly established and fully recognised. But by the reckless munificence with which he gave away the immediate property of the crown, in order to satisfy the nobles and attach them to the new dynasty, he laid up many troubles in store for his successors.[c]
In the schism which afflicted the church, from the rival pretensions of Urban VI and the anti-pope Clement, Henry declared for neither--doubtless to gratify his avarice by withholding the customary contributions to the papal see. He died in 1379. In character he was as cruel as Pedro; as loose in morals, and scarcely inferior as a tyrant. On the whole, however, he was a fortunate ruler. Either by bribes or force, he reduced Galicia to obedience, recovered several places from the king of Navarre, whose capital he at one time invested, and overawed his neighbours of Portugal and Aragon.
JUAN I AND THE PORTUGUESE WARS
Juan I followed his father’s advice, by cultivating the friendship of the French king, whom he frequently assisted in the interminable wars between that monarch and the English. Like his father, he had also to dread the pretensions of John of Gaunt the duke of Lancaster; and it was equally his aim to occupy the ambitious Plantagenet with other affairs than disputing his succession.
To preserve Portugal as an ally, Juan, in the second year of his reign, consented or proposed to marry his infant son Henry with Beatrice, presumptive heiress of the Portuguese crown. This princess, who was in her tenth year, had been promised to Frederick, brother of the Castilian king; but the superior pretensions of Henry induced the Portuguese monarch to prefer the latter for a son-in-law. One condition of the projected marriage was that, in case either of the young betrothed died without issue, the other should inherit the states of the deceased. So fair a prospect of uniting the two crowns could not fail to be agreeable to the two sovereigns. Notwithstanding this solemn treaty, Ferdinand of Portugal secretly resolved to make war on Castile; and, with the view of strengthening himself by the alliance of the duke of Lancaster, he despatched a trusty messenger to obtain the co-operation of that prince, who readily promised it.
[Sidenote: [1380-1385 A.D.]]
Juan, who was soon acquainted with the league, resolved to anticipate his enemy: off Cape St. Vincent his fleet triumphed, in 1381, over that of Ferdinand; and Almeida was forced to submit to him. The arrival from England of the earl of Cambridge, brother of the duke, with five hundred men-at-arms, and as many archers, roused the courage of the Portuguese, but did them little service. As the allies could obtain no money from Ferdinand, they did not scruple to lay their hands on whatever they pleased: hence the distrust and dislike which arose between them and the natives, and which neutralised the little success obtained by their combined arms.[44] Wearied alike with his allies and the war, Ferdinand, in 1382, solicited and obtained peace, and the English returned home. The death of the queen of Castile leaving Henry a widower, Ferdinand offered him the princess Beatrice, who had been successively promised to his brother, to his two sons, and even to the son of the earl of Cambridge; on condition, however, that the issue of the marriage, whether male or female, should be the sovereign of Portugal, and that he himself should have no share in the administration so long as Leonora, the Portuguese queen, should survive Ferdinand. This condition, so characteristic of Portuguese dislike of Castilian sway, did not prevent Juan from marrying the princess. Ferdinand died the very year of this marriage; and his death opened the door to new hostilities.
Though Juan and his new queen were, in fact, excluded by the treaty accompanying their union, he no less eagerly claimed the crown in her own right; and several of the Portuguese nobles admitted the justice of that claim. Even the widowed queen, Leonora, caused her daughter to be proclaimed in the capital; but the bulk of the towns and prelates refused to acknowledge her, and declared Don João bastard brother of Ferdinand, regent of Portugal. The latter prepared to vindicate his right; when Urban VI, whom he had refused to recognise, raised up against him his old enemy, the duke of Lancaster, who was persuaded by that pope again to invade Castile. The usurper Juan was no less anxious to secure the co-operation of the Plantagenet, whose departure to claim the crown of Castile he began to urge with success. To frustrate the double object of this alliance, the Castilian, in 1384, entered the kingdom, received the homage of his adherents, and proceeded to invest the capital: but his troops were ignobly defeated by those of his rival; even the queen-mother scorned to favour his pretensions; and he was constrained to abandon the siege, and return into his dominions. In 1385, the states of Coimbra proclaimed his rival king; who began vigorously to invest the places which held for him.
[Sidenote: [1385-1387 A.D.]]
Fortune attended the arms of the Portuguese, who successively obtained possession of the chief fortified places, and, in several partial engagements, was hailed as victor. A greater and a decisive action was now at hand. Though he had but ten thousand men, he marched against the Castilian king, who met him with an army of at least thirty-four thousand; in which were two thousand French knights. The two armies met near Aljubarrota, a village in Portuguese Estremadura; where, by the advice of the English knights who served in his army, the Portuguese intrenched his followers in a position of some strength. As the troops of the Castilian were wearied by their march, some of his officers, especially the chronicler Pedro López de Ayala,[b] in a council of war assembled to decide on the subject, endeavoured to dissuade him from the battle; but the greater number, among whom were the French knights, confiding in their overwhelming numerical superiority and in their own ardour, inclined him to risk it. The action commenced towards sunset, on a fine summer evening (August 14th), and was, for a short time, maintained with great spirit on both sides. In the end, the Portuguese obtained a splendid victory, most of the Castilian chivalry and ten thousand of the infantry being left dead on the field: the king himself with difficulty effected his escape. The loss was so heavy that he ordered his subjects to mourn for a whole year; while the victors annually commemorated their triumph. The French allies, who bore the brunt of the battle, suffered severely on this occasion.
JOHN OF GAUNT IN SPAIN
To profit by this victory, the Portuguese monarch commanded his barons to make an irruption into Castile, while he himself despatched to the duke of Lancaster a circumstantial account of this signal success. The latter now burned to assert his rights by other means than threats, or by the mere report of his preparations; he actually left England, with a small but choice armament (about fifteen hundred knights, and as many archers), accompanied by his wife, the lady Constanza, and his three daughters. In July, 1386, he appeared off the coast of Galicia, and ultimately landed at El Padron; thence he proceeded to Santiago, where he was solemnly proclaimed king of Castile and Leon. In an interview with the king of Portugal, on the confines of the two states, both entered into a treaty offensive and defensive; and, to cement it the more strongly, agreed that the king should marry Philippa, daughter of the duke.
In the meantime, the Castilian was not idle: he had obtained succours from his constant ally the French king and encouragement from Clement VII, the rival of Urban. In the spring of 1387, the duke and the Portuguese king arrived at Benavente; but their progress was stayed by the plague, which daily made great ravages in their ranks. After the conquest of a few towns and fortresses, the allied army retired into Portugal. The duke himself was seriously indisposed in body, and consequently dispirited. Their retreat was hastened by intelligence of the troubles which raged in England, and which ended in the imprisonment, and eventually the death of the unfortunate Richard II. The Castilian king dreaded the resumption of hostilities at a more favourable period. He proposed to the Plantagenet the marriage of his eldest son, Henry, with Catherine, daughter of the duke, by the princess Constanza, and, consequently, granddaughter of Pedro the Cruel. To this overture the duke lent a favourable ear; towards the close of the year the conditions were definitively arranged at Bayonne. The principal were that, if Henry died before the consummation of the marriage, the princess should be given to the next son, Don Ferdinand; that Constanza, mother of the princess, should receive in fief five or six towns in Castile, besides a revenue of 40,000 francs per annum; that the duke should receive 600,000 in gold, by instalments, as an indemnification for the expenses of the war; that both Constanza and her husband should renounce all claim to the Castilian crown; and that hostages should be given him as a security for the due performance of the first three. Thus, if the personal ambition of the Plantagenet remained without gratification, he had at least the satisfaction of seeing one of his daughters queen of Portugal, and the other destined to the throne of Castile. Early in the following year, Catherine, who was in her fourteenth year, was betrothed to Henry, who was only in his ninth, and who on this occasion assumed the title of prince of the Asturias.
[Sidenote: [1387-1390 A.D.]]
The king of Castile did not long survive this reconciliation with the Plantagenet. On the 9th day of October, 1390, he was killed by falling under his horse. The reign of Juan I was one of continued troubles, which, though his abilities were moderate, his firmness prevented from ruining the state, or endangering his own power. Once, indeed, during the disputed succession to the Portuguese crown, he seriously intended to resign in favour of his own son Henry, who, as the son of Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand, was the true heir to the Portuguese no less than the Castilian throne. His object was to secure the execution of the treaty made with that prince, and forever to unite the two crowns. But his nobles, who were evidently no less averse to such a union than their western neighbours, not merely advised but compelled him to preserve his dignity.[g]
But the greatest glory of King Juan’s reign was his successful expedition against the coasts of England, to punish the presumption of the duke of Lancaster. Once more the maintenance of the Lancastrian claims was the signal for the destruction of a British fleet. Not content with threatening the ports, the Castilians, emboldened by former successes, sailed up the Thames, in 1380, and took or burned the shipping in the river almost within sight of London.[h]
THE GOOD KING HENRY III (1390-1406 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1390-1396 A.D.]]
The crown descended to Henry, Juan’s first-born son, who since his betrothal in 1387 had taken from the ancestral seat of his family, now elevated into a principality, the title of “prince of Asturias,” which has been borne by the heir-apparent of Castile ever since.
Henry, surnamed the Infirm, was a weakly prince of eleven years of age, and a regency had to be appointed during his minority, whence much evil accrued to the realm of Castile. By the last testament of the late king the affairs of state were to be managed by a council of regency composed of the three estates of the kingdom. This arrangement was contested as showing too little regard for the rights of the heads of the great families, and a fresh regency was set up by the help of the estates, in which the lords temporal and spiritual--the duke of Benavente, a natural son of Henry II, Count Pedro of Trastamara, the marquis of Villena, the archbishops of Toledo and Santiago de Compostella, the grand-masters of the orders, and others--divided the royal authority between them.
No notice was taken of the assessors of the middle class who ought to have been admitted to their deliberations. But the nobles at the head of affairs, each one of whom was eager to take advantage of these propitious circumstances to enrich himself and increase his own power, were soon at variance and strife among themselves, the kingdom was split up into factions, the crown property alienated, disorder prevailed throughout the country.
Not until the king, having passed his fourteenth year, proclaimed himself of age with the consent of the estates and assumed the reins of government in person (1393) did a change for the better set in. For in spite of his youth and feeble frame, Henry III was possessed of sagacity and a real aptitude for political and public affairs. Trusting to the temper of the nation, which yearned for a strong government and for deliverance from the oppressive rule of the nobles and the anarchy of the knights, he promptly proceeded to energetic measures. Not content with sharing the royal authority among themselves, the lords in power had seized upon many of the estates of the crown, already much reduced by the lavishness of former kings, and consequently the necessary funds to meet public expenditure were lacking. Henry’s first step therefore was to come to an agreement with the cortes, to which he promised in return for the grant of the alcabalas that no fresh tax should be introduced without their consent, and then took vigorous action against the nobles. All gifts and pensions which had been made at the expense of the crown demesnes during his minority were cancelled and the revenues of the lords temporal and spiritual reduced to the level at which they had stood at Don Juan’s death, and at the same time all engagements which the barons had entered into with one another and confirmed by oath were annulled.
This bold stroke on the part of the young king greatly incensed the feudal lords; the duke of Benavente, the marquis of Villena, and the two infantes Alfonso count of Gijon and Don Pedro of Trastamara, endeavoured to form a coalition of nobles to avert by force the impending reduction of their revenues; but it was nipped in the bud by the energetic action of King Henry, who offered pardon and favour to the obedient and tractable and menaced the stubborn and recalcitrant with the forces which quickly gathered round his standard. The leaders of the coalition, unsupported by the nation and without help from abroad, could not carry their purpose into effect; they were overthrown or captured one by one, and compelled to submit to the king’s orders and purchase his favour by taking the oath of fealty and allegiance.
Henry displayed the same energy and discretion in all other acts of his reign. His marriage with Catherine of Lancaster, a sister of Queen Philippa of Portugal, hastened the conclusion of peace with that country, and Castile then had leisure to restore her lost prestige abroad among Christians and Mohammedans alike. Although the king relied upon skilful diplomacy rather than upon arms and armies, his forces by land and sea were in such a state of efficiency as not merely to enable him to repel all attacks with vigour but to secure for him the authority of an arbitrator in quarrels between others. Thus he preserved the peace of his own dominions, set bounds to the license of Moorish piracy, and enhanced his consequence abroad.
[Sidenote: [1396-1417 A.D.]]
War was on the point of breaking out with the emir Yusuf of Granada, kindled by the fanaticism of the grand-master of the order of Alcantara, who was eager to make converts of the infidels at the sword’s point, when it was averted by Henry’s presence of mind. He declared that he had nothing in common with the assailants, most of whom paid for their folly with their lives in a disastrous battle, and persuaded the offended emir to restore peace (1394). Yusuf died shortly after, of poison administered to him by the prince of Fez; and Muhammed, his ambitious second son, usurped the throne of Granada and threw his elder brother into prison. The king availed himself of the general apprehension that under the new emir the friendly relations between Castile and Granada would not last, to incite the estates to a more liberal expenditure on preparations for war. The amount of money, ships, and armed men, both horse and foot, which the cortes was said to have raised in conjunction with the king’s exchequer, bears witness to the height of prosperity and power to which Castile had risen through the wise and peaceful policy of Henry III. His contemporaries adduce the exchange of embassies between the king of Castile and the great Mongol sovereign Timur [or Tamerlane] as a proof of how far the fame of the former had extended. The Turkish sultan responded to the embassy from the Christian king by sending a return embassy with costly presents, among which were two Christian captives of high rank and great beauty. But Henry’s life was hastening to its close. He had been prevented by sickness from opening in person the diet at Toledo, where the demands were presented of which mention has been made, and was obliged to delegate his share in the proceedings to his brother Ferdinand, the infante who ascended the throne of Aragon a few years later. On Christmas Day in the same year (1406) King Henry III died at the age of twenty-seven, leaving a child one year old as heir to the throne. Great was the mourning in Castile for the high-souled prince who had combined vigour with gentleness, maintained peace and justice, and never violated the constitution or the existing framework of law by the abuse of the principle he himself had laid down--that the welfare of the nation is the supreme law against which no usurper or chartered rights could appeal. His country had all the more reason to lament him, as a war with the Moors was imminent and a fresh regency in prospect.
Ferdinand, the brother of Henry III, had so fully won the esteem of the nation that the Castilian nobles tendered him the crown. This the high-minded prince[45] indignantly refused; but lest the kingdom should be left to the weak hands of a child and a woman, he undertook the government in conjunction with Catherine, the widowed queen, and displayed such admirable qualifications for rule that Castile was for many years spared the evils usually inseparable from a minority. He gained the confidence of the estates, kept the nobles under control, and won the fortress of Antequera and the surrounding country in a successful war against the Moors (1411). When the cortes of Aragon elected him king (1412), he continued to govern his nephew’s dominions in conjunction with the queen-mother, and the power which was thereby concentrated in his hands enabled him not merely to subdue the rebellious nobles of Aragon and secure himself and his house in possession of the crown, but to frustrate every revolt in Sardinia and the Balearic Islands, and to assume the tone of a ruler and arbitrator, even in Sicily. Unfortunately he died after a reign of four years, in 1416, and Queen Catherine passed away not long after, too early for the young king, Juan II, who had hitherto shown but small intellectual vigour, and who now, in the fourteenth year of his age, took the sceptre in his own hands without either capacity, experience, or strength of character to wield it. A troublous time then began for Castile, during which revolts and civil wars dealt grievous blows at the prosperity and power of the nation.[c]
The old historian Guzman[j] has traced a faithful portrait of the young sloth who now filled the throne.
GUZMAN’S PORTRAIT OF JUAN AND HIS MINISTER
[Sidenote: [1406-1454 A.D.]]
Juan was of tall stature and largely built, but was neither well made nor possessed of great strength; he had a pleasing countenance, fair complexion, and high shoulders; his face was broad, his speech slightly rapid. He was calm and gentle, his conversation measured and simple. As his disposition was most extraordinary, it is necessary to dilate thereon: he was a man who in speech was wise and prudent, possessed great knowledge of other men, and understood those whose conversation was best, most discreet, and most witty.
It pleased him to listen to well-informed men, and he took good note of what they said. He both spoke and understood Latin. He read well; books and histories delighted him; he loved to hear witty rhymes, and could point out their defects; he enjoyed gay and intelligent conversation, in which he could bear his part. He spent much time in the chase and hunting of fierce animals, and was well skilled in the art of it. He had studied music, and could both sing and play well; he was skilful in jousting, and well versed in the exercise of tilting with reeds.
But enjoying a tolerable proficiency in these graceful accomplishments, he was lamentably deficient in real virtues, necessary to all men and more so to kings; for after good faith the chief virtue of a king should be a diligent application to the government and administration of his kingdom. In this Solomon proved himself the wisest of all, who, when God bade him ask for what he most desired, merely begged for wisdom to govern his people, which request was so agreeable to the Lord, that he granted this virtue and other singular attributes pertaining to it. This king was so deficient in this respect that, possessed of the aforesaid accomplishments, he refused to give one hour to the government of his kingdom. Although during this time there were more rebellious seditions and evils than were experienced during the reigns of past kings for more than two hundred years, which were productive of considerable harm to his fame and kingdom, yet such were his negligence and remissness in the government of his kingdom that he would never devote any time to it, but preferred to spend it in other occupations more peaceful and pleasing than useful or honourable.
And yet in the histories which he read he learned the evils which had befallen kings and their kingdoms through such negligence and remissness, and, moreover, was warned by many priests and knights that his kingdom was in great peril through his neglect, and that his fame greatly suffered thereby; and what was more serious, that he must render to God strict account for the evils fallen upon his subjects through his negligence, since God had given him brain and judgment to govern. In spite of these warnings and notwithstanding that he saw the scanty obedience he could command, the little reverence paid him, the contempt of his letters and commands, yet he would not reform nor give his mind to the government of his kingdom.
Don Juan II of Castile left the government of his kingdom entirely in the hands of Alvaro de Luna, in whom he placed such singular confidence that, to those who did not witness it, it appeared hardly credible, and to those who did it was a matter of extreme wonder. Not only all orders relating to his rents and treasures, offices of his household and administration of justice were given by the constable, but nothing was done without the latter’s consent. It is true that orders and letters, licenses, favours, and donations were made in the king’s name and under his signature, yet the secretaries waited the constable’s pleasure to write, the king to sign, and the chancellor to seal; without it no letter carried weight or was put into execution.
So great was the singular confidence which the king placed in the constable, and so excessive the latter’s power, that it would be difficult to find a king or prince, however feared and obeyed, more powerful in his kingdom than was the constable in Castile, or who enjoyed greater freedom in the government and administration. Not only the offices, positions, and grants, of which the king had the disposal, were in his hands, but also the ecclesiastical dignities and benefices; no man in the kingdom was bold enough to petition the pope or recognise his orders save with the constable’s consent. Thus both spiritual and temporal power were in his hands; the king’s sole responsibility was to affix his signature to letters; for the form and execution the constable was responsible. So extended was his power, and so fully had he taken on himself the king’s prerogative, that few thought of petitioning the latter were it for the highest office in the land or the meanest favour, or returned him thanks for the same; but to the constable they were applied for, and to him acknowledged. But, what is yet more to be marvelled at, even in natural acts the king allowed himself to be ruled by the constable; so that being young and healthy, and knowing his queen to be young and beautiful, he would not seek her apartment at night, did the constable forbid him, nor yet solace himself with other women, though his inclinations in this respect were naturally strong.
Finally we have two points to consider and marvel at: the first a king in many ways accomplished, yet totally negligent and remiss in the government of his kingdom, being neither moved nor stimulated thereto by discretion, nor by experience of the difficulties encountered in the disputes and uprisings occurring in his kingdom, nor yet by the admonitions and warnings tendered him by powerful nobles and priests. Further, that a natural attraction should be so strong and vigorous as to make him in all things, without exception, submit to the constable’s command or counsel with an obedience unequalled by the most humble of sons to a father, or the most obedient of monks to his abbot or prior. Some persons, upon noting this marked love and excessive confidence, held it to be the work of witchcraft, but this was never proved, although steps were taken in the matter. The second point is that a man without connections and of such poor origin, in a kingdom of vast dimensions, containing so many powerful nobles, during the reign of a king so little feared or obeyed, should enjoy such singular power. Because if we suppose this power was due to the king’s authority, how could he give to another what he himself never possessed, or how is it that the lieutenant was obeyed where he whose place he took could not command obedience? Truly I fear that no distinct reason can be given for this, save by him who was responsible for the king’s extraordinary disposition, nor yet an explanation of the constable’s power, for I know not which is most to be marvelled at, the king’s character, or the constable’s power.[j]
We need not feel the amazement felt by Guzman at Alvaro’s power over the king if we can trust the following portrait of him from an old and anonymous biography of Alvaro.[a]
CHRONICLE OF THE CONSTABLE DON ALVARO DE LUNA
[Sidenote: [1417-1420 A.D.]]
The outward shape and seeming of Don Alvaro de Luna, master of the order and knighthood of Santiago, and constable of the kingdoms of Castile and Leon, were in the following wise:
He was short of stature and very upright; fair complexioned, and of a very graceful figure all his years, slight and well-built with a well-turned leg and length of limb in proportion to his height. His neck was long, straight, and well-shaped, his eyes joyous and always bright. He had a calm presence, and where he gazed, his eyes dwelt longer than those of other men. He carried his head ever erect with a joyous countenance; his nose was well shaped with wide nostrils, his forehead broad, and he was early bald. He laughed readily and sought food for mirth, and stammered a little in his speech. He was full of life; he never put on flesh or varied in figure in the least, so that he seemed made of bone and muscle.
He was temperate and restrained in his habits from his youth; he ever loved and honoured the whole race of women. He loved much, and ever observed great secrecy concerning his loves. He made discreet and lively ballads of his loves, in which he often touched upon the mysteries of other great deeds. He was always well-dressed, and whatever he wore sat well upon him, so that whether dressed for the chase, for war, or for state occasions, he was approved of all. He had a ready wit and was much given to inventing tales and presenting interludes at the feasts, the jousts, or in the fight, and in these compositions he very subtly signified what he wished. He was a famous horseman in both saddles, and a great soldier. He was very careful to have good fleet horses. He took great delight in getting his arms repaired, and in examining them and keeping them bright and clean and point-device. In war, he was too courageous and daring, so that he often placed himself in great peril, as may be seen from his history and in many other places. He was often in arms and ever eager for the fray. He addressed his king at all times with great reverence and ceremony [?]. He was a great huntsman and laboured much therein, and followed the chase so often, when other business gave him leisure, that he was better skilled in it than other men. He took great pleasure in discoursing of archery, and in that sport it was a marvel to find any who could beat him at the crossbow. He loved wise and prudent men, and endeavoured to win them to himself and reposed great trust in them; but for those who were libertines and chatterers, he laughed with them and showed them good countenance, and held them of small account.[k]
INTERNAL DISSENSIONS
[Sidenote: [1420-1445 A.D.]]
It was not to be supposed that the power of De Luna would fail to arouse the jealousy and indignation of both nobles and people. But the first disturbances of Juan’s reign were caused by the refusal of his sister, Catalina, to marry Henry, infante of Aragon. The latter proceeded to use force, succeeded in capturing not only the princess but Juan himself, and retained them as his prisoners at Avila. The marriage took place, and though Juan soon afterwards contrived to escape, Henry and his brother, the king of Navarre, both continued to give him serious trouble in the succeeding years of his reign by their invasions of Castile, and the encouragement they gave to his revolted subjects. The king’s wasteful bounty towards his favourites was a constant excuse for rebellion. It was against his constable, Alvaro de Luna, that the enmity of nobles and people alike was chiefly directed.[a]
In 1439 a league (not the first) was formed against him, and was headed as usual by Henry of Aragon and the king of Navarre. Its members loudly demanded the removal of the obnoxious favourite. To dispel the approaching storm, Don Alvaro retired for a time from the court; but the confederates refused to lay down their arms until he should be forever driven from the royal presence. Though the complaints which they elaborately brought against him were for the most part invented or exaggerated, it is evident enough that he had abused his influence over the royal mind, and exhibited as much eagerness to enrich, no matter by what means, his creatures and instruments, as vindictiveness against all who ventured to thwart his will. To appease his barons, the king convoked his cortes at Valladolid; such a step was become necessary, for the leaguers had seized on some of his chief cities, and were preparing to proceed still further.
The first act of the assembly was to recommend that all parties should disarm--the king as well as the infante, the constable as well as the king of Navarre. But this recommendation led to no result; both parties continued exasperated as before. That of the king was weakened by the desertion of his only son, Prince Henry, who espoused the cause of the confederates. The queen followed the example of her son: in short, the aspect of affairs was so menacing that Don Alvaro began to turn his eyes towards Portugal in search of an asylum. Through the persuasion of the king, however, who assured him that everything should be arranged to his wish, he consented to await the result.
The horrors of internal strife were now felt in all their force; city after city was invested and taken by the confederate rebels, who showed little mercy to the partisans of the king and constable. In vain did Juan whisper peace; in vain did he appear to abide by the decision of his states, which he might summon for the purpose: as he did not at once and forever banish Don Alvaro from his presence, his entreaties and remonstrances were equally disregarded. In 1443 the rebels obtained possession of the king’s person and held him as a kind of prisoner in his own palace. Though their subsequent efforts were somewhat paralysed by the defection of Prince Henry, who even called on all good men to aid him in rescuing his father from a slavish dependence on them, they persevered not the less in their design. They took the field against both the prince and the father, who now contrived to escape and reach the camp of the former. But on this occasion the confederates were routed and dispersed in several successive actions, and their strong places recovered by the royal forces. Their estates were seized by the king, and they themselves forced to seek refuge in Aragon or Navarre. Subsequently, both the king of Navarre and his brother, the reckless Henry, collected troops, and invaded, the one Castile, the other Murcia; but without any other result than that of harassing the innocent peasantry, or wreaking vengeance on their personal enemies. Finally the victory of Olmedo, gained by Juan in person over the two brothers, the acquisition of a considerable number of prisoners, and the death of Henry (of Aragon) through a wound received in that battle, appeared to consolidate both the power of the king and the influence of the favourite.
THE FALL OF ALVARO
[Sidenote: [1445-1453 A.D.]]
But royal attachments are seldom permanent, because they are seldom founded on merit; and because the minds of men, especially those of kings, are generally incapable of any lasting impression. Though the favour of Juan II had been protracted far beyond the limits of ordinary duration, it was not to prove an exception to the usual course of human experience. Soon after the battle of Olmedo, the partiality of the monarch began to be weakened. Years elapsed before Juan could put into execution his long-meditated design of destroying his constable. His attention, indeed, was long distracted by the irruptions into his territories of the Aragonese and Navarrese, in conjunction with the Castilian exiles; and by the partial revolts which from time to time agitated his kingdom (that of Toledo for instance, occasioned by an exaction, under the name of a loan, of a million maravedis, was not suppressed without much difficulty). It was not until the year 1453, that he seriously resolved to rid himself of this formidable minister.
To rashness, and an insolent contempt of the royal power and authority, Don Alvaro soon added the crime of murder. Knowing that Alfonso de Vivero, one of his creatures, was become his secret enemy, he planned the destruction of that false confidant. One day he held in his own house a council, to which Alfonso was summoned. On the appearance of the latter, he was shown the correspondence which he had held with the king relative to the constable’s arrest, and which Alvaro had intercepted. The confusion of the traitor would have been evidence enough of his guilt, without the incontestable documents then produced. On a signal from the constable, he was dragged to the top of the tower, precipitated headlong, and dashed to pieces on the ground below. The creatures of Alvaro suddenly raised a note of lamentation, as if the fall had been purely accidental; but the king was soon acquainted with the truth, and the more confirmed in his purpose of vengeance.
[Sidenote: [1453-1454 A.D.]]
Don Alvaro was at Burgos, when the order for his arrest was given by the king to the son of the count of Plasencia, to take him dead or alive. During the night, troops were secretly placed in various parts of the city and at the entrance of the fortress, into which some men-at-arms were silently introduced. The royal order was to invest the house in which the constable resided, and thereby compel him to surrender. Accordingly the young Zuñiga, with two hundred men-at-arms and twenty horsemen, surrounded the house, exclaiming, “Castilla! Castilla! libertad para el Rey!” The constable showed his head from a window; but an arrow being shot at him, he withdrew it, and his men began to fire on the royal troops. The assault was repelled; but he himself was at length persuaded to surrender, on receiving an assurance in writing, under the king’s own hand, that his life, liberty, and even possessions should be spared. No sooner, however, was he secured, than his gold and jewels were seized by the faithless monarch, and orders given to try--in other words, to condemn him. Twelve lawyers and several barons, being assembled for this purpose, unanimously passed on him the last sentence and the confiscation of all his possessions. From Burgos he was conducted to Valladolid, where the execution was appointed to take place.
He prepared for death with firmness, and with apparent contrition for his past misdeeds. During the night preceding the execution, the king’s mind was far from tranquil. He remembered the real services of the constable through so many years, the affection he had once borne him, and the promise he had made of sparing his life. The remembrance was so troublesome that he once or twice delivered a sealed paper to the chamberlain on duty, which he wished to be taken to Zuñiga--doubtless, to stay the execution. Hearing of his agitation, the queen, whose conduct throughout was exceedingly vindictive, hastened to him, and succeeded in suspending rather than removing his scruples. As the fatal hour approached, Don Alvaro, mounted on a mule, and attended by two monks, left his house for the scaffold. On the way, the public herald, according to custom, vociferated his crimes and punishment. “I deserve all this,” said he, “and more, for my sins!” When near the scaffold, he called a page of the prince, and said to him, “Page, tell my lord the prince to reward his servants better than the king, my sovereign, now rewards me!” He ascended with a firm step, knelt for a few moments before a crucifix, bared his neck with his own hands, and quietly laid his head on the block, when the executioner plunged the knife into his throat, and afterwards separated the head from the body, amidst the tears of the surrounding multitude.
Thus fell the great constable of Castile, the victim, chiefly, of his own immeasurable ambition, and in no mean degree of courtier jealousy and of royal faithlessness. If his crimes were many, they were characteristic rather of the age than of the man: he was certainly no more criminal than the great body of the Castilian barons, who despised alike justice and reason when violence could secure their ends. To him the queen was indebted for her crown; yet she persecuted him with unrelenting hatred. The numbers whom he had enriched forsook him as his favour declined; three only of his army of dependents remained faithful to the last. And as to his trial, the most eminent legal authorities of Spain have satisfactorily proved that in his case both the spirit and forms of justice were disregarded.
Juan II did not long survive the constable: he died in 1454. He was one of the weakest and most despicable princes that ever swayed the scepter of any country. Besides two sons, he left issue the infanta Isabella,[46] so famous in the annals of Spain.[g]
HUME’S ESTIMATE OF JUAN II
[Sidenote: [1406-1458 A.D.]]
Juan II was unfortunate in living when he did. Peace-loving and amiable, one of the greatest patrons of letters who ever ruled in Spain, he was not without considerable gifts of mind, but utterly unfitted to hold the reins of government in a state during the crucial period of struggle between the aristocratic and democratic principles. Alvaro de Luna, though greedy and intolerant, ruled on the whole not unwisely, with a view to the increase of the power of the crown, and with a strong king to support him the latter might have become supreme over both elements, as his great-grandson did.
But though his long reign was politically a failure, it marks a period of social splendour at court and almost universal luxury such as had never been seen in Spain before; while Castilian letters, under the patronage of the king, reached one of those culminating points of development which appear in Spain at intervals of about two centuries. With the advance of culture and the arts of peace the old rough epics of an earlier time and the didactic verse that followed had become unfashionable; and in the early fifteenth century, both in the courts of Castile and Aragon, lyric poetry and chronicles of romantic incident became the rage. From King Juan II and Alvaro de Luna downward, almost every noble and knight wrote verses of some sort; and of the 136 poets who wrote the songs in the Cancionero General (Valencia, 1511), probably more than half belonged to the court of Juan II, while in the Cancionero de Baena the proportion must be still larger. Music, dances, theatrical interludes, and poetic competitions were the favourite diversions which kept the king amused, while Alvaro de Luna governed according to his will.[i]
THE DISASTERS OF HENRY IV
The reign of Henry IV, surnamed the Impotent, was even more disastrous than that of his father. That this surname was not undeserved, we have the testimony of his own wife, Blanche of Navarre, whom he led to the altar in 1440, and who, after a union of thirteen years, could complain that the debitum conjugale remained unpaid. On this ground, in 1453, the marriage was annulled. After his accession, however, he obtained the hand of a Portuguese infanta.
From his rebellious conduct towards his own father, it could scarcely be expected that he would be allowed to sway the sceptre in peace. Besides the disputes which he had with the crowns of Navarre and Aragon, he was perpetually subjected to the insults no less than the defiance of his turbulent nobles, and to the partial revolts of the people whom the exactions of his revenue officers never failed to exasperate. In 1457 a league was formed against him, just as it had been against the late king, and composed of the most influential barons and ecclesiastics: among these was Henry’s favourite Pacheco, for whom he had obtained the marquisate of Villena, and whom he had laden with honours and wealth. Their complaints were that the business of administration was neglected; that the king kept aloof from the hereditary advisers of his crown, and associated with individuals of low birth [these included numerous Moors], on whom he lavished his resources to the great detriment of the state. Whatever might be his other faults, he was naturally mild, and disposed to cherish his people; to their remonstrance he replied that he would convoke his cortes, and do whatever they advised him. They accordingly disbanded. But he soon abandoned himself to new favourites.
[Sidenote: [1458-1465 A.D.]]
In the meantime, the confederates again proceeded to strengthen their league: made a second petition, drawn up in more decided terms than the preceding; and, besides, insisted that the king should pay more regard to the education of the infantes, Alfonso and Isabella, and cause the former to be recognised as his heir by the states of the kingdom. As his answer was evasive, they again placed the king of Aragon and Navarre[47] at their head, and laboured by every means to obstruct the course of his government. Hostilities between him and that monarch were the consequence; but they led to nothing, especially as from time to time he found means to gain over several of the discontented lords. His satisfaction was increased by the pregnancy of his queen; who, early in 1462, was delivered of a daughter, the infanta Juana or Joanna. Though popular report did not hesitate to assign the child to the familiarity of the mother with Don Beltran de la Cueva, count of Ledesma, one of Henry’s favourites, and even applied to that issue the significant epithet of Beltraneja, the latter was not the less eager in securing the recognition of the princess as heiress to his dominions.
At length the marquis of Villena, the very soul of the league, being disappointed in his expectation of the grand-mastership of Santiago, which was conferred on the count of Ledesma, formed no less a project than that of arresting both king and queen, of proclaiming Alfonso, and, in concert with his confederates, of reigning under the name and authority of that young prince. Being seasonably warned by four faithful servants, the king avoided the snare. Nevertheless in a subsequent interview he agreed that his brother Alfonso should be declared his heir; that Don Beltran should resign the grand-mastership of Santiago in favour of that infante, who should be consigned to the guardianship of the marquis of Villena. Early in the following year (1465), these conditions were punctually performed: Beltran resigned the dignity, with which Alfonso was immediately invested; and that infante, on engaging to marry the Beltraneja, was, at the same time, proclaimed prince of the Asturias, and successor to the throne. But Henry’s unexampled concessions were insufficient. Henry summoned them to lay down their arms, and to surrender his brother, and went to invest Arevalo, one of their fortresses: that siege, however, he soon raised on hearing that Valladolid had declared for Alfonso, whom the rebels were conducting to Avila, to be there proclaimed king of Leon and Castile.
The scene which now disgraced Avila was one of unparalleled effrontery. In the midst of the plain, near the walls of the city, a vast theatre was constructed; in the centre rose a throne, on which was placed an effigy of Henry with a crown on the head, a sceptre in the hand, and other ensigns of royal dignity. A herald ascended the platform and read, in a loud voice, the various charges that had long been urged against the administration of the king--his neglect of justice, his incapacity, the outrages which he had committed against his kingdom and nobles; hence, that, in conformity with reason and justice, no less than the fundamental laws of the realm, the said Henry had been pronounced by the most eminent civilians to be unfit any longer to wear the crown, and that his deposition was imperiously demanded by the interests of the nation. This decision was justified by an allusion to other kingdoms, which, in various periods of history, had been compelled to depose their rulers.
No sooner was this strange homily finished than the archbishop of Toledo, with the marquis of Villena, the count of Plasencia, the grand-master of Alcantara, and other barons, ascended the platform, and approached the statue. The first took off the royal crown; the second snatched away the sceptre; the third, the sword; a fourth stripped off the kingly robe; a fifth and sixth, the other emblems of royalty: all six then simultaneously kicked the statue from the chair, and precipitated it to the ground, loading it with curses and the most insulting terms of reproach. Alfonso was next brought on the stage, and was elevated on the shoulders of the nobles, who exclaimed, “Castilla! Castilla! para el rey Don Alfonso!” The flourish of trumpets, the beating of drums, and the homage solemnly rendered to the new king, completed the scene.
[Sidenote: [1465-1469 A.D.]]
Henry was naturally anxious to punish the rebels, but their attitude was too formidable for him. They continued under arms, besieging fortress after fortress, and wreaking vengeance alike on their personal and political enemies. During these troubles there was a total relaxation of the laws; numerous bands of robbers paraded the highways, and not infrequently pillaged the towns of the kingdom; until the inhabitants formed themselves into voluntary confederations for the protection of their persons and properties. Thus continued the face of affairs until 1467, when Henry resolved to risk a battle with the rebels. He met them near Olmedo, where, after a fierce but indecisive struggle, both armies left the field, each boasting of the victory. While each was collecting reinforcements to try the event of another action, arrived a papal legate, who endeavoured to reduce the rebels to reason, and who was so imprudent as to threaten them with the thunders of the church unless they laid down their arms and submitted their complaints to arbitration. Three hundred tongues hooted him from the camp of the confederates: to avoid something worse, he hastily mounted his mule, and fled. This event, however, did not prevent the king from meeting the leaders at Segovia, where a suspension of arms was agreed on. The following year his rival, the infante Alfonso, died--an event highly favourable to the king.
The rebels, indeed, proposed to raise the infanta Isabella, his sister, to the throne, and thereby perpetuate their own impunity; but that princess, who had principles and an understanding far above her years, refused to become the tool of a few factious rebels. Finally, peace was made: Isabella and Henry met with every appearance of good will; and that princess was recognised, both by him and the great body of the barons and deputies as the undoubted heiress of the two crowns. The queen, indeed, protested against this arrangement in favour of her daughter; but her complaints passed unheeded.
MARRIAGE OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA
[Sidenote: [1469-1474 A.D.]]
In the same year was laid the foundations of a union which was to prove of such unbounded value to Spain; Juan II of Aragon solicited the hand of Isabella of Castile for his son and heir Don Ferdinand, king of Sicily. The overture was formally received by the princess; but obstacles of so formidable a nature intervened that, for some time, there was little hope of a successful issue to the negotiations. Neither the king nor the queen wished to see the cause of Isabella supported by so powerful a neighbour as the future monarch of Aragon would necessarily be. Besides, several barons, who had followed the fortunes of Henry, and procured great estates at the expense of the infanta’s adherents, naturally dreaded her accession in any case, especially if there should be a junction of her power with that of Aragon.
Such, however, was the eagerness of Juan to conclude the match; such the sums he distributed among the Castilian nobles; and so powerful the interference of the archbishop of Toledo in the cause, that her adherents decided on bringing the affair as soon as possible to a conclusion. The whole negotiation was secretly conducted; the rather as the princess was sought both by the duke of Berri, brother to the French king, and by the monarch of Portugal, whose agents were sure to oppose every obstacle in their power to the union with Aragon. For a time she was a prisoner in Madrigal, where it was evidently intended to detain her until she gave her consent to either the Portuguese or the Frenchman. The former was considered too old to have issue, the latter was too far removed to be dreaded. She contrived to acquaint her friends with her unexpected position. The primate immediately collected three hundred lances, and marched to her relief; the admiral of Castile and the bishop of Curia did the same; she was released, and triumphantly escorted to Valladolid. Ferdinand was invited to hasten from Aragon with all possible expedition, while Henry was absent in Andalusia, and receive his bride. As he was likely to be intercepted on his reaching the Castilian territory, he assumed a suitable disguise, and, with three attendants only, eluded the design of his enemies. On the 25th of October, 1469, the royal pair received the nuptial benediction in the cathedral of Valladolid.
No sooner was Henry acquainted with this precipitate marriage, than he resolved to leave no measure untried for securing the crown to Beltraneja. To the deputations of his sister and brother-in-law, who entreated him to forgive a step rendered necessary by circumstances, he returned answers studiously evasive. The profusion with which he lavished lands, lordships, and other honours on the more powerful barons, proved how anxious he was to effect his object. But his attention was long distracted, and his efforts rendered abortive, by the troubles which lacerated his kingdom. There was no longer a government: one baron made war on another, and one class of the community on another, with perfect impunity and with perfect contempt of their sovereign’s authority. In some towns the streets were deluged with blood by their contentions. But the king was too mutable in character to persevere long in any given line of conduct. In 1474 he again sought for an opportunity of entrapping and imprisoning the infanta and her husband; but his purpose was divined and eluded.
This weak monarch--weak even to helplessness--died near the close of 1474; by his last will he declared the young Juana his successor, and charged four of his most considerable barons with its execution. The desire of wiping away the stain on his manhood did not forsake him even on the verge of the grave.
On the death of Juan, Ferdinand was at Saragossa; but his consort, being at Segovia, summoned that city to acknowledge her, and was instantly obeyed: by the nobles and prelates present, both were solemnly proclaimed joint sovereigns of Castile and Leon. On his return from Aragon, there was much dispute as to the power he was to exercise in the administration. While one party contended that the undivided executive ought to depend on the queen, as domina et hæres of the monarchy, another maintained that he alone should govern; since, in default of male issue by the deceased king, the crown devolved of right to him as the next heir. But the Salic law had never been in force in this kingdom, however it might be recognised in some neighbouring states. After frequent and acrimonious consultations, it was agreed that the king and queen should reign conjointly, and that, in all public acts, his name should precede hers; but, to save her rights, or rather to satisfy Castilian jealousy, it was no less stipulated that without her express sanction he should not have power to alienate any portion of the royal revenues or domains, nor to nominate the governors of towns or fortresses. These restrictions were far from pleasing to Ferdinand, who was immoderately fond of power, and who, at first, even threatened to return into his hereditary kingdom. His indignation was disarmed by the prudence of the queen, who, by promising submission to his will, averted so fatal a misfortune.
WAR OF THE SUCCESSION (1474-1479 A.D.)
[Sidenote: [1474-1479 A.D.]]
But if the majority of the people were in favour of the new reign, there were yet many barons, and those of considerable influence, who espoused the interests of Juana. The marquis of Villena, with other barons of the same party, resolved to marry the young princess to Alfonso V of Portugal, assisted by whose arms they hoped to make head against the reigning pair. Alfonso readily embraced the proposals of the disaffected: he collected troops, and at the same time, as uncle of Juana, applied to the pope for a dispensation to celebrate the marriage.
However important the stake for which the two parties now began to contend, the details of that contention are too obscure in themselves, and were too indecisive, to merit minute attention. Though the Portuguese obtained some partial successes, among others the strong fortress of Zamora, the war was decidedly in favour of the Castilian sovereigns: in the very first campaign the marquis of Villena had the mortification to see his hereditary domains in possession of the royal forces; while many of the towns and forts, which had at first declared for Juana, returned to their duty. In 1476 the Portuguese king was compelled to retreat from Zamora, which was invested by Ferdinand; near Toro he was overtaken by his active enemy, and a battle ensued, in which victory declared for the latter;[48] it was immediately followed by the surrender of the fortress. About the same time, Madrid, which had held for Juana, capitulated to the duke del Infantado: Ucles followed the example. Both the marquis and the primate were now tired of their ally and their cause. Negotiations were opened; and, in September, 1479, satisfactorily concluded at Alcacebas.
The principal conditions were that Alfonso should renounce the title of king of Castile; that he should neither marry, nor in any way favour the pretensions of Doña Juana; that “this pretended daughter of the late king, Don Henry,” should be allowed six months to decide whether she would wait until the infante Juan (only son of Ferdinand and Isabella, then but a year old) arrived at a marriageable age, or take the veil; that the Portuguese should restore the few places they still held in Estremadura. It was added that if, on arriving at a proper age, the infante should be averse to the match, he had only to pay 100,000 pistoles to be at liberty to marry whom he pleased. The unfortunate lady, seeing that she was sacrificed to the interests of the two kings, professed in the convent of St. Clair at Coimbra.[49]
The very year in which peace was thus happily restored between Castile and Portugal, Ferdinand, by the death of his father, Juan II, was called to the throne of Aragon. Having received the homage and confirmed the privileges of his Aragonese subjects at Saragossa, of the Catalonians at Barcelona, and of the Valencians in the capital of that province, he returned into Castile.[g]
There was now a Spain, though the government of the two kingdoms was separately administered under separate constitutions long after the time of Ferdinand and Isabella; yet the double throne was after all one throne, and Spain was at last a nation, fronting the world united, as far as the Spaniards of that time could be united, and the first reign of the new realm was the most glorious of all.[a]
FOOTNOTES
[44] Let us hope that the atrocities of the English allies--so gently noticed by Froissart[d]--are exaggerated; yet certain it is that the old Portuguese chroniclers dwelt largely on them: “Nao se cançaõ os nossos chronistas de encarecer as atrocidades que estas tropas auxiliares cometteraõ em todos os terrenos de Portugal por onde andaraõ,” says Lemos.[e] “King Ferdinand,” says the Chronicon Conimbricense[f] “had to seize the church plate to satisfy his allies: Mandou o ditto senhor rey tomar os thesouros das igrejas, convem a saber, frontaes, e calices et magestades, para pagar o soldo aos dittos Ingrezos.”
[45] [Hume[i] calls him “one of the noblest personages of Spanish history.”]
[46] [While there are discrepant statements as to the date and place of Isabella’s birth, Prescott accepts April 22nd, 1451, as the date, and Madrigal as the place.[l] Burke[h] emphasises the fact that in her veins flowed the blood both of Guzmans and of Plantagenets; both her great-grandmother and her grandmother were English.]
[47] Juan, king of Navarre, who in 1458 had succeeded his brother Alfonso as king of Aragon.
[48] In this battle it was somewhat singular to see two eminent ecclesiastical dignitaries, the cardinal De Mendoza and the archbishop of Toledo, fighting on opposite sides. There was something not exactly apostolic in the former’s hastening along the Castilian ranks, with a crucifix borne before him, shouting, “Knaves, fight away! have ye not a cardinal with you?”
[In honour of this victory Isabella walked barefoot in a religious procession through the streets.]
[49] Alfonso later abdicated and went into a monastery.