Ferdinand I of Aragon

“ Ferdinand was fond of power, and his first steps showed that he would strive to maintain it. Not a few of the discontented, because disappointed, nobles retired from Toro in disgust, assembled others of the same faction at Valladolid, and wrote letters to Philip, then governor of Flanders, pressing him to come and assume the administration of the kingdom. The archduke, eager to seize his consort’s inheritance, had the insolence to order his father-in-law to retire into Aragon, against whose every act of government, since the death of Isabella, he equally protested. ”

“ Indeed, the kings of Aragon, notwithstanding occasional excesses, seem never to have attempted any systematic invasion of the constitutional rights of their subjects. They well knew, that the spirit of liberty was too high among them to endure it. When the queen of Alfonso the Fourth urged her husband, by quoting the example of her brother the king of Castile, to punish certain refractory citizens of Valencia, he prudently replied, "My people are free, and not so submissive as the Castilians. They respect me as their prince, and I hold them for good vassals and comrades." ”

“ In this he is abundantly justified, both by the prevailing character of the policy pursued, widely differing from that which distinguished the queen's measures, and by the circumstance that the foreign conquests, although achieved by the united efforts of both crowns, were undertaken on, behalf of Ferdinand's own dominions of Aragon, to which in the end they exclusively appertained.
The close of the fifteenth century presents, on the whole, the most striking point of view in modern history ”

“ Indeed, the common people of Castile very generally supported her in her preference of the Aragonese match. Boys paraded the streets, bearing banners emblazoned with the arms of Aragon, and singing verses prophetic of the glories of the auspicious union. They even assembled round the palace gates, and insulted the ears of Henry and his minister by the repetition of satirical stanzas, which contrasted Alfonso's years with the youthful graces of Ferdinand. ”

“ Ferdinand pursued a similar course in his own dominions of Aragon, where he uniformly supported the commons, or may more properly be said to have been supported by them, in the attempt to circumscribe the authority of the great feudatories. Although he accomplished this, to a considerable extent, their power was too firmly intrenched behind positive institutions to be affected like that of the Castilian aristocracy, whose rights had been swelled beyond their legitimate limits by every species of usurpation. ”

“ This is not the place to tell how the nobles of Castile found to their dismay that in Ferdinand and Isabel they had raised a King Stork instead of King Log to the throne, and how the Queen, strong as a man, subtle as a woman, crushed and chicaned her realms into order and obedience. The aims of Ferdinand and his father in effecting the union of Aragon and Castile by marriage went far beyond the Peninsula in which they lived. For ages Aragon had found its ambitions checked by the consolidation of France. ”

“ The French navy was ordered out to receive the Catholic monarch, and the vessels on either side, gayly decorated with the national flags and ensigns, rivalled each other in the beauty and magnificence of their equipments. King Ferdinand's galleys were spread with rich carpets and awnings of yellow and scarlet, and every sailor in the fleet exhibited the same gaudy-colored livery of the royal house of Aragon. Louis the Twelfth came to welcome his illustrious guests, attended by a gallant train of his nobility and chivalry ”

“ It possesses a noble pair of bronze doors of even greater interest than the archway; for not only is their workmanship extremely fine, but also the figures possess the interest of portraiture. The scenes depicted are the triumphs of King Ferdinand, second of the five monarchs of Aragon, over his revolting barons. There is Ferdinand upon his war-horse talking to the Duke of Taranto, his thin, cruel face recognisable at a glance by the high nose which he derived from his father, King Alfonso, builder of the arch. ”

“ Alfonso settled his conquest on his illegitimate son Ferdinand, to the prejudice of the rights of Aragon, by whose blood and treasure he had achieved it. Ferdinand's character, the very opposite of his noble father's, was dark, wily, and ferocious. His life was spent in conflict with his great feudal nobility, many of whom supported the pretensions of the Angevin family. But his superior craft enabled him to foil every attempt of his enemies. ”

“ 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 in the meanwhile, having realized that the crisis of the war was over, had gone to Aragon to see his father. The old King, clear of mind and enterprising as ever at an age when most men have set aside their life work in weariness of spirit, was planning new schemes for gaining Roussillon and Cerdagne, while he worked to keep Navarre, now owned by his grandson Francis Phœbus, from undue French influence. He had fought through his other difficulties, recovered his sight, subdued Barcelona, achieved the Castilian alliance ”

“ 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 ”

“ Bent upon checking piracy in that region they took possession of Melilla, which thenceforth became an important Spanish post.
Ferdinand’s European policy.
While Ferdinand had much to do with the events which have thus far been discussed, he and his subjects of Aragon and Catalonia were more interested in other affairs. Ferdinand aimed at nothing less than a predominant place for Spain in European affairs, to be preceded by the establishment of Aragonese supremacy in the Mediterranean. The principal stumbling-block was the power of the French kings. ”

“ His reign was an inferior copy of his father’s. As the legitimacy of his alleged daughter Juana was disputed, his sister Isabella claimed the succession, and married her cousin, Ferdinand of Aragon, son of John I., in 1469 in defiance of her brother. In Aragon, Ferdinand I. “of Antequera” (1412–1416) was succeeded by Alphonso V. (1416–1458) the Magnanimous, whose brilliant life belongs to Italy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Don Philip of Aragon, son of the Emperor of Fez and Morocco, came to Spain while he was very young, and became a Christian; he had for his godfather Ferdinand of Aragon, Viceroy of Valencia, Duke of Calabria, and eldest son of the King of Naples, Frederic III. Neither his rank, as the son of an emperor, nor the advantage of having a prince for his godfather, were sufficient to prevent the inquisitors from exposing him to the disgrace of appearing in a solemn auto-da-fé ”

“ At last the house of Aragon carried the day over the house of Anjou, and in the course of the year 1442, Alfonso definitely secured his seat on the throne. Of this sort were the claims of the defeated rival which we shall see Charles VIII maintaining later on. Ferdinand had neither the courage nor the genius of his father, and yet he triumphed over his enemies, one after another he had two rivals, both far superior in merit to him self. The one was his nephew, the Count of Viana, who, basing his claim on his uncle's shameful birth, commanded the whole Aragonese party ”

“ A shade of displeasure comes over Ferdinand’s glowing face as he flashes a look at her of pain and mortification. So young, yet so determined!
“Aye, but you must hear me!” she adds, rising to a sudden sense of her duty. “As future Queen of Castile, not as Isabel of Trastamare, I wed you. To me my country is more than life; its privileges, customs, laws, all must rest as they are; no foreign intrusion will be tolerated. As you will be in Aragon sole ruler, in which I shall in no way interfere, but with all my soul maintain you, so must I in Castile ”

“ Ferdinand, on receiving intelligence of his father's perilous situation, instantly resolved, by Isabella's advice, to march to his relief. Putting himself at the head of a body of Castilian horse, generously furnished him by the archbishop of Toledo and his friends, he passed into Aragon, where he was speedily joined by the principal nobility of the kingdom, and an army amounting in all to thirteen hundred lances and seven thousand infantry. ”

“ All ordinances of a public nature were to be subscribed equally by both. Ferdinand engaged, moreover, to prosecute the war against the Moors; to respect King Henry; to suffer every noble to remain unmolested in the possession of his dignities, and not to demand restitution of the domains formerly owned by his father in Castile. The treaty concluded with a specification of a magnificent dower to be settled on Isabella, far more ample than that usually assigned to the queens of Aragon. ”

“ The worthy friar, struck by the noble bearing of a man so poor and wearied, became delighted with the conversation of his guest, who opened to him both his heart and his schemes. He forwarded his plans by a letter to a powerful ecclesiastic, who introduced him to the Spanish Court, then one of the most powerful, and certainly the proudest and most punctilious, in Europe. Ferdinand of Aragon was polite, yet wary and incredulous; but Isabella of Castile listened more kindly to the stranger, whom the greatness of his mission inspired with eloquence. ”

“ Naples was the conquest of Aragon; or, at least, made on behalf of that crown. The queen appears to have taken no part in the conduct of that war, whether distrusting its equity, or its expediency, in the belief that a distant possession in the heart of Europe would probably cost more to maintain than it was worth. In fact, Spain is the only nation, in modern times, which has been able to keep its hold on such possessions for any very considerable period; a circumstance implying more wisdom in her policy than is commonly conceded to her. ”

“ This treaty, which involved the restoration of Roussillon and Cerdagne, was of great importance to the crown of Aragon. These provinces, it will be remembered, had been originally mortgaged by Ferdinand's father, King John the Second, to Louis the Eleventh of France, for the sum of three hundred thousand crowns, in consideration of aid to be afforded by the latter monarch against the Catalan insurgents. ”

“ The king of Aragon could oppose no force capable of resisting this formidable army. His exchequer, always low, was completely exhausted by the extraordinary efforts, which he had made in the late campaigns; and, as the king of France, either disgusted with the long protraction of the war, or from secret good-will to the enterprise of his feudal subject, withheld from King John the stipulated subsidies, the latter monarch found himself unable, with every expedient of loan and exaction, to raise sufficient money to pay his troops, or to supply his magazines. ”

“ By one, executed at Burgos, in 1512, he had committed the government of Castile and Aragon to the infante Ferdinand during his brother Charles's absence. This young prince had been educated in Spain under the eye of his grand-father, who entertained a strong affection for him. The counsellors remonstrated in the plainest terms against this disposition of the regency. Ferdinand, they said, was too young to take the helm into his own hands. His appointment would be sure to create new factions in Castile ”

“ The duke of Guienne he represented as "a feeble, effeminate prince, with limbs so emaciated as to be almost deformed, and with eyes so weak and watery as to incapacitate him for the ordinary exercises of chivalry. While Ferdinand, on the other hand, was possessed of a comely, symmetrical figure, a graceful demeanor, and a spirit that was up to anything;" mui dispuesto para toda coga que hacer ginsiese. It is not improbable that the queen of Aragon condescended to practise some of those agreeable arts on the worthy chaplain, which made so sensible an impression on the marquis of Villena. ”

“ THE Crown of Aragon comprised the so-called kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, the principality of Catalonia, the counties of Rosellon and Cerdana, and the Balearic Isles, with the outlying dependencies of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Although marriage had united the sovereigns of Castile and Aragon, the particularism born of centuries of rivalry and frequent war kept the lands jealously apart as separate nations and Ferdinand ruled individually his ancestral dominions. ”