Henry IV of Castile

“ Ye timerous herd, are ye the genuine line Of those illustrious shades, whose rage divine, Beneath great Henry's standards awed the foe, For whom ye tremble, and would stoop so low! That foe, who, boastful now, then basely fled, When your undaunted sires the hero led, When seven bold earls in chains the spoil adorn'd, And proud Castile through all her kindreds mourn'd, Castile, your awful dread—yet, conscious, say, When Dinez reign'd, when his bold son bore sway, By whom were trodden down the bravest bands
That ever march'd from proud Castilia's lands? ”

“ HENRY III. (1390-1406) king of Castile, called El Doliente, the Sufferer, was the son of John I. of Castile and Leon, and of his wife Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand of Portugal. He was born in 1379. The period of minority was exceptionally anarchical, even for Castile, but as the cities, always the best supporters of the royal authority, were growing in strength, Henry was able to reduce his kingdom to obedience, and, when he took the government into his own hands after 1393, to compel his nobles with comparative ease to surrender the crown lands they had seized. ”

“ His marriage in 1469 to his cousin Isabella of Castile was dictated by the desire to unite his own claims to the crown, as the head of the younger branch of the same family, with hers, in case Henry IV. should die childless. ”

“ 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. ”

“ P. 89: Henry IV. of Castile, 1454-1474, a feeble and dissipated Prince, was a brother of Isabelle of Castile. The young man chosen was not a nobleman, but simply an Antinous of negligible origin whom the king created Duke d'Albuquerque. A child, Jeanne, was born of this complacent match, but she did not reign. Castile preferred Henri III.'s sister, Isabelle.
P. 89: Fulgosius (Battista Fregose) , born at Genoa 1440, of a family famous in Genoese history, and for a time Doge of his native City. ”

“ His enemies were not yet able to defeat him, however, even with the aid of Aragon, and a peace was signed in 1361. Shortly afterward, both Blanche of Bourbon and María de Padilla died, the latter deeply bemoaned by Pedro I. In 1363 Henry of Trastamara and Pedro IV again formed a league against the Castilian king, and it was at this time that Henry first set up a claim to the crown of Castile. To aid them in their project they employed the celebrated “White companies,” an army of military adventurers of all nations who sold their services to the highest bidder. ”

“ Everywhere the people of Castile fell away from their cruel king, and Henry's advance was almost unopposed. Soon he was in Burgos, and Don Pedro had become a fugitive without an army and almost without a friend. Henry was now again crowned king, many of the Castilian nobles taking part in the imposing ceremony.
The first acts of the new king were to recompense the men who had raised him to that high office. The money which he found in the treasury served as a rich reward to the followers of Du Guesclin. ”

“ Such was the model to whom Castilian chivalry looked, the man, who with the Archbishop of Toledo and the Marquis of Villena dictated to their master his every word.
It is small wonder if Louis XI. had for the ruler of Castile “little value or esteem,” or that Commines himself, summing up the situation, caustically dismisses Henry as “a person of no great sense.” There could not have been a stronger 49contrast between the two kings: Henry with his pale blue eyes and mass of reddish hair, his awkwardly-built frame, overdressed and loaded with jewels, towering above his meagre companion ”

“ But advantage was taken of Philip's plight to extort from him the surrender of the Earl of Suffolk, styled the White Rose, and a commercial treaty with the Netherlands, which the Flemings named the Malus Intercursus. Three months after his arrival in Castile, Philip died, and Henry began to fish in the troubled waters for a share in his dominions. Two marriage schemes occurred to him; he might win the hand of Philip's sister Margaret, now Regent of the Netherlands, and with her hand the control of those provinces; or he might marry Juaña and claim in her right to administer Castile. ”

“ In 1504 Isabella of Castile died, and her kingdom descended by inheritance to her daughter Joanna and Joanna's husband, the Archduke Philip. Henry was deeply interested to know how much authority over Castile Ferdinand still possessed as governor in the absence of the new king and queen, and in 1505 he sent three gentlemen to Spain mainly to report on this subject, though ostensibly to offer terms for an alliance against France to which he had been much solicited. ”

“ Ferdinand and Isabel were despots with the consent of their subjects; Charles was strong enough to disregard the popular will. The movement never spread beyond Castile. The Andalucians offered to suppress it, but their aid was not required; it was crushed by Castilian troops. So soon as its democratic character became pronounced, it was opposed by the nobles, whose aid, or acquiescence, was essential to its success. It failed through local jealousy, respect for tradition, and lack of a leader, and of a plan. It was not openly directed against the Crown. ”

“ The king of Castile found himself under a necessity of complying; but he first exacted Henry’s promise that he would spare Suffolk’s life. That nobleman was invited over to England by Philip; as if the king would grant him a pardon, on the intercession of his friend and ally. Upon his appearance, he was committed to the Tower; and the king of Castile, having fully satisfied Henry, as well by this concession as by signing a treaty of commerce between England and Castile, which was advantageous to the former kingdom, [*] was at last allowed to depart, after a stay of three months. ”

“ IT were difficult to exaggerate the disorder pervading the Castilian kingdoms, when the Spanish monarchy found its origin in the union of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. Many causes had contributed to prolong and intensify the evils of the feudal system and to neutralize such advantages as it possessed. The struggles of the reconquest from the Saracen, continued at intervals through seven hundred years and varied by constant civil broils, had bred a race of fierce and turbulent nobles as eager to attack a neighbor or their sovereign as the Moor. ”

“ Enough has been said to give an idea of the state of mental improvement in Castile under John the Second. The Muses, who had found a shelter in his court from the anarchy which reigned abroad, soon fled from its polluted precincts under the reign of his successor Henry the Fourth, whose sordid appetites were incapable of being elevated above the objects of the senses. If we have dwelt somewhat long on a more pleasing picture, it is because our road is now to lead us across a dreary waste exhibiting scarcely a vestige of civilization. ”

“ Accordingly it is not as a conqueror but as a ruler that he can lay claim to greatness. But although Henry attempted little in the way of acquiring new territory, he did much to consolidate his possessions and to extend his European power and influence. His daughters were married to the greatest princes of their time, Henry the Lion, duke of Saxony and Bavaria, King Alphonso VIII of Castile, King William II of Sicily. He made an alliance with the ruler of Provence and planned a marriage with the house of Savoy that would have given him control of the passes into Italy. ”

“ Irritation and hostility became chronic, with the result that they were denied some of the slender alleviations vouchsafed to Castile, on the ground that the character of the population and the neighborhood of the heretics of France rendered it necessary that the Holy Office should be fortified with greater privileges than in the rest of Spain. ”

“ It shows how strong an impression had already been made by the resolute character of the sovereigns, and how violent was the antagonism generally entertained for the Conversos, that so novel and absolute a tyranny could be imposed on the lately turbulent population of Castile without resistance, and that so powerful a class as that against which persecution was directed should have submitted without an effort save the abortive plots at Seville and Toledo. ”

“ Unmindful of the disgrace attendant on his divorce from Blanche of Navarre, Henry sought and obtained the hand of Joanna, Princess of Portugal, whose ambition and unprincipled intrigues heightened the ill-favor with which he was already regarded. The court of Castile, once so famous for chastity and honor, sank to the lowest ebb of infamy, the shadow of which, seeming to extend over the whole land, affected nobles and people with its baleful influence. All law was at an end: the people, even while they murmured against the King, followed his evil example ”

“ It was impossible that a king so far-seeing and politic as Ferdinand and a queen so pious as Isabella, when reducing to order the chaos which they found in Castile, should neglect the interest of the faith on which, according to medieval belief, all social order was based. ”

“ 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 [117] 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ Aragon took no share in the war; for in this kingdom Ferdinand had not yet succeeded his father. The Portuguese and the Castilian malcontents overran the western frontier, and seized Burgos and strong positions in the Douro valley. The battle of Toro (1476) put an end to the danger, and left leisure for reforms. During the two preceding reigns Castile had been given up to anarchy; the municipalities had become almost independent; the nobles had usurped the privileges of royalty and devastated the country by their private wars. ”

“ John II. king of Castile, &c. succeeded his father Henry III. in the year 1406, and died 1454. By his first wife, Mary of Arragon, he had one son, Henry IV. his successor. By his second marriage with Isabella of Portugal, he had a son Alphonso, who died without issue, and a daughter, Isabella, who succeeded her half brother, Henry, and, by her marriage with Ferdinand of Arragon, united the two principal crowns of Spain. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He succeeded so far as to make a treaty with his rival, King John, son of Henry of Trastamara, for the succession, by virtue 144 of which his daughter Catherine became the wife of Henry III. of Castile some years later. After his return the king seems to have regarded him with greater favour, created him duke of Aquitaine, and employed him in repeated embassies to France, which at length resulted in a treaty of peace, and Richard’s marriage to the French king’s daughter. ”

“ The English themselves had to take part against them, but at length the means taken by King Charles to rid his kingdom of this burden again brought the French and English into contact. The provinces of the south-west of France had been erected into the independent duchy of Aquitaine, and given to the Black Prince, who held his court at Bordeaux. Thither, when driven from his country, Pedro the Cruel, of Castile, betook himself. This king had secured his throne by a series of murders. His natural brother, Henry of Trastamare, had fled and taken refuge with the French King. ”

“ Henceforward history follows the fortunes of the two kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, which rose upon its ruins. Side by side with them Catalonia flourished in the east, blest with culture and prosperity, but exercising no particular influence on the course of events; and towards the end of the century some knightly adventurers laid the foundation of the kingdom of Portugal in the west, the northern part of which Alfonso conferred first on his son-in-law, Raymond of Burgundy, and then on Count Henry, the husband of his natural daughter Theresa, as a fief of the kingdom of Castile. ”