John II of Castile

“ Surrounded by persons such as these, in continual intercourse with others like them, and often given up [p. 354] to letters to avoid the solicitation of state affairs and to gratify his constitutional indolence, John the Second made his reign, though discreditable to himself as a prince, and disastrous to Castile as an independent state, still interesting by a sort of poetical court which he gathered about him, and important as it gave an impulse to refinement perceptible afterwards through several generations. ”

“ In April 1385 he was unanimously chosen king by the estates of the realm at Coimbra. The king of Castile invaded Portugal, but his army was compelled by pestilence to withdraw, and subsequently by the decisive battle of Aljubarrota (Aug. 14, 1385) the stability of John’s throne was permanently secured. Hostilities continued intermittently until John of Castile died, without leaving issue by Beatrice, in 1390. Meanwhile the king of Portugal went on consolidating the power of the crown at home and the influence of the nation abroad. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In 1431 he was deputed by John II., king of Castile, to attend the council of Basel, in which he made himself conspicuous by his learning. He was the author of several works, the principal of which is entitled Rerum Hispanorum Romanorum imperatorum, summorum pontificum, nec non regum Francorum anacephaleosis. ”

“ A superb frieze surrounds the entire nave, bearing in great Gothic letters an inscription narrating the foundation of the church. Everywhere the arms of Castile and Arragon, and the wedded ciphers of the Catholic kings. Statues of heralds start unexpectedly out from the face of the pillars. Fine as the church is, we cannot linger here long. The glory of San Juan is its cloisters. It may challenge the world to show anything so fine in the latest bloom and last development of Gothic art. ”

“ At this court were residing the two daughters of the late Don Pedro the Cruel; and John of Gaunt, now a widower, but in the prime of his life, married Donna Constance, the eldest, and in her right assumed the title of King of Castile and Leon; and his brother, the Earl of Cambridge, married, at the same time, the second sister. [444] This, as we have said of the Black Prince's expedition into Castile to reinstate the tyrant Don Pedro, was a most false and calamitous policy, for it made a firm ally of Enrique, now reigning king of Castile, to Charles of France ”

“ At the close of the Neapolitan war, the alliance between the houses of Hapsburg and Spain, based on the marriage of the Archduke Philip, son of Maximilian, with Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, threatened to break up. By the deaths in 1497, and 1500, of John, the eldest son, and of Michael of Portugal, the grandson of the Spanish monarchs, Joanna became the heiress of Castile and Aragon,21 and, in the event of Isabella’s death, would become Queen of Castile to the exclusion of her father. ”

“ His successor, John II. (1481–1495) reverted to the policy of matrimonial alliances with Castile and friendship with England. Finding, as he said, that the liberality of former kings had left the Crown “no estates except the high roads of Portugal,” he determined to crush the feudal nobility and seize its territories. A cortes held at Evora (1481) empowered judges nominated by the Crown to administer justice in all feudal domains. The nobles resisted this infringement of their rights; but their leader, Ferdinand, duke of Braganza, was beheaded for high treason in 1483 ”

“ Many of the nobles in Segovia, though mainly those of Aragonese birth, had professed their annoyance that Ferdinand’s position should be in any way subordinated to that of his wife. They declared that the Salic law, excluding women from the royal succession, should hold good in Castile as well as in France; and that, the Castilian House of Trastamara having died out in the male line with Henry IV., the crown should pass directly to the Aragonese branch, in the person of King John and his son, the King of Sicily. ”

“ THE CITY OF THE VISIGOTHS 249
beginning eludes our utmost search. The Roman drove out the unnamed chiefs of Iberia. The fair-haired Goth dispossessed the Italian. The Berber destroyed the Gothic monarchy. Castile and León fought their way down inch by inch through three centuries from Covadonga to Toledo, halfway in time and territory to Granada and the Midland Sea. ”

“ There are mountains of oranges and dates, brown hillocks of nuts of every kind, store of every product of this versatile soil. The air is filled with nutty and fruity fragrance. Under the ancient arcades are the stalls of the butchers, rich with the mutton of Castile, the hams of Estremadura, and the hero-nourishing bull-beef of Andalusian pastures.
At night the town is given up to harmless racket. Nowhere has the tradition of the Latin Saturnalia
134 CASTILIAN DAYS
been fitted with less change into the Christian calendar. ”

“ Therefore he was fain to speak aside with the Count of Nullepart and myself.
“By my troth,” he said, “it would be a happy deliverance of a bad man if John Castilian was hung on the gate with a spike through his neck. But grievously do I doubt me of the wisdom of the policy. We are but three hundred men-at-arms, and Castile is a broad dominion. If we put out the life of this prince, the queen-mother will gather new forces and come again to the gate. And honest Dickon is fain to observe that the old bitch wolf will be found with a longer tooth than the whelp.” ”

“ I asked him where was the house of the poet. He smiled in a superior sort of way, and pointed to the wall above my head: "There is no such house. Some people think it once stood here, and they have placed that stone in the garden-wall to mark the spot. I believe what I see. It is all child's play anyhow, whether true or false. There is better work to be done now than to honor Cervantes.
310 CASTILIAN DAYS
He fought for a bigot king, and died in a monk's hood."
"You think lightly of a glory of Castile." ”

“ Unfortunately for King John, popular belief ran in a contrary direction, and his son’s release was soon demanded by all parts of the kingdom. In Barcelona, the citizens rose, tore down the royal standard and took the Governor prisoner. Revolt flamed through the land; but even more 40alarming was the sudden declaration of war by Henry IV., who, taking advantage of the King of Aragon’s embarrassments, hastily dispatched a force to invade Navarre, where the Beaumonts were already in the field. ”

“ This was a well-nigh impossible task, for John the eldest and most turbulent, 26in default of any legitimate descendants of Alfonso, was heir to the Aragonese throne. A judicious marriage with Blanche, the heiress of a small state of Navarre, had made him virtual master of that kingdom, when on her father’s death in 1425 they assumed the joint sovereignty.
Fiction has never devised a more painful domestic tragedy than resulted from this match. ”

“ The effect upon the public mind was to fan smouldering rebellion into flames; and when Queen Joanna, having gained the recognition of her son as heir to the throne by the Aragonese Cortes at Calatayud, proceeded with the same object to 42Barcelona, the citizens rose and drove her from their gates. Only the timely intervention of some French troops, which Louis XI. had just hired out to King John, saved her and Ferdinand from falling into the hands of their furious subjects. ”

“ There were hopes at this time of another heir to the crown; and the King, foreseeing in the prospect of a son the means to raise his fallen dignity, was anxious to gratify his wife’s wishes. When she pleaded therefore for an alliance with her own country, to be cemented by the marriage of her brother Alfonso, then a widower, with the 53twelve-year-old Isabel, he readily agreed. The scheme was the more pleasing that it ran counter to the union of Isabel and Ferdinand of Aragon, still strongly advocated by King John. ”

“ By the irony, or perhaps the eternal justice of fate, all the chicanery of Ferdinand, all the wisdom, the labours, and the fervour of Isabella brought disaster, ruin, and death to Spain. A thousand times happier would it have been for Castile to have remained isolated in its corner of Europe, untroubled with the complications of vast European connections, rather than to have been dragged by Aragon into a position of responsibility and world-wide ambition for which neither its native resources nor the extent nor character of its population befitted it. ”

“ Even before Charles of Viana’s death, Henry IV., repenting of his rash invasion of Navarre, had come to terms with the Aragonese King, regardless of his ally’s plight; while just at the climax of Blanche’s misfortunes, an event happened in Castile that was to make all but domestic affairs slide into the background.
In March, 1462, Queen Joanna gave birth to a 45daughter in the palace at Madrid. The King had at last an heir. Great were the festivities and rejoicings at Court, many the bull-fights and jousts in honour of the occasion. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sympathy at home and abroad were alienated. Louis XI., more hopeful of adding Franche Comté to his possessions than the hostile population of Northern Spain, had come to terms with Castile; Sixtus IV., under pressure from Castile, Aragon, and the Aragonese House of Naples, had revoked his bull of dispensation for Joanna’s marriage; Ferdinand himself, in January, 1479, had succeeded his father peacefully in the three divisions of the western kingdom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The birth of a son could only mean the destruction of the union between Castile and Aragon, on which the foundations of Spanish empire had been laid; while by the terms of the marriage treaty Ferdinand also risked the dismemberment of his own dominions. Louis XII. was willing to cede as dowry for his niece the rights over Naples which he had failed to maintain by force of arms; but the price he demanded in return was the restoration of that half of the Kingdom which was guaranteed to him by the original Partition Treaty, should Germaine and the Spanish monarch have no heirs. ”

“ Castile's proud monarch to the nuptial bed
In happier days her royal daughter led:
To him the furious queen for vengeance cries,
Implores to vindicate his lawful prize,
The Lusian sceptre, his by spousal right:
The proud Castilian arms and dares the fight.
To join his standard as it waves along,
The warlike troops from various regions throng:
Those who possess the lands by Rodrick given,
What time the Moor from Turia's banks was driven;
That race who joyful smile at war's alarms,
And scorn each danger that attends on arms ”

“ The birth of her son, Ferdinand, in March, 1452, set fire to the slumbering jealousy she had conceived 27for Charles of Viana, and henceforth she devoted her talents and energy to removing him from her path.
It is the penalty of public characters that their private life is not only exposed to the limelight, but its disagreements involve the interference of many who are not directly concerned. The hatred of Queen Joanna for her stepson not only convulsed Navarre and Aragon but dragged Castile also into the scandal. ”

“ But the reign of Alfonso V was above all disastrous upon this point, as we have said; it was the best time for the nobles and holders of grants. To remunerate the nobles who fought at his side, the luckless pretender to the throne of Castile considered nothing too much—titles, favours, grants, salaries, pensions, allowances, marriage dowries, education of the children of nobles, gratifications for ordinary and extraordinary services, real or pretended ”

“ Treaty of Charles with the pope for the expulsion of the French from the Milanese. The junta breaks up; Toledo holds out for a time under Padilla’s widow. Its fall signalises the end of the freedom of the Castilian cities. Conquest of Mexico completed by Cortes. Navarre occupied by the French. They invade Castile. The Castilians recover Navarre. The populace of Majorca, having revolted against the nobles, are subdued after a long struggle. Treaty with Henry VIII of England. Charles agrees to invade France from Spain. The emperor’s troops drive the French from Milan. ”