John I of Castile

From Hispanopedia
For other uses, see John of Castile and other people with the same name.
John I of Castile
King of Castile
Reign1379–1390
PredecessorHenry II
SuccessorHenry III

John I of Castile (Épila or Tamarite de Litera,[lower-alpha 1][lower-alpha 2][lower-alpha 3] 1358 – Alcalá de Henares, 1390) was King of Castile from May 29, 1379, until October 9, 1390. He was the son of Henry II of Castile and of Juana Manuel de Villena, daughter of Don Juan Manuel.

John I of Castile was born in Aragon during the exile of his father, who was not yet King. He was the last Castilian King to be solemnly crowned.[4] After him, monarchs assumed the royal dignity by proclamation and acclamation. His full titulature was: King of Castile, of León, of Portugal (from 1383), of Toledo, of Galicia, of Seville, of Córdoba, of Murcia, of Jaén, of the Algarve, of Algeciras, and Lord of Lara (until 1387), of Biscay and of Molina (until 1387).

Family origins

He was the son of Henry II of Castile and of Juana Manuel de Villena. On his father's side, his grandparents were King Alfonso XI of Castile and Leonor de Guzmán. On his mother's side, his grandparents were Don Juan Manuel and Blanca Núñez de Lara.

He was the brother of Leonor of Trastámara, Queen consort of Navarre through her marriage to Charles III the Noble.

Hundred Years' War

Main article: Hundred Years' War
Main attacks by Tovar and Vienne against England (1374–1380)

Henry II had received the help of French knights led by Bertrand Du Guesclin himself during his confrontation with Peter I the Cruel or the Just. Henry's final victory in the Castilian Civil War would provide France with a powerful ally on the naval front. Both Henry and his son John sent the Castilian Navy, which destroyed the English squadron at La Rochelle (1372) and sacked or burned numerous English ports (Rye, Rottingdean, Lewes, Folkestone, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Wight, Hastings) in 1374 and (after the Truce of Bruges) between 1377 and 1380, the year in which the combined fleet of the Castilian Admiral Fernando Sánchez de Tovar and the Frenchman Jean de Vienne even came to threaten London. Sir Richard Knolles in 1360 and the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, in 1363 formed expeditionary forces that attacked the continent, but they were stopped.

He maintained his friendship with Charles III of Navarre, married to his sister Leonor, putting an end to the conflicts between the two kingdoms.[5]

1383–1385 Crisis in Portugal

Coat of arms of King John of Castile (as Castilian Monarch and pretender to the throne of Portugal).

To secure the succession to the throne of Portugal of Beatrice of Portugal, daughter of Ferdinand I of Portugal, the Portuguese Court arranged the marriage between Beatrice and John I of Castile. The marriage articles were drawn up on April 2, 1383, in Salvaterra de Magos, and they stipulated that upon the death of Ferdinand I without male children, the crown would pass to Beatrice, and her husband would style himself King of Portugal.[6][7][8][9] Although John I of Castile could style himself King of Portugal, the Castilian and Portuguese parties agreed not to merge the kingdoms of Castile and Portugal, and therefore Leonor, the widow of King Ferdinand, would remain as Regent and in charge of the government of Portugal until Beatrice had a son who reached fourteen years of age, who would assume the government and title of King of Portugal, and his parents would cease to hold it.[10][6][11] If Beatrice died without children, the crown would pass to other hypothetical younger sisters, and failing that, the crown would pass to John I of Castile, and through him to his son Henry, setting aside the children of Inês de Castro. Pedro de Luna, papal legate for the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, Portugal and Navarre, initiated the betrothal by words of present consent in Elvas on May 14, and the ceremony took place on May 17 in the cathedral of Badajoz. To ensure compliance with the treaty, on May 21 a group of Castilian knights and prelates swore to renounce their allegiance to the kingdom and fight against their King if the Castilian King broke the commitments agreed in the treaty, and a group of Portuguese knights and prelates did likewise in case the King of Portugal broke the treaty with Castile, among them the Master of Avis.

Miniature of the Battle of Aljubarrota in the Anciennes et nouvelles chroniques d'Angleterre by Jean de Wavrin, c. 1470. British Library.

The death of King Ferdinand I of Portugal took place on October 22, 1383; Leonor, his widow, in accordance with the treaty of Salvaterra de Magos and the will of the late King, took charge of the regency and the government in the name of her daughter.[10][12][13][14]

The news of the Portuguese King's death reached John I of Castile and Beatrice in Torrijos, once the Cortes in Segovia had been closed. The Master of Avis wrote to him urging him to take the Portuguese Crown that belonged to him through his wife, and the Master himself would assume the regency.[9][15][16][17] To avoid dynastic problems with the firstborn of Inês de Castro, John, he had him confined in the Alcázar of Toledo. The Castilian King assembled the Council in Montalbán and sent Alfonso López de Tejeda with instructions for the Portuguese Regent to proceed to proclaim Beatrice and himself as monarchs of Portugal.[18][19][20][21][22][23] The proclamation was carried out, but in Lisbon and in other places such as Elvas and Santarém popular rejection was voiced in favor of John, the firstborn of Inês de Castro.[13][16][17][18][24][25][26][27]

John I of Castile adopted the title and arms of King of Portugal, which was recognized by the Avignon Pope,[12] and ordered his troops to set out, since Beatrice's chancellor, who was the Bishop of Guarda, Affonso Correia, promised him the surrender of the town. King John I of Castile entered Portugal with his wife to secure obedience in Portugal and his wife's rights.[9][11][28]

For John I of Castile, the marriage with Beatrice meant maintaining a protectorate over the Portuguese kingdom and the possibility of preventing the English from establishing themselves in the Peninsula.[29] But the prospect of a commercial monopoly, the fear of Castilian domination and the loss of Portuguese independence,[10][30][31] and opposition to the Regent and her clique[32] surfaced in late November and early December, when the uprising took place in Lisbon. The Master of Avis murdered the Regent's favorite, Juan Fernández de Andeiro, Count of Ourém, and this was followed by an uprising of the common people against the government at the instigation of Álvaro Pais,[20] in which Martinho Anes, Bishop of Lisbon, was killed. The uprising spread through the provinces, claiming the lives of the Abbess of the Benedictine nuns in Évora, the Prior of the collegiate church of Guimarães, and Lançarote Pessanha, Admiral of Portugal, in Beja. The uprising had the support of the bourgeoisie, but not of the aristocracy, which continued to support Leonor.[30][33][34] Queen Leonor fled Lisbon with the Court[35] and took refuge in Alenquer. In Lisbon, Álvaro Pais proposed the marriage of the Master of Avis to Leonor so that they would take charge of the regency jointly, but Leonor rejected it, and in view of the news of the Castilian King's coming, the Master of Avis was elected defender and Regent of the kingdom on December 16, 1383;[36] as defender of the rights of the Infante John of Portugal, firstborn of Inês de Castro, he appointed João das Regras as chancellor and Nuno Álvares Pereira as Constable, and asked England for help. He tried to besiege Alenquer, but Leonor fled to Santarém.[37] So they returned to prepare the defense of Lisbon. In Santarém, Leonor proceeded to recruit an army and asked her son-in-law the King of Castile for help.[38] John I of Castile decided to take control of the situation in Portugal, and left in the Kingdom of Castile a Regency Council formed by the Marquis of Villena, the Archbishop of Toledo and the King's majordomo.[39][40] In January 1384 King John I of Castile, together with Beatrice, set out for Santarém at the call of the Queen Regent in order to take control of the situation in the kingdom.[39] On January 13, King John I of Castile obtained from Queen Leonor the renunciation of the regency and of the government in his favor, which led many knights and castle governors to come forward to swear obedience both to him and to his wife Beatrice,[28][41][42] such as those of Santarém, Ourém, Leiria, Montemor o Velho, Feira, Penella, Óbidos, Torres Vedras, Torres Novas, Alenquer, Cintra, Arronches, Alegrete, Amieira, Campo Maior, Olivenza, Portel, Moura, Mértola, Braga, Lanhoso, Valença do Minho, Melgaço, Vila Nova de Cerveira, Viana do Castelo and Ponte de Lima, Guimarães, Caminha, Braganza, Vinhais, Chaves, Monforte, Miranda de Duero, Montalegre, Mirandela, Castelo Rodrigo, Almeida, Penamacor, Guarda, Covilhã and Celorico da Beira.[43][44][45] As Leonor tried to conspire against her son-in-law, she was sent to the monastery of Tordesillas. This encouraged the cause of the Master of Avis to justify the revolt on the grounds that the treaty of Salvaterra de Magos had been violated.[46]

Although he had the majority of the Portuguese aristocracy loyal to his cause,[47][34][48][49][50] King John I of Castile did not repeat the Castilian successes of the Fernandine Wars and failed before Coimbra and Lisbon. On September 3, 1384, John I of Castile left garrisons in the towns of his supporters, returned to Castile and asked the King of France for help. Meanwhile, the Master of Avis tried to seize towns loyal to his adversaries, and although he took Almada and Alenquer, he failed at Cintra, Torres-Novas and Torres Velhas.[51] After this he went to Coimbra, where he had summoned the Cortes for March 1385. In them Beatrice was declared illegitimate, and the Master was elected and proclaimed as John I of Portugal on April 6. After the Cortes, the new sovereign undertook a campaign to gain control of the north of the kingdom, and thus obtained Viana do Castelo, Braga and Guimarães.[52] John I of Castile entered Portugal again by the route of Ciudad Rodrigo and Celorico. But the defeats suffered by his army at Trancoso and Aljubarrota in May and August 1385 meant the end of any possibility of imposing himself as King of Portugal.

At Aljubarrota the Castilian disaster was total; the King fled to Santarém and from there went down the Tagus until he met his fleet near Lisbon.[53] In September the Castilian fleet returned to Castile, and John I of Portugal gained control of the towns still hostile to him. From the district of Santarém, he undertook the control of the region north of the Douro, where there were Portuguese knights who remained loyal to Beatrice and to John I of Castile:[45] Villareal de Pavões, Chaves and Braganza capitulated at the end of March 1386,[54] and Almeida at the beginning of June 1386.[55]

Constance and John of Gaunt, monarchs of Castile

With the defeat at Aljubarrota, the legitimist aspirations of the descendants of Peter I the Cruel awoke from their lethargy: his daughter Constance and her husband John of Gaunt, who had styled themselves monarchs of Castile since 1372.[56] On May 9, 1386, Portugal and England established an alliance through the Treaty of Windsor, and in July John of Gaunt, his wife and their daughter, Catherine of Lancaster, landed in Galicia, establishing their Court in Ourense. John I of Castile reacted and summoned the Cortes in Segovia to secure the defense of the Castilian kingdom. Given the meager results of the Anglo-Portuguese campaign[57] and the loss of support in Galicia, John of Gaunt and John I of Castile negotiated an agreement behind the Portuguese King's back, the Treaty of Bayonne of July 8, 1388, by which John of Gaunt and his wife renounced the Castilian succession rights in favor of the marriage of their daughter Catherine to the firstborn of John I of Castile, the future Henry III, who were granted the status of Princes of Asturias. Thus the two lines of succession of Alfonso XI were united and the title of Prince of Asturias was established, which the heir to the Crown of Castile, and later of Spain, would always hold. Henry, son of John I, was the first prince to hold this title, together with the inherent revenues, since the Asturian territory belonged to them as patrimony.

The interruption of the Hundred Years' War by the Truce of Leulinghem led to the Truce of Monção of November 23, 1389, by which Castile and Portugal restored the occupied towns to each other.

Death and burial

Tomb of John I. Chapel of the New Kings of the Cathedral of Toledo.

John I of Castile died on October 9, 1390, next to the Burgos Gate, located outside the walls of the Archbishop's Palace of Alcalá de Henares, as a result of falling from a horse that had been given to him as a gift. His death was kept secret by Cardinal Pedro Tenorio for several days, on the claim that he was wounded, until everything related to the regency of Henry III, then a minor, had been settled.

After his death, the body of John I of Castile was taken to the city of Toledo, where he was buried in the Chapel of the New Kings of the Cathedral of Toledo,[58] where his mortal remains rest today.

Marriages and issue

He married Eleanor of Aragon, daughter of Peter IV the Ceremonious, in the convent of San Francisco in Soria in 1375. Two sons were born of his first marriage:

He later remarried, to Beatrice, heiress to the throne of Portugal, in the city of Badajoz. There were no children from this union.

Ancestors

Ancestors of John I of Castile

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ It is not known whether he was born in Épila or in Tamarite de Litera. Around the date of his birth, his father had placed his wife in the town of Épila, relatively close to the Muslim frontier, to set an example of the policy of "not one step back." But Peter I of Castile, who had already killed two of John's half-brothers, made an incursion that came to endanger Zaragoza, and John supposedly decided to move her in 1357 to Tamarite, a town that had been ceded to him that same year by Peter the Ceremonious. Saint Vincent Ferrer, speaking in favor of the candidacy of Ferdinand of Antequera, mentions Tamarite as the father's birthplace.[1]
  2. ↑ In 1328, Ramón de Peralta handed over the castles of Tamarite and Albelda to the King. In 1357 Tamarite was one of the lordships he handed over to his ally Henry of Trastámara, and it is believed that his son John I of Castile was born here (...).[2]
  3. ↑ Jerónimo Zurita gives Épila as the birthplace, though noting that Pero López de Ayala gave Tamarite.[3]
  4. ↑ Year of the Battle of Aljubarrota, which put an end to the succession of Ferdinand I of Portugal.[59]

References

  1. ↑ Carpi Cases 2008, p. 348.
  2. ↑ Guitart Aparicio 1976.
  3. ↑ Zurita 2003, Libro IX. Capítulo XIX. Nacimiento de don Juan, hijo de don Enrique conde de Trastámara.
  4. ↑ BBC Mundo (June 18, 2014). "Por qué el rey Felipe VI de España no será coronado" (in español). La Nación (Argentina). Retrieved June 19, 2014.
  5. ↑ Usunáriz Garayoa 2006, p. 81.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 O'Callaghan 1983, p. 531.
  7. ↑ Ortiz y Sanz 1798, p. 36.
  8. ↑ Díez Canseco 1844, p. 266.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Gebhardt 1864, p. 140.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Stephens 1891, p. 107.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Lindo 1848, p. 164.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 VV.AA. 1943, p. 121.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Busk 1833, p. 59.
  14. ↑ Schäffer 1840, p. 309.
  15. ↑ Ortiz y Sanz 1798, p. 37.
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Lavallée 1845, p. 67.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Busk 1832, p. 59.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Suárez Fernández 1977, p. 169.
  19. ↑ González García 1982, p. 27.
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 Livermore 1947, p. 174.
  21. ↑ Schäffer 1840, p. 310.
  22. ↑ López de Ayala 1780, p. 182.
  23. ↑ Ortiz y Sanz 1798, p. 38.
  24. ↑ Ayguals de Izco 1853, p. 248.
  25. ↑ Anquetil 1848, p. 1131.
  26. ↑ Campuzano 1845, p. 56.
  27. ↑ de Mariana 1819, p. 38.
  28. ↑ 28.0 28.1 Bailey Wallys 1960, p. 73.
  29. ↑ Rialp 1981, p. 312.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Rogers 2010, p. 35.
  31. ↑ López de Ayala 1780, p. 183.
  32. ↑ Rialp 1981, p. 313.
  33. ↑ Suárez Fernández 1976, p. 427.
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 O'Callaghan 1983, p. 532.
  35. ↑ Schäffer 1840, p. 322.
  36. ↑ Schäffer 1840, pp. 324–325.
  37. ↑ Livermore 1947, p. 176.
  38. ↑ Stephens 1891, p. 109.
  39. ↑ 39.0 39.1 Rialp 1981, p. 315.
  40. ↑ Montes Romero-Camacho 1998, p. 437.
  41. ↑ Cuesta 1853, p. 386.
  42. ↑ Gebhardt 1864, p. 141.
  43. ↑ Schäffer 1840, pp. 334–336.
  44. ↑ López de Ayala 1780, p. 188.
  45. ↑ 45.0 45.1 Romero Portilla 2006, pp. 255–256.
  46. ↑ Olivera Serrano 2005, p. 94.
  47. ↑ Newitt 2005, p. 16.
  48. ↑ Lardner 1844, p. 285.
  49. ↑ Canning, Lehmann & Winter 2004, p. 71.
  50. ↑ Kearney & Medrano 2001, p. 188.
  51. ↑ Gebhardt 1864, p. 142.
  52. ↑ Suárez Fernández 1976, p. 429.
  53. ↑ Gebhardt 1864, p. 143.
  54. ↑ Livermore 1947, p. 179.
  55. ↑ Suárez Fernández 1977, p. 240.
  56. ↑ Mínguez Fernández 2000, p. 15.
  57. ↑ Suárez Fernández 1976, pp. 431–433.
  58. ↑ Elorza et al. 1990, p. 64.
  59. ↑ Ruiz Martín 2003, p. 183.

Bibliography

Wikimedia Commons logo
Wikimedia Commons has media related to John I of Castile.
Retrieved from "https://en.hispanopedia.com/index.php?title=John_I_of_Castile&oldid=2091"