After the forest of Foixà: a new beginning for the House of Barcelona

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 1: A new beginning (1396-1401)

Before his almost fatal hunting accident of 1396, king Juan I of Aragon had been nothing but a bad ruler and his reign was characterized, up to that year, by disastrous financial administration. However, after the already mentioned accident which took place at the forest of Foixà (May 19, 1396), Juan became a different man. If until then he had left the government in the incapable hands of his second wife, Violant of Bar, while he devoted himself to his favorite hobbies, especially hunting., and the promotion of music and literature with the help of his favourite, Carroza de Vilaragut; in this area he instituted the Floral Games of Barcelona, in imitation of those of Tolosa, in 1393, in which poets from all over the Crown of Aragon participated.

However, as it has been mentioned, the accident at Foixà changed Juan. He not only renounced his mistress, Carroza, but also took the administration of his realms in his hands, at least when his health allowed him to do so, because he suffered several bouts of an unknown illness that rendered him unable to rule: in June 1396; during the winter of 1397–98; December 1400; and finally a fatal bout in March 1401.

His last years are remembered for his attempt to reform the taxation and to redress the financial situation of his realms, but with a very limited success. He had to face not only more problems and quarrels to surface in Aragon, but also an invasion in 1396 from France, as Count Matthew of Foix contested his right to rule on behalf of his wife Juana, elder sister of the king. Matthew, who had hoped that his move would led to a general rebellion in Aragon and Valencia, was bitterly surprised when this did not took place and his army was soundly beaten by the forces led by the heir to the throne, Jaime, Duke of Girona. However, the Sardinian question remained unsolved by the time of the king's death.

From his first marriage to Martha of Armagnac (1347 - 1378), daughter of Count Jean I of Armagnac:

• Jaime (Valencia, 24 June 1374 - Valencia, 22 August 1410), Duke of Girona and Count of Cervera
• Juana (Daroca, October 1375 - Valencia, September 1407), married in 1392 at Barcelona to Mathieu, Count of Foix, without progeny.
• Juan (23 July 1376 – 1337)
• Alfonso (9 September 1377)
• Eleanor (13 July 1378 – Zaragoza, 1378)

From his second marriage to Yolande of Bar (1365 - 1431), daughter of Robert I, Duke of Bar and Marie of Valois:

• Yolande (1382 - 14 November 1440), married on 2 December 1400 to Louis II of Naples
• Fernando (18 March 1384 - October 1400), Duke of Elche
• Leonor (2 January 1389 – July 1391)
• Pedro (13 January 1391-23 February 1448), Duke of Xàtiva

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 2: The young prince.

The man known to history as King Jaime III of Aragon was born on the 24th of June 1374 in the Royal Palace of Valencia. He was the eldest son of King Juan I. His mother was Juan's first wife, Marta d'Armagnac, the youngest daughter of Jean I d'Argmagnac and the great-granddaughter of Robert de Clermont, son of King Louis IX of France. She gave three sons and two daughters to his husband, but only Jaime and his sister Juana survived into adulthood. She died prematurely giving birth to her last daughter and was buried in the Royal Abbey of Santa Maria de Poblet.

The prince was very well educated. As a young man, he had proved to be a true cultured warrior of royal blood. He was well-educated and could read and write Catalan, Aragonese₁, Castilian, French and Latin and loved music and books. He was to learnt in the court of his father, the King, how to navigate the sometimes dangerous waters of court life. However, Jaime learned much from these highly educated and culturally sophisticated people. He also received intensive training in rhetoric and logic in line with the new form of humanist education which was then beginning to become popular in Western Europe as the Italian Renaissance expanded its light around the continent. When he was ten, his education shifted to the military arts: he became an expert equestrian, jouster, warrior and military strategist. He also became the Duke of Girona and Count of Cervera, the official titles that identified the crown prince of the House of Aragon. Furthermore, it was through those states that the young prince would fund his household. In addition to this, when he was thirteen, his father gradually gave him significant responsibilities. This can be seen when he was made the procurator-general of the Crown in 1389, and, again, in 1392, when he joined his uncle Martín in his expedition against Sardinia. When this expedition had to be cancelled due to a rebellion in Sicily, the young prince followed his uncle and remained for nearly six months on the island, taking part in the campaign against the Chiaramonte and the taking of Palermo. He would return to Barcelona with a delegation sent by his uncle to demand reinforcements to end the Siciclian rebellion.

This brief Sicilian experience had an enduring effect upon Jaime. Apparently, he was disappointed with the leniency of his uncle Martín, as he saw no sense to show clemency with the rebel leaders that, after some time, took the arms again. Once he was king, he wrote in his personal diary, which was later on used to write the "Grand Chronicle of King James"₂ , he would not waste his time with traitors. However, the man that Jaime came to be was forged during his time in Sardinia as Governor-General of the island. He was sent there in 1394, where he learned several lessons that would be key during his later life, being one of the most important the financial administration of his meagre funds, that caused difficulties in terms of supplies and keeping a sizable force on the field. He returned to Catalonia in the summer of 1396, just in time to defeat the invading army of Count Matthew of Foix. The battle proved to be an important victory for Juan I, as Matthew died on the battlefield, thus removing a dangerous rival for the crown. He would return to Sardinia in 1397, where he took care of reinforcing the defenses of Caller and Alguer. It was part of his strategy, that is, to take key fortresses and to hold them, and then to push forward a new conquest, that would be held then before the new stage of the conquest would follow, thus depriving the enemy of its resources while using them to reinforce his own position.

In addition to this, from 1396 onwards, as the health of the king declined, Jaime began to take a wider share in politics, taking part in the king's council then. From January 1399, helped by his uncle Martin and by Jaime, count of Urgell, he had practical control of the government. Thus, while the health of the king declined, Jaime increased his control over the government. For instance, Julià Garrius, the royal treasurer, and Pere de Berga, the head of the chancery, were forced out of their positions and replaced by men loyal to Jaime. It must be added that, during the later years (1396-1400), the overall situation improved as Jaime and his supporters began to regain control over not only the kingdom's finances but also internal and external threats. This laid the groundwork for him to inherit a throne that rested on a more solid foundation. However, as in foreign policy he differed from the king, he was discharged from the council in September 1400, as Juan fumed when he knew that his son had withdrawn the royal support to the Avignon line of Popes and Pope Benedict XIII. Thus, when the king recovered his health and dismissed his son and his supporters, he restored Garrius, de Berga and the others purged out of the government by his son.

Jaime found himself shut out of government and with most of his policies reversed by his father. In the end, Jaime relented, as he was forced to admit that he could not stand in the wilderness while his father reigned, as Juan could very well live for another twenty years, for instance. Thus, in January 1401, he entered his father's chambers and kneeled after him, begging for forgiveness. It was a short-lived reconciliation, as Juan I died on March 20th, 1401.

Thus, Jaime became Jaime III, King of Aragon, Valencia and Majorca and Count of Barcelona.

₁ - The Aragonese language is a Romance language spoken in several dialects in the Pyrenees valleys of Aragon, Spain.
₂ - Following the model set by the Four Great Catalan Chronicles, the Llibre del rei en Jacme d'Aragó begins with the reign of Jaime's grandfather, Pedro IV, and ends with the marriage of Jaime in 1408.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 3: Reformation, revolution and conquest (1401-1403)

Something that Jaime had understood in his time as the procurator-general of the Crown was the delicate state of the Aragonese finances and the precarious situation of the most vital element of his realms: the population, which had been hardly hit by the Black Death and it was still recovering from the damage caused by the plague. However, before he could devote himself to that, there was a pending question that had to be solved: the pacification of Sardinia, which had been draining the Aragonese Treasury since 1323. However, before that, Jaime III offered the first signs of the cold pragmatism that was to become the main feature of his kingship. His father Juan I had supported the Avignon claimant Benedict XIII during the Western Schism, but Jaime III broke with Benedict and sided with Boniface IX, sending Pere de Queralt to Rome to recognize the authority of the Pope and expelled Benedict XIII from Barelona, who, bereft of any Aragonese support, fled to Castille and then to France. With this he hoped to reduce the hostility of the Roman Pope towards Aragon, but the relation with Rome remained cold for the moment.

Then, he readied himself to deal with the rebel Sardinian iudicatis and, of course, with Genoa. Thus, to make real the "Regnum Corsicae et Sardiniae", he attempted to reinforce the position of the Corsican count Arrigo della Rocca, who ruled the island since 1394 thanks to the support of the Aragonese troops. However, della Rocca died from the plague in June 1401, ending the Aragonese intervention in the island. Thus, Jaime centered his attention in Sardinia. The king began by reinforcing the castle of Longosardo, under the command of Bernat de Torrelles. This effort was almost derailed when a group of fanatic followers of Benedict XIII attempted to murder Jaime III.on December 7, 1401. Thankfully, the fast reaction of the royal bodyguards protected the king, who was not harmed by his attackers. Even if Jaime III was shocked by the unexpected attack, he did not took any revengeful measure against the supporters of the anti-pope.

To prepare for the war in Sardinia, Jaime not only used traditional means of support such as rents for royal estates and court fees and fines, but it also taxed trade and duties to bring in extra revenue. To achieve this he placed too much strees on the weakened Aragonese economy, but, with honor at stake, Jaime went ahead with his plans. He also requested donations or loans from supporters who generously supplied him with their resources. He also used any possible way of propaganda to work the people of his realms in such a way that everyone felt that they had a critical role in the campaign. Jaime also used the crown jewels and states not only as collateral for these loanss, but also pawned some of them. Thus, just for the Sardinian campaign, his first campaign, Jaime incurred a huge debt; and the crisis for money would only grown during Jaime's kingship.

Eventually, these measures were effective and, after completing his will and making his brother Pedro his lieutenant in Aragon, the king departed with a powerful army and a fleet of 150 ships including 24 galleons, 25 galleys and other smaller ships, on October 6, 1402, Jaime arrived at Castel di Cagliari. There the army landed; it was made by eight thousand infantry and three thousand horsemen. Then the Aragonese fleet began to attack the supply lines of the rebels and, in a violent confrontation in the waters of the Asinara (June 8, 1403), 8 Aragonese galleys led by Francesc de Santa Coloma destroyed six Genoese galleys under the command of Guglielmo Mollo that were carrying aid to the arboreal forces. Under the command of Mariano V d'Arborea there were 17,000 Sardinian, Pisan and French infantrymen, 2,000 French knights and 1,000 Genoese crossbowmen. On paper, it was an impressive array of forces.

In a risky move, Jaime embarked his army and sailed north of the island. He aimed to take Olbia and isolate Mariano V from Genoa and France by depriving him of his main harbour. The sailing was uneventful and, after sending explorers to scout the region and the defenses of Olbia. Two days later, when the explorers informed the king that it was safe to land, the army began to do it. A week later, Olbia was under siege and offered the to choose over peace over bloodshed. When this offer was rejeted, the Aragonese guns opened fire on August 18th, 1403. Cut out from provisions and reinforcements, the city finally surrendered on the third week of September. When Jaime entered the town, he ordered the city to be sacked but for churches and religious buildings, which were not to be pillaged. Then he proceeded to march west on October 8 after leaving a strong garrison (2,000 men) in the city while the fleet patrolled the Sardinian shores. By then, Jaime had 8,000 men with him, along with support personnel.

Mariano, who had kept himself busy gathering his forces, departed too, on October 10, to meet Jaime on the battlefield.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 4: The apex of a kingship (1402-1403)

The two armies met a Sanuri. Initial skirmishes on October 13 and 15, 1402, alerted Jaime that he was facing a bigger enemy army than he had expected. Those small encounters also favoured Mariano V, who was joined then by his father, Brancaleone Doria. Apparently, the superior firepower of their archers and crossbowmen played a key role and Mariano placed too much trust on them, much to the chagrin of the French knights, who saw little combat those days. Jaime, on his part, had used small force under the command of Giovanni de Sena and Berenger Carroz to test the enemy strength, and he was not surprised when Mariano, who was quite familiar with the feigned withdraws of the enemy cavalry, did not fell into the trap.

On October 16, the battle did not start well for the Aragonese army, which was pushed back when the Aragonese infantry began to rout. With the French cavalry breaking through their beleaguered lines, victory seemed all but assured for Mariano. Then, the over-eagerness of the Franco-Sard army proved to be their undoing when the Aragonese lines reformed and stopped part of the French cavalry, as the other part was busy pillaging the Aragonese camp. Leading not only his footmen and knights, but also even the numerous non-combatants that served in the Aragonese camp and supply train (cooks, grooms and servants), which took arms from wherever they could fid them, Jaime launched a spirited counter attack, which pushed back the enemy calvary, which ended up falling in the disorganized Sardinian, Pisan and French infantrymen, which were greeted by a hail of Aragonese arrows. Then, Jaime's army fell upon their enemies, entering into a series of close-quarters combat. As the enemy front shattered, the Aragonese forces kept pressing forwards. With their momentum lost, Mariano's army found itself bogged down and leaderless in front of the charging enemy force. The confusion turned into a full rout and the Franco-Sard army was chased by the Aragonese cavalry out of the field.

Around 600 infantrymen attempted to resist in the castle of Sanluri, but the walls did not resist the enemy assault and the infantrymen were slaughtered to a man. Mariano and Brancalone managed to reach the castle of Monreale, where they resisted the enemy attacks. However, surrounded, they had nowhere to flee. Meanwhile, the routed arm was chased by the Aragonese cavalry to the Furtei valley and pressed against the Flumini Manny river, where most of them drowned. By the end of the day, only 5,000 French, Sard and Pisan soldiers managed to escape with their lives. Jami only lost around one thousand men that day. On November 4, Mariano and Branalone surrendered, leaving Mariano's cousin, Leonardo Cubello, to lead the last stand of the rebels. Initially, Cubello managed to defend Oristano from an Aragonese attack. It would take still seven months to conquer the last Arborean castles at Monreale, Marnilla and Giosaguardia.

However, this last stage of the war was left in the capable hands of Pere Torrelles, as Jaime III returned with the bulk of the fleet to protect the Aragonese shorse, that were suffering from the merciless raids of North African pirates. The presence of the reinforcements led to a temporary ending of the attacks, but a small pirate fleet was destroyed near Majorca on December 5.

With the Sardinian campaign in its final chapter, Jaime III was struck by the realization of the limitations of his kingdoms, both in terms of military and economic power. Even worse, while he was away battling, the old feud within the Aragonese nobility resumed again and the Urrea family came to blows with their old enemies, the Lunas, related to the royal family through the marriage of Martin, king of Sicily and uncle of the king, with Maria de Luna; they were not alone in this, as the Muñoz were figthing the Marcilla in Teruel, the Lopez de Lanuza and Cerdán against the Jimenez de Ambel and the Martínez de Alfocea en Zaragoza. Angered, Jaime III replaced the governor of Aragon, Gil Roís de Liori, who remained iddle as the feuds went on (Roís de Liori was a member of the Urrea family, it must be added). Then, a delegation of the Aragonese parliament led by the Archbishop of Zaragoza, Garcia Ferrandez de Heredia, Lobo Jimenez de Urrea and Fernando López de Luna, met the king to express the Aragonese displeasure at the king "heavy handiness". Baffled by this, Jaime came close to explode in anger, when he realized that an Urrea and a Luna had joined hands to protest, and that gave him an idea: to provide them with a common enemy to have them devoting their strength and hatred in the fight.

However, while he was planning how to achieve this, the Urreas and the Lunas made a treasonous move: determined not to be undone by the king, they attempted to sway his uncle Martin and to replace Jaime with Martin. The king of Sicily, a most pious man, was horrified when he was told about this plot and wasted no time to inform his nephew, the king of Aragon, about it, in a letter written on January 13, 1403. As a result of this, Jaime had Lobo Jimenez de Urrea and Fernando López de Luna arrested, tried and beheaded on February 2. Then, Jaime began to plan how to acquire the Castilian wealth to bolster his Aragonese realms; with time, this idea would grow into a bigger dream: to be king of Aragon and Castille.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 5: Four Weddings and five Funerals (1405-1410)

One of the enduring mysteries about Jaime III was his long time as a bachelor. There had been attempts to find him a suitable wife since he was 13 years old, first with Blanche, the daughter of Charles III of Navarre, but he did not marry until 1405 with Maria (1384-1462), daughter of King Charles III of Navarre and Leonor of Trastámara. She had been married with his cousin Fernando of Trastámara, Duke of Peñafiel₁, but the volatile temper of the couple led to a tempestuous marriage that ended in divorce in 1402. As Jaime would learn in due time, her new wife had a temper that matched his, but, amazingly, the couple seemed to carry on quite well and their first son, Alfonso, came to the world on August 17, 1406.

With this marriage Jaime found himself closer not only to the throne of Castile, but also to the one of Navarre. The first one seemed to be at hand after the death of Enrique III of Castille (September 23, 1406), leaving as an heir his only son, Juan, who was hardly one year old at the time). Enrique, before dying, instituted a Regency council for his son, made up by his wife Catherine of Lancaster and his brother Fernando of Trastámara, Duke of Peñafiel. Then, suddenly, on November 20, 1406, the young Juan II died. The child mortality rate was very high in medieval Europe and Juan may have died from any number of causes, but rumours of poisoning spread immediately after his death, as many people benefited from it, and it was claimed that his uncle, Fernando, had him poisoned (the cause of his death is still not known today). At the death of his nephew, Fernando immediately had himself crowned as King Fernando V of Castile (January 8, 1407). He reorganized the Treasury and cleaned up the economy and administration of the Crown. He tried to prevent the persecution of the Jews (with little success, as it would be seen) and tried to fight corruption. He also undertook a reform of the municipal governments seeking a greater participation of their representatives in government matters. One of his biggest achievements was the reform of the Royal Council created by Enrique II in 1371, which he gave its final form in 1410. Initially formed by twelve members of the Cortes, the Castilian Parliament. since 1377, it fell under the control of the king, when Fernando replaced the procuradores (procurators) by lawyers. From then on, the Royal Council was the administrator of justice in Castille, too, something that, eventually, would force Fernando to create an independent Justice Council in 1415.

Fernando V consulted with the Cortes frequently, but was sometimes at odds with the members, especially over ecclesiastical matters. He spent much of his reign defending himself against plots, rebellions, and assassination attempts. Rebellions continued throughout the Fernando'sreign, including the rebellions led by Fernando de Noroña, count of Vila Real, from 1410 onwards. Fernando de Noroña was the elder son of Alfonso Enríquez, a bastard son of Enrique II de Castile. The first de Noroña rebellion ended in the Battle of Almenara (1411) with the death of the count; his son Pedro de Meneses, led the second de Noroña rebellion in 1414, but he was also defeated and killed in the battle of Mayorga.

Meanwhile, Jaime III had been busy pacifying his kingdom, ending the endless feuds among his noblemen and restoring the treasury. In all those tasks he was only trully sucessful in the last one, as, by 1406, he had been able to restore some degree of prosperity to the Crown of Aragon, which began to recover with the creation of the Taula de Canvi ₂, which appeared in Barcelona (1401), Girona (1405) and Valencia (1407), and the reduction in the royal and official spendings already started by the late Juan I of Aragon. The crisis that Genoa suffered after falling into France's hands and the defeat suffered at Sardinia helped too to this economical recover, as the Aragonese merchants replaced heir Genoese rivals in Córdoba, Cádiz and Sevilla, thus controlling part of the wool trade routes that went from Castille to Flanders. This, that helped to fill the Aragonese Treasury, had a darker side, as it would, eventually, force Aragon (and Castile) to take sides in the Hundred Years' War. This step would be further made possible by the betrothal of his second son, Jaime, to Joanna, daughter of Jean, duke of Burgundy, and then his heir, Alfonso, with Isabel of York, the daughter of Richard of Conisburgh, 3rd Earl of Cambridge₃, in 1409.

An unexpected problem arose in 1410, when Jaime's uncle, Martin II, King of Sicily (the only son of his uncle Martin) died without issue. Thus, the crowns of Aragon and Sicily were united again and Jaime named his uncle Jaime, count of Urgell, as the viceroy of the island, as there was a faction still loyal to House of Anjou. From that island and from Sardinia the Aragonese navy would launch a series of corsair raids against the Geneose merchant navy to further damage its fragile economy. Thus, Jaime protected the Aragonese trade with Alexandria and Egypt , which remained as open and prosperous as ever.

Then, Agincourt changed the path of history.


₁ - OTL Fernando I of Aragon
₂ - The ancestor of the modern state-owned banks.
₃ - Who, in this TTL, doesn't take part in the Southampton Plot. ITTL he died fighting at Agincourt, where he received an axe blow to the head.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 6: The king is dead, long live the king! (1410-1422)

The unexpected English victory at Azincourt against the numerically superior French army boosted English morale and prestige, crippled France and started a new period of English dominance in the war that would last for fourteen years. Suddenly, France vanished and changed the course of history.

However, Jaime III would not live to see that. He died suddenly at Valencia, apparently of typhoid fever, on 22 August 1410. His younger brother, Pedro, Duke of Xàtiva, became the regent for his nephew, Alfonso V, who was barely four years old. Until 1418 the regency council was able to govern effectively and fairly, but this changed that year: with the death of Charles VI of France and Henry V of England, the throne of France seemed to be there for the taking; Henry VI of England was barely a child and the French Dauphin was on the run, turned into a shameful figure. Thus, Alfonso XI of Castile, the heir of Fernando V, put forward his claim to the French crown as the grandson of Charles V -his mother was Isabel of Valois (1373-1428)-. This would move Alfonso's attention away from Castile, something that worried the Castilian nobility to no end. At one, Pedro de Xàtiva saw an opportunity to bring havoc in Castile with the absent king, but Jaime, 2nd count of Urgell, great grandson of King Alfonso IV de Aragon. Jaime, a very proud man, wanted to have more weight in the Council and, with the support of Catalonia's prominent magnates, opposed Xativa's design. In the end, an agreement was reached. Xàtiva acted as Regent of Aragon will Urgell was in charge of keeping an eye in Castile. This pact did not make happy none of the parts involved.

With time, Urgell would try to replace Xàtiva as regent and the quarrels and disputes between the two main figures of the Regency were to mark its final years. The Council soon split along lines of opposition and support to the continuation of the Castilian policy of the late king, as Pedro of Xàtiva wanted to follow at any price. However, in the face of the peace brought by King Fernando V to his realms, a peace party emerged led by Urgell, who saw any attempt to disrupt the neighbouring kingdom as a drain on resources that were needed to solve the problems of Aragon and thus was far busier scheming in Aragon than in Castille. However, fate sided, apparently, with Urgell when in 1420 a rebellion forced Xàtiva to send an expeditionary force to Corsica, conquering the city of Calvi and then to put the city of Bonifacio under siege. which finally surrendered in January 1421. However, Queen Maria of Navarre took the role of Regent while his brother in law was away, thus ending Urgell' aspirations.

Meanwhile, the brothers of Alfonso XI, Juan, duke of Villena, and Enrique, count of Ledesma, fought among themselves and with the Castillian nobility to keep power in their hands, as his brother the king had his attention filled with France and his lacklustre interventions in the Argmanac-Burgundian war, where he not only failed to advance his position but also managed to bring great havoc to the relations between the two warrying families. Eventually, with the realm on the verge of a civil war, Alfonso had to return to Castile in November 1420. He managed to get rid of his brother Juan by marrying him to Beatriz of Portugal, daughter of King Joao I of Portugal, much to the changrin of Pedro de Xàtiva, who saw his attempt to isolate Castile being reduced ti ashes, but Alfonso XI was unable to do the same with the troublesome Enrique, who remained in the royal court under the watchful eye of his royal brother. Bitter for his failure to bring his Frenh dream into fruition, Alfonso XI of Castile harboured a vicious hatred toward his two brothers, who he blamed for his troubles.

When Alfonso of Aragon finally came of age in 1422, he found himself in the worst possible situation, as the splits about the regency and rivalries between the various nobles were at their deepest, as the Xàtiva-Urgell feud had brought back to life the old hatred and the rival families took side in the feud, too.


From his marriage to Maria of Navarre (1384-1462), Jaime had the following children:

• Alfonso (Barcelona, August 17, 1406 - Barcelona, 22 February 1456), Duke of Girona and Count of Cervera
• Maria (Alicante, May 25, 1407 - Valencia, December 28, 1458), married in 1392 at Barcelona to Antoine, Count of Charolais₁, (1399-1439). son of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy.
• Juan (Barcelona, June 20, 1409 – September 14, 1454), Duke of Montblanch
• Jaime (Valencia, (October 3, 1410 – February, 23 1467), Duke of Poblet

₁ - A new son for the Duke instead of his daughter Joanna

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 7: The personal rule of the young king (1422-1430)

Worried by the political ambitions of Jaime, 2nd count of Urgell, Queen Maria of Navarre sided with Pedro de Xàtiva. This was resented by many as the queen was considered a foreigner, and it added more supporters to Urgell's faction. María, on her part, instilled his son, the future king Alfonso, with a deep mistrust towards the count of Urgell. Thus, when Alfonso V began to rule, the count of Urgell was suddenly and abruptly dismissed from the royal court. This beginning did not bode well to many. From the very start of the new kingship, the royal court began to divide itself along the lines of the old feuds. Thus, from 1422 to 1424, the royal court broke up the rivalries and the old feuds, which sometimes led to bloody skirmishes between the followers of the rival lords in the cities and in the countryside. It was worsened by an attempt carried out by the young king to move closer towards Castille and thus favoured the faction around Xàtiva and the queen, who thought likewise; the count of Urgell and his followers were ignored. From then on, they would look to cause any conflict with Castille that may lead to war..

This troubles caused the people to begin to distrust the king, because of the violence and the influence the nobility had over him. To this we must add the troubles suffered by the two of the main creditors of the king, Joan Descaus and Arnau de Olivella (whose families had been loaning money to the kings of Aragon since the XIV century), which also troubled the royal treasury. This would have been a mere anecdote in other times, but now they were a sign of the turn of the juncture that had facilitated the diversion of money towards the profitability of unprofitable investments and mere speculation, moving away from more ambitious business operations that maintained a vigorous economy, thus went into decline. This trend towards merely financial and non-productive profitability could still be reversible, but it was not a positive sign. The economy was still having trouble making its way to the new Atlantic routes - via Bruges across the Strait, even without competition from Genoa. However, the growing although hesitant Atlantic trade began to bear fruit, and already during the final part of the reign of Juan I, the diversification of productive agrarian structures, which began to be self-sufficient throughout the Crown of Aragon, and the social stabilization of the countryside thanks to the reforms introduced, made possible to look to the future with a certain degree of hope. These dreams would come to naught with Alfonso V.

The first signs of what was to come took place in 1426, when the peasants of Osona revolted against the feudal taxes and attacked their local lords, a reflection of the tensions between peasants and landowners precipitated by the economic and demographic consequences of the Black Death and subsequent outbreaks of the plague. The rebellion spread to Central and Eastern Catalonia and to Majorca. Galcerán de Requesens, the chancellor pro-Urgell, met the rebels, who were demanding the complete abolition of serfdom. The king, following the example of his grandfather, agreed with the demands of the peasants, and this led to the creation of the Sindicat dels Tres Estaments (the Union of the Three Estates) on June 14, 1426, which began its work in Barcelona and was slowly extended to the whole Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. However, the nobility and the church refused to acknowledge the measure and put pressure upon the king, attempting to force Alfonso V to change his mind. Eventually, in February 1428, the king revoked the charters of freedom that he had granted, and as disturbances resumed again, he personally went to Osona to suppress the rebellion.

One of his first significant acts after the rebellion was to marry Marie de Luxembourg (1404-1430), the daughter of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor. as the Holy Roman Empire was seen as a potential ally against France. With the French border thus protected, Aragon would be able to gather its strength against Castille. However, the unexpected death of the queen in a miscarriage plunged the king into the deepest despair and grief.

From this sorrow a transformed Alfonso V would arise, a completely melancholic and apathetic monarch who did not seem to care about the affairs of the kingdom while it sank into chaos and violence.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 8: "The king is no king": a troubled regency (1430-1433) and the reforms of Alfonso (1433-1455)

The death of Marie of Luxembourg led Alfonso V to a deep grief that turned into depression and lack of interest in what surrounded him. The efforts to return him to a normal life failed and, four months later, on March 14, 1431, the nobles of Aragon summoned Parliament in the King's name and established a regency council to govern until the King recovered; this was followed by the parliament of the other kingdoms in the following months. Again, Pedro de Xàtiva was appointed senior regent of the realm, but he had to share the government with Jaime, count of Urgell; however, Jean I of Foix, count of Foix and maternal uncle of the king, claimed the Regency for himself, but was contested in this by the other members of the Council and finally, the count was sternly rebuked by the parliaments of each part of the Aragonese Crown.

Meanwhile, the chaotic situation led to a tragic event in Valencia. The Centelles and the Bellera families had been fighting for some disputed lands since the last years of life of Juan I. By 1432 the question was still proceeding in the church courts, and Bellera, an ally of Pedro de Xàtiva, moved against his rival. Seeing this, the pro-Urgell Bernat de Centelles mustered his forces and asked Xàtiva to intervene in the King's name to avoid the bloodshed. However, by the time the Regent reacted, it was too late for Centelles; the personal armies of the two noblemen met at the Battle of Murviedro (February 12, 1432), where the Centelles were routed and Bernat killed. When this was known in Barcelona, Pedro de Xàtiva raged. Arnau de Bellera was the governor of Valencia, and his unlawful behaviour could not be tolerated. Thus, Pedro de Xàtiva had him arrested at once and then hesitated about what to do next. Urgell demanded having de Bellera tried and executed, but Xàtiva seemed to prevaricate at his rival's demands. Eventually, Bellera was sent into exile, but before he could board the ship that was to take him to Sicily, he was murdered by some unknown attackers.

This affair not only changed the power balance in Valencia, as the Centelles were all but annihilated in the battle. Only Ramon de Vilaragut, Galvà de Villena, Gilabert de Centelles i Joan de Vilaragut escaped the carnage, but, even if Bellera's fall from grace left temporally the Xàtiva faction without a leader, the magnitude of the defeat disarmed the Centelles of any power to resist the new order. Furthermore, the battle ended with any form of respect towards law and order, and, with the absent king and the Regency council divided, an orgy of violence broke through the Crown of Aragon from 1432 go 1433 in a bloody but undeclared war between Xàtiva and Urgell as they fought for power and where old rivalries and hatred return again and the nobility takes sides depending on which faction are their enemies. This state of affairs lasted until the unexpected recovery of the king. Around Christmas Day 1433, King Alfonso regained his senses.

As Alfonso V became aware of what had taken place during his time of being aware of the ruling of the kingdom, it is claimed that he felt a painful guilt that almost drowned again into sadness. However, he managed to keep his senses and began to rule again. Thus, he began to place men of his trust in the key positions, as, for instance, Guillem Desplà, who rose to be the head of the Consell de Cent (the city council of Barcelona); he also attempted to try to win the support of several key members of the Aragonese, Catalan and Valencian parliaments and promised to lessen the burden of taxation on the people significantly.

The expeditions launched against the North of Africa seemed to help to direct the attention of the restless nobility away from the king. Thus, from 1432 to 1434, the war against the North African pirates help to keep Aragon in peace, but the death of Louis III of Naples in 1434 broke havoc in the royal court, between those using the Neapolitean chaos to claim the crown and the kingdom wnd those who considered it too risky as it may mean war with France. It was then when Alfonso V dictated a provision that allowed the peasants to meet in a union to deal with the suppression of bad uses. The landowners bitterly opposes the measure and made it fail. This angered the king, who was determined not only to apply fair justice to the peasants, but also to break the power of the nobility. However, after winning Pedro de Xàtiva to his side in 1435, Alfonso V ruled peacefully for the next eight years, having reconciled with his former adversaries even if he ignored what was taking place in Naples. Still he had not forgotten his old ideas and he tried again to push for them in 1443 when the king dictated what is known as the "Interlocutory Sentence" in which he suspended the mal usos (evil customs) tying peasants to the land and limited the enforcement of feudal rights which Jaime III attempted to limit. The monarch wanted to have the peasants as an independent force to help him in his power struggle with the nobility. Thus, Alfonso V took additional steps and allowed the peasants to form the sindicat remença (that is, a peasants' guild), granted them their liberty and intervened in several other ways against any kind of abuses. However, the Bishop of Girona sided with the nobility; along with the Generalitat, controlled by the nobles, opppsed bitterly the reform and even sabotaged its application something that would force Alfonso to reverse his ruling in 1449.

However, after the peasants' uprising in Majorca (1450-1452), the nobility rightly feared that this revolt could spread to Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia and lessened their opposition to the reforms of the king; thus, in 1453 all the reforms of 1449 were finally applied.

This was the final victory of the king, as he died on February, 22, 1456. He left no male issue of his own but in his last will he named an heir. With a simply stroke of ink, Alfonso V unwantedly set the course of the kingdom to the verge of self-destruction.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 9: To reign or not to reign: Jaime IV of Aragon (1456-1467)

In his last will Alfonso V named his younger brother Jaime as his heir. Thus he bypasssed the grandson of his second brother, Juan, Duke of Montblanch (1409 – 1454). The late Duke of Monthblanch had no male heir of his own and his grandson, also named Alfonso, was the son of his daughter Elisenda and Pere of Ribagorza, 4th count of Ribagorza, count of Ampurias, 2nd count of Prades and 2nd baron of Entenza. Thus, Alfonso was sidelined because of his matriline progeny and thus Alfonso V named his uncle Jaime, Duke of Poblet (1410-1467) as his heir. Jaime of Poblet was known and respected for his military and administrative talent and for his distinguished record during the campaign against the North African pirates. By the time of his coronation, he had three sons and a daughter with his wife, Joan of Navarre (1410-1479), daughter of Blanche I of Navarre:

Jaime, the future Jaime V of Aragon, born in 1432.
Tomas, Duke of Alcubierre, born in 1433
Juan, Duke of Palma, born in 1435
Ramon Berenguer, Duke of Lucena, born in 1436
Blanca, born in 1438

Thus, Jaime IV (r. 1456-1467) had little time to either to reign or to worry about his right to rule. His attempts to pacify the Aragonese peasants had little effect, as the new king was unwilling to press too much with the reform to avoid making enemies among the nobility, whose support he deemed vital to secure his throne. In December 1460 he instructed the noblemen and the clergymen to abide by his decisions and ordered the peasants to make the payments that they owed as tenants of the lands, since many refused to do so. However, when this attempt failed because neither the nobility nor the clergy nor the peasants put their hearts into the talks to settle the question, Jaime IV put he question into rest, and it kept poisoning the realm.

All in all, Jaime IV was a very conservative and moderate king. He worked hard to not aliente abt if his subdits and, if he had to choose, he sided with the nobility and the church in exchange of money. Thus, he refilled the royal treasury even if his pro-nobility attitude only helped to reinforce the anger of the peasants and of the small merchantile bourgeoisie. However, in 1464 he surprised his friends and foes with an unexpected change of mind: by the Second Interlocutory Sentence (1464) Jaime IV not only put an end to the mal usos (evil customs) but also began a much stricter enforcement of seignorial rights. Suddenly, the king had not only switched sides but also had changed the balance pf power in the Crown of Aragon.

Historians had been puzzled about how the corageous and active Jaime, Duke of Poblet, turned into the shy, insecure and passive King Jaime IV and then, towards the end of his days, he was again the determined and corageous leader of old. It has been argued that his health troubles that plagued his last two decades were the reason behind the change of personality. Furthermore, it can also be added that wearing the crown added further pressure upon him and that Jaime was determined to leave the realms to his capable and young son, who he trusted to press for the reforms so badly needed, until the realized that, unwillingly, he had created a powerful faction that would block any change and he reacted by attempting to reduce its power. However, he only managed to worsen the ongoing problems of the kingdom and to reinforce the position of the pretender to the throne, Alfonso, 5th count of Ribagorza, at the expense of his son and heir.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 10: The conqueror king (1467-1470)

Jaime V wasted little time to show who was the king and even less to make enemies. Apparently, before he rose to the throne, he had promised to Romeu de Corbera and to his brother Joan that he would undo all the reforms of his father which were against the nobility. However, when he was crowned, Jaime V not only kept the reforms in place but also planned to enlarge them. This was considered by many as a betrayal and led to part of the nobility beginning to conspire against the king. Actually, it was Joan de Corbera who contacted Alfonso, 5th count of Ribagorza, and asked him for his support in the incoming gathering of the Parliament to block the measures. Alfonso of Ribagorza, without any hesitation, joined Corbera and his allies at once. The king, unaware of those deals, disarmed the conspiracy when he opened the Parliament by stating that he would rule Aragon as the head of a united nation. He let past differences be forgotten and even restored their titles and estates to the heirs of those who had suffered under his late father.

Then, in 1469, after two years of peace and economic redress, Jaime V surprised friends and foes by laying claim to the Navarrese crown as the grandson of Jaime V responded by laying claim to the Navarrese crown as the grandson of Carlos III, taking advantage of the Second Navarrese civil war. After the end of the First Navarrese civil war (1451–1455), fought between Juan II of Navarre against his son and heir-apparent, Carlos of Viana, the unexpected death of Carlos led to a general uprising by the Navarrese, who who had adopted the cause of Carlos and who had grievances of their own, against the king and offered the Navarrese crown to Jaime V of Aragon, thus starting the Second Navarrese civil war (1462–1466). With his claim to the Navarrese crown, Jaime V gave his noblemen a foreign adventure to prove his might. Thus, while they fought abroad, the realm remained at peace.

With Beaumontese support, Jaime V invaded Navarre and besieged Sangüesa, an Agramontese strongpoint that surrendered after a month of siege (August 15, 1462). Then the king marched towards Pamplona, forcing Juan II of Navarre, who was powerless and unable to end the Agramonts-Beaumonts feud, to beg Enrique IV of Castille for help. The Castilian intervention in the war was unlucky and short lived as the Aragonese army crushed the enemy force in Estella (September 22, 1462). Such was the defeat that Castille plunged into crisis as most of the noblemen that supported Enrique were either killed or captured by Jaime V, who was in no rush to ransom them and left Castille to bleed to death as the king, powerless, saw the rise of to power of Juan Pacheco, marquis of Villena, former supporter of the king who had been replaced in the king's favour by Beltrán de la Cueva, thus becoming the power behind the throne. This move was deeply resented by the queen, Juana de Portugal, who plotted against Pacheco. Eventually, Pacheco was murdered (Novembrer 4, 1463) and that unleashed the ravages of civil war upon Castille (from 1463 to 1491).

Meanwhile, Jaime V fought hard to conquer Navarre. The second campaign (1463-1465) saw the Aragonese king playing the Beaumonts against the Agramonts while he launched a methodical campaign of conquering one castle after the next and eventually besieged Pamplona in August 1465. With the Beaumontese and the Agramontese murdering each other on its streets, the city finally surrendered in November 1466. The Treaty of Mendavia ended the war with Jaime V recognised as the king of Navarre, while the deposed Juan II fled to Castille.

Navarre was not at peace, even if Jaime V had crushed Juan II. The Agramontese rose in revolt in April 1467, taking Jaime V, who was by then in Barcelona, by surprise. The king reacted by sending Felipe of Urgell (1414-1473), the heir of the late and troublesome earl of Urgell. Felipe took an aggressive approach to quell the rebellion, but he found himself in need of reinforcements. In August 1467, most of Navarre was in the hands of the Agramontese and Juan II returned to the country. Jaime V was back to square one. However, with Enrique IV of Castille having his hands tied with the Castilian civil war, there were no reinforcements at hand for the Navarrese rebels. Even worse, in October 1467, a Beaumontese army entered Pamplona and began to butcher any Agramontese that they found in the city.

Then, Diego López Pacheco, the heir of the murdered marquis of Villena, offered his help and his sword to Jaime V, who suddenly found himself involved in two civil war at once. With Aragonese support, López Pacheco rose the people of Toledo in the Spring of 1468, but, after a few months of stalemate, with López Pacheco unable to force the king's hand, Toledo switched sides and surrendered to Enrique IV. To break the resistance, López Pacheco murdered Beltrán de la Cueva, thus revenging his father. Toledo thus revolted against the king. The combined forces of Pacheco and Jaime V defeated the royal host at Tordesillas (April 23, 1468), and Enrique IV had fled the battlefield with barely a dozen of followers with him. With Castille in complete disarray, Jaime V turned to Navarre.

There he launched a series of small attacks aimed to deplete the enemy forces in coordination with Juan de Beaumont. The old Beaumontese leader, who had barely survived the purge launched by the returned Juan and kept Pamplona under his thumb since 1467, was laying siege to Estella when Jaime V arrived with a powerful army in the spring of 1469. Estella was the last major fortress which opened the way to the south of Navarre and the main way to Castille, and Jaime V wasted no time to reinforce Beaumont. The city surrendered by the end of July and the combined Beaumontese-Aragonese army spent the next two months conquering fortresses and cities in the south of Navarre. By June of 1470, after the Treaty of Pamplona, by which Pierres de Peralta, the last head of the Agramontese, surrendered to Jaime V in exchange for keeping his remaining lands and titles, and with Juan II fleeing once more to Castile, Jaime V was firmly in control of Navarre.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 11: Great Expectations (1470-1483).

After his son Jaime was born in 1465, Jaime V began to look for a wife for him. In 1470 Enrique IV of Castile, who was determined to avoid his sister Isabel becoming the next ruler of Castile, offered the hand of his daughter Juana to the young Aragonese prince. Jaime V seemed to be close to achieve his dream of uniting Aragon and Castile, but he was too aware of the shaky position of Enrique and of the opposition to a foreign marriage among his subjects. Then, in March 1471 Enrique, who was ill and determined to keep Isabel out of the Castilian throne, tired of the opposition of his noblemen led by Alfonso Carrillo, archbishop of Toledo, and Rodrigo Manrique, count of Paredes, to the Aragonese marriage, send Álvaro de Zúñiga, count of Plasencia to England to offer to marry his daughter to Edward of Westminster (1454-1492), the heir of Henry VI of England. However, there were widespread rumours that the prince was the result of an affair between his mother Marie of Armagnac (1420-1473), daughter of Jean, count of Armagnac. and one of her loyal supporters, James Butler, 5th Earl of Ormonde. Eventually, tensions flared and open warfare became unavoidable between the Lancastrians and the Yorkist after Henry VI's death in 1471. The Battle of St Albans signalled the beginning of the English Civil War (1472-1476) when Richard, Duke of York, (1441-1484) put forward his rights of succession.

Determined to avoid a Lancaster pretender to the Castilian crown, Jaime V of Aragon supported Richard of York, the future King Richard III of England. Eventually, the English strife led to an Aragonese-Castilian War (1475-1480), as Jaime was fully determined to avoid a Trastámara sitting on the English throne or even close to it and, in addition to this, to fulfill his old dream to have the Castillian crown on his head. Two early victories (Ágreda and Toro) made Jaime V master of Castile, but most of the nobility had either remained loyal to Juana or stayed neutral, forcing Jaime to rely heavily on archbishop Carrillo and Manrique, who were later joined by Juan Pacheco, count of Villena. Soon Pacheco rose to power, displacing Carrillo and Manrique, who was sent to England as embassador. In May 14, 1481, his son Jaime and the Castilian heir, Juana, were finally married.

The taxation needed to pay for the cost of the war was the cause of widespread discontent in Aragon and Castile. In Barcelona, the members of the Biga₁ refused to grant any more loans to the king for his Castilian enterprise and protested bitterly against the taxes. However, the moderate wing of the Biga, afraid of the reaction of the king, changed their vote in the last session of the Parliament and the loans were finally granted. This action brought down the strategy of the Biga, which considered this move as the first step into a wider action to reduce the power of the monarchy and to increase its control over the Consell de Cent (Council of One Hundred)₂ . With this schism, the power of the Biga was broken for a time and the rule of the Busca over the Consell granted.

Meanwhile, to Jaime (both father and son)'s happiness, the marriage of his heir and of Juana was a happy one. Juana seemed inclined to play just a little role in politics, as much as his role as regnant queen forced her, but he left most of the ruling questions in the hands of his husband and of his father in law. Jaime V was clever enough to disguise his participation in the ruling of Castile as the role of a caring father who limited himself to give some pieces of advice to his son and his daughter in law. This helped to keep Castile at bay, until small troubles began to appear. The first one took place in the royal court, when Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 2nd Duke of Albuquerque, held Juan Pacheco responsible for his father's death in the battle of Ágreda (1476), when Pacheco executed Beltrán de la Cueva after he was captured at the end of the battle. Francisco, on his part, had executed Juan's brother, Pedro Girón, after the battle of Cigales (1477). Not even the death of Pacheco in 1479 seemed to mollify de la Cueva's hatred and soon he began to openly complain that there were too many Aragonese advisors close to the queen, a claim that was not true but which help to gather many discontent noblement around the duke.

Then, in 1482, de la Cueva contacted Joao II of Portugal and offered him the crown of Castile and the hand of Juana for his illegitimate (and only) son Jorge, Duke of Coimbra. The relentless Alfonso Carrillo changed sides once more and joined de la Cueva in his deals and, eventually, they won to their side Álvaro de Zúñiga and Rodrigo Ponce de León. Their rising began on July 24, 1483 when they defeated a small royal force that was sent to arrest them. This led to an early rebellion and some of the noblemen that had conspired with de la Cueva, Zúñiga and Ponce de León were unready or felt that the rebellion had little chance of success as the Portugese king had not commited himself with the conspiracy and the French contacts had brought little support. Thus, de la Cueva, Carillo and Zúñiga were on their own. Even in his situation, they were close to succeed, as they defeated in Ledesma (August 24, 1483) a second force sent to arrest them, led by the Consort King himself, Jaime, who escaped his enemies just in the nick of time.

However, when the Mendozas remained firmly on the queen's side and the south of Castile was thus lost to the rebels, their fate was sealed. In November 1483 a strong royal host reinforced with Aragonese troops against the rebel army, that simply dissolved itself in the battlefield as the soldiers saw the royal standard. De la Cueva and his allies fled, but a royal scouting party caught them when they were on the verge of crossing the Portuguese border and, in the ensuing fight, de la Cueva was fatally wounded..Carrillo and Zúñiga were captured and executed shortly afterwards.


₁ - La Biga and La Busca were the two main political blocs into which the Barcelona bourgeoisie was divided during the 15th century. La Biga ('the beam') was made up of the majority of urban oligarchy and some merchants, importers of luxury fabrics. They acted as if they were part of the nobility: they owned land, castles and seigneurial rights and lived on income. They also had control of municipal power.
La Busca ('the splinter') was the party of merchants, artisans who aspired to control municipal power to enforce the privileges, freedoms and customs granted to the people of Barcelona. They wanted currency devaluation and protectionist measures.

₂ - IOTL, during the reign of Jaume I (1218-76), King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona, the government of Barcelona passed into the hands of the Consell de Cent, a new form of municipal government comprising 128 members, that lasted until 1714.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 12: Great Consternations (1483-1499).

By 1483 Jaime V was 51 years old. He had achieved his great dream, to have Aragon and Castile united under the same dynasty, his own. This was to be fulfilled by his son. He only needed to wait for time to seal his success. However, from this moment on, fate conspired to undone his works. To begin with, his son Jaime (b. in 1464) proved to be an absent ruler, more devoted to hunt, to dance and to any entertainment that fancied him than to spend any time dealing with the kingly matters that had befell upon him. Even worse, his wife Juana was even less inclined to rule than he was. Furthermore, Jaime V was an old man by then as his health began to falter. His energy and his intelligence remained the same, but his body was not. The king suffered this as a personal failure. Seeing that all he had achieved was in the hands of an unworthy son, he began to think of naming one of his nephews as an heir, even if he was strongly advised against doing that. However, even this proved to be difficult. His brother Juan, Duke of Palma (1438-1494), had a son, Pedro (b. in 1462); Tomas, Duke of Alcubierre (1440-1505) had two sons, Alfonso (b. in 1466) and Enrique (b. in 1472), and his younger brother, Ramon Berenguer, Duke of Lucena (1441-1502), had two sons, Berenguer (b. in 1452), and one daughter, María (b. in 1454), who was married to Pedro III of Urgell (1440-1466), with whom she had a son, Jaime, and two daughters. As his sister Blanca had only daughters, she was quietly ignored.

In spite of his best efforts, Jaime V's son managed to bring chaos to Castile in his brief tenure as Consort King by repeating the mistakes made by all the Trastámara kings that ruled before him, that is, by trusting unworthy men and by giving them too much power, the so-called "favoritos". However, his untimely death in 1485 solved the problem as the Castilian noblemen, determined to end with the power of the "favoritos" and unwilling to accept one of them as Regent for the child king, Jaime I of Castile (b. in 1482), asked the Aragonese monarch to take care of the kingdom. It was then when the health of Jaime V betrayed him as he suffered the first of the many crisis that would, eventually, send him to the grave in 1492. While Jaime's early reign had been energetic and successful, his later years were marked by inertia and political strife as the king withdrew to his private life and the affairs of the state increasingly relied on the help of his subordinates. thus, Juan of Palma in Aragon and Tomas of Alcubierre became the most important figures of the last years of Jaime V as they ruled the kingdom and kept it stable while the king withdrew further and further from politics, even more after the death of his heir.

This arragement granted the stability of Aragon and Castile in spite of all the troubles and the lack of kingly action. In 1487 Palma and Alcubierre embarked into the war that would put an end to the Muslim presence in Spain. While the Aragonese host took Vera (1487) and marched towards Almería, Alcubierre laid siege to Málaga, the only harbour of Granada. In spite of the weakened state of Granada, Málaga resisted with reinforcements sent by Abu Abd Allah al-Sheikh Muhammad ibn Yahya, Sultan of Morocco. until it surrendered in 1493. Almeria had been taken in 1489 and Baza a few months later. Both Palma and Alcubierre felt that Granada was on the verge of crumbling, but Boabdil managed longer than expected: Granada would not be taken until 1498.

By that time the young Jaime had been finally crowned as Jaime I of Castille and began to rule by himself in 1496. He left most of the ruling to Alcubierre but for the foreign relations. One of his first actions was an attempt to win the friendship of Charles VIII of France and, after his death, he courted Louis XII, but without too much success. Thus, after the conquest of Granada and at a whim of the future king, Castile began to ready itself for war at France. Then, on the following year, an exhausted Jaime V gave his soul to the Lord (November 25, 1499). His last words were to Juan of Palma: "My kingdoms, my poor people".

His time was over. It was the time to rule for Jaime VI of Aragon and I of Castile

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 13: To the new century and the New World (1499-1510)

According to the biography of Jaime VI of Aragon and I of Castile written in the times of his son, the young king was transformed by a vision that he had during the mass for his late father. Apparently, the young king was plagued by a series of terrible nightmares where his kingdoms were laid to waste because of his complete disregard of kingly matters. Thus, he reacted and began his long way to become a good king. Thus, the "official" narration of the beginnings of Jaime VI/I.

The truth is a bit different. From 1496 (1499 in Aragon) to 1501, Jaime VI/I was an absent king that left the administration of his kingdoms in the hands of those who had been appointed by his late father and he devoted himself to his pleasures, adding one to them: he enjoyed going abroad, an incredible change keeping in mind that his predecessor hardly left the Peninsula. His first visit was to France in 1498, where he met Louis XII (1462-1515). As history has it, the French king was quite cold with his unwanted visitor, as Louis wanted an ally to fight Edward V of England and the Spanish king was only interested in arts and hunting. Thus, as Louis XII simply avoided meeting Jaime VI/I, the Spanish king left France quite angered. As we have seen, after the conquest of Grenada, he began to prepare to go to war with France. However, even after becoming king of Aragon too, Jaime VI/I was still doubting about what to do next. This would change after he visited England in 1501.

After the discovery of America by Columbus and the military successes of Edward V of England against Charles VIII of France, the English king was the paradigme of the good king: a chivalrous cultured prince that was taking his realms into the new century amidst of gold and glory. As Jaime VI/I returned to the Peninsula, he devoted himself into a complete upheaval of the Aragonese and Castilian economies. In this Jaime was to excel, as he was very skilful at extracting money from his subjects on many pretexts, including that of war with France or the exploration voyages. As the king managed to prove to his subjects that the money was well used and not wasted, he avoided any revolt or determined opposition in the Parliaments, as some of his ancestors had experienced. In this, Jaime VI/I was incredibly lucky, as the ruthlessly efficient mechanisms of taxation were not aimed at making him more popular. Also, by keeping the same administrators during his reign and replacing him by like-minded men when age came into play, he gave an unparalleled stability to Castile and ended the reconstruction of the Aragonese economy.

Jaime VI/I is not remembered by his conquests. He was not a warrior king and, in spite of his improvement as a ruler, he had little inclination towards military adventures. However, foreign affairs made him make up his mind. The troubled politics of Naples was to throw the south of Italy into disarray once more. The rivalry between Charles VIII of France and Rene II of Naples left the latter without French support, as the French king was determined to have the kingdom of Naples. However, the new war against England and the defeats in front of Edward V saved, for the while, the throne of René. However, his weak situation had embroiled the confused, fractious nature of Neapolitan politics. Thus, when the local nobility rebelled against René in November 1502 and offered the kingdom to Jaime VI/I, he wasted no time to send 6,000 men to Naples while he reinforced the defenses of Sicily, fearing a French retaliation against the island. However, in spite of the reinforcements he sent, by 1505. With his forces stalled in Naples, he signed the Treaty of Adria, by which he renounced any claim to the Neapolitan crown in exchange for monetary compensation. It must be added that, by then, Jaime VI/I had lost his interest in that side of the Mediterranean as he was determined to follow the English example and to set up a colony in the New World. As he subsidised shipbuilding to strength the navy, he also hired the Neapolitean Giovanni Caboto, who, with the financial banking of the Fluggers and of Jaime VI/I and granted letters patent fron Jaime, departed to America in March 1506.

Giovanni Caboto took part in the two first voyages of Columbus, but he was disappointed as neither Columbus nor Edward V paid any attention to his project. According to him, there was an island somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean which would allow to reach Catai in a more direct way, bypassing the islands discovered by Columbus. Thus, after failing to persuade Charles VII of France, Caboto ended in Sevilla, where Jaime VI/I was overseeing the expedition that was going to reinforce the Aragonese forces in Naples. It was 1505 and Caboto needed the best part of three months to eventually persuade the king to fund his project. Thus, as it has been told, he did not depart until March 1506. Caboto had to accept the presence of royal overseers in his expedition, which grew from the original three ships to nine. In his first exploration, Caboto he reached Brasil; there he encountered several Portuguese settlements, thus he kept sailing south and away from the Portuguese. Eventually, in September, 26, 1506 he built a fort in what he called Cabo de Santa María (Sant Mary Cape₁) , which was named as San Damián₂. Before Caboto returned to the area, Antón de Grajeda was dispatched with settlers to San Damián. It was the beginning of the exploration of what is today the coast of Argentina, which was explored by Caboto, de Grajeda and Juan Ortiz de Zárate. The original settlements built around Sant Mary Cape were to be used to explore the southern shores of the continent, searching the way to Catai.

This expansion brought conflict with Portugal, as Joao II of Portugal was angered by what he considered an invasion of the lands discovered by his explorers. This question was temporarily settled with the mediation of Pope Julius II. The treaty of Agnadello (1510) divided South America, between the Portuguese Empire and the Spanish Empire along an area which is today the Parallel 20 South.

Jaime VI/I was one of the first European monarchs to recognise the importance of Yorkist England, which had recovered quite fast from the chaos brought by the defeat in the Hundred Years War and the following War of the Roses (1472-1476). Richard III (r. 1476-1484) and Edward IV (r.1484-1504) had not only closed the wounds caused by the strife that had plagued England for the last century and a half; the latter king had launched Columbus to discover America and his son Edward V (r. 1504-1555) was not only expanding the English settlements in the New World but also settling old accounts with France, kicking Louis XII of France out of Flanders. It was the beginning of the First War of Flanders (1508-1514), placing England against France and the Empire. Eventually, the war would drag the united kingdoms of the Peninsula into the conflict, which would extend also into the New World.

₁ - PD Río de la Plata
₂ - PD Carmelo.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 14: Every End is a Beginning (1510-1516)

When Jaime V/I died in 1516, the union of Castile and Aragon had hardly begun. Both kingdoms shared a common monarch and a failed attempt to unify both the Parliaments and the legal system that left no trace whatsoever, but little else as the king soon became dissapointed when he faced the local opposition to the changes. Eventually, he quietly shelved his attempts to reinforce the royal power. It would be his heirs who would attempt to settle the question. Following with his foreign policy, Jaime I/VI married in 1510 his elder daughter, Margarita (1496-1548) to Edward, Prince of Wales (1491-1547), the elder surviving son of Edward V of England, binding even more the two countries; and prepared the wedding of his younger daughter, María (1503-1540), with Joao, the future Joao III of Portugal, which finally took place in 1521. He also formed a fruitless alliance with the then Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I.

Then, in 1509, his elder son, Jaime, died suddenly at Zaragoza, apparently of typhoid fever. The King surprised his courtiers by his intense grief and sobbing at his son's funeral. He even shut himself away for several days, refusing to speak to anyone.

During his lifetime, Barcelona and Valencia became his favourite cities and he took extreme pleasure in enjoying their fashionable courts. He also devoted a lot of effort to gather around himself a court of poets and all kinds of artists, but, from 1523 onwards, However, from 1471, this trend changed, he devoted himself and the rotal treasury to the growth of his military establishment. To this end, he relinquished at least some of the extravagance that had characterized his court. He reinforced the feudal hosts by employing foreign mercenaries, as his father had done, but in a larger scale, and by the augmentation of his artillery.

Determined to get rid from any embarrassing dependence on Parliament and creditors, Jaime sought by stabilize the economy in expenditure, by avoiding go to war and by promoting efficiency in the royal administration, and by increasing the revenue. To increase his income from customs dues, Henry tried to encourage exports, protect home industries, help Spanish shipping by a navigation act to ensure that Spanish goods were carried in Spanish ships, and find new markets with the voyages of discovery. More successful and fruitful was the vigorous assertion of royal fiscal rights, such as legal fees, fines and amercements, and feudal dues. So efficient and ruthless were Jaime's financial methods that he left a fortune to his successor and a legacy of hatred for some of his financial ministers.

Also, towards the end of his days, Jaime VI/I closely surveyed the discovery of the New World by sending expeditions fro San Damián to explore the surroundings of the colony. It was during those efforts that the legend of El Dorado appeared for the first time, thrilling Jaime VI/I, who dreamt at once about an endless source of gold and silver. This misunderstood tale would be the cause of a bloody conflict during the reign of his heir.

Jaime V/I died on 21 April 1516, and the 17-year-old new King, Eduardo I₁ of Aragon and I of Castile, succeeded him as king. In Aragon, the Parliaments of each kingdom attempted to curb the royal power sensing the vulnerability of the crown in that delicate situation. Thus, the young Eduardo was compelled to sign a new charter of rights (May 15, 1516) on the occasion of her Catalan coronation. Similar privileges were to be obtained by Castile during the coronation there.

₁ - Thus named for his English godfather, Edward IV.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 15: The young king (1516-1520)

Eduardo I of Aragon and I of Castile was the first Aragonese king born outside of the Crown of Aragon. Born in Sevilla on January 28, 1499, he was the second son of Jaime V/I and was educated to become a mixture between a monk and a warrior, and he became fluent in Latin. Not much is known about his early life, because he was not expected to become king. It seems that the young Duke of Montblanch and of Toledo had a happy life until he was ten, when his elder brother Jaime died in 1509 and Eduardo became the heir of three kingdoms, a heavy weight for his unprepared shoulders. Then, Jaime V renewed his efforts to seal a marital alliance with England by offering his son Eduardo to marry Anne (1508-1554), the second daughter of Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, the younger brother of Edward V, who was the uncle of Eduardo through his marriage with his aunt Margarita. This marriage was signed into a treaty on April 22, 1510 by Jaime's ambassador in England, Gutierre Álvarez de Toledo, who would become Bishop of Plasencia for his role in the signature of the treaty. The marriage would not take place until 1515, when Eduardo was 16 years old and Anne, 9.

The death of his heir had an unexpected problem to Jaime V. Antonio Manrique de Lara y Castro, 2nd Duke of Nájera and 3rd count of Treviño (1466-1519) was the great-grandson of Leonor de Castilla y Albuquerque, a bastard daughter of Fadrique de Castilla (1360-1394), who was also a bastard son, but of Enrique II of Castile. A proud and arrogant aristocrat, Jaime V feared that Manrique could become a suitable candidate for the crown. In addition to this, Manrique complained quite often that Jaime was not treating him with the respect he deserved. Shortly after the wedding treaty was signed, Manrique defected abroad and sought refuge in France. Jaime feared that he was not too loved in Castile and that many people would love to have one of their own as king. As Manrique, for instance. Declared a traitor, Manrique was deprived of all his titles and lands by act of the Castilian Cortes on January 19, 1512.

After his coronation, Eduardo issued a general pardon. Raised in Castile, he was the darling of the Castilian nobility and seen as the promise of a bright future with plenty of happiness, virtue and glory. In Aragon, the general attitude towards the new king was to wait and see, even if many voices whispered about the foreign, that is, Castilian, education that Enrique had received. Then, unexpectedly, four days after his coronation, Jaime arrested his father's two most unpopular ministers, Juan Manuel, lord de Belmonte and Juan Chacón de Alvarnáez, whose greed had made them perfect scapegoats for Eduardo, who directed on them the popular anger for the high taxes fixed by his father. However, while Belmonte and Chacón lost their heads to calm the commoners, the taxes remained in place.

During his first years as king, Eduardo became a very popular monarch. When the French Ambassador, Louis-Gui des Aimars, visited Eduardo's court, after meeting the king, he recorded that he was "extremely handsome; nature could not have done more for him." Eduardo was a passionate sportsman and seemed to be always filled with an endless source of energy, something that made him be jousting, sportung and hunting for hours without end. He loved to be outside and hated the long council meetings and the endless paper work. Eventually, he left that side of kingship Henry left to his right-hand man, Cardinal Alonso Manrique de Lara. He was also extremely passionate about tilting and jousting until a fatal accident in 1524, when he mortally wounded Luis de la Cueva y Toledo, the eldest son of Francisco Fernández de la Cueva y Mendoza, duke of Albuquerque.

The chronicles are filled with the new king. We are told that he was "the handsomest monarch I had ever put my eyes on", according to the Venetian ambassador; he was also above the usual height, and his complexion was "very fair and bright, with auburn hair combed straight and short, in the French fashion".

Whereas his father tended to dress in rather plain clothes, Eduardo I went for the extravagant. Clothes and jewels seemed like a good investment. Eduardo knew he was the King, and he was going to dress like one. His jacket was covered with diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and pearls for his coronation. Over this wore a robe of crimson velvet trimmed with ermine. Finally, there was the piece de resistance, a huge collar of rubies from Afghanistan. Fond of jewellery, Eduardo kept many goldsmiths in a good income for many years. He tended to favour red, black, and gold in his outfits.

Thus, it seemed that a bright future for the king and his subjects was beginning to shine on the horizon.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 16: The perfect king (1520-1525)

By contrast with his father, Eduardo was a flamboyant king. He was a good monarch, sensible, reasonable and pleasant. with an endless sense of humour and he was always in a good mood. That was to have a great role in the events that were to unfold from 1521 onwards. Hernán Cortés had departed from San Damián (November 18, 1521) and followed a river that the natives called Paraná. Going up river, Cortés, who had 300 men with him, created several outposts (San Pedro, San Nicolás and Santa María -which later on would become a great city named Nuestra Señora del Rosario, o Rosario, for short). Pleased with Cortés. the governor of the province of San Damián, Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, not only wrote to King Eduardo asking for more money and settlers, but also send more men and support to Cortés, who, in early May 1521, kept its upriver exploration (and also kept building outposts along the way) until he reached a point where the river broke into two. To the amazement of his captains, Cortés took the northward and smaller river. As Alonso Hernández Portocarrero wrote in one of his letters back to the Peninsula, Cortés looked as if "he was possessed by a strange fever". Actually, the exploration was cut short when Cortés became deeply ill, with a great part of his men. In spite of such a dissapointing end, Cortés was determined to try again later on.

Meanwhile, the island of Cuba had seen a change in the guard. The island, which had been discovered by accident by Caboto in his final voyage, would not attract any royal attention until 1522, as the first reports of Cortés' expedition arrived to the Peninsula. Eduardo I thought that the island could be a suitable base to explore the area. Thus, he sent Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar (1465-1524), who had little time to organize the colony before dying and being replaced by Manuel de Rojas y Córdova (1494 – 1561). De Rojas thus supported the expedition of Alonso González Dávila (1485 – 1535), who, from June 1523 to April 1524, Dávila explored the Yucatan Peninsula and established a series of small outposts. However, when Dávila explored further inland, he met English explorers there, and, for a moment, it looked as if an diplomatic incident was on the verge of taking place. A frenzied traffic of letters and instructions flew from Cuba to Yucatan until a letter from Eduardo settled the issue in September 1524: Dávila was to withdraw to the Yucatan, while the English were to remain in control of the so-called "Mexica". This was the result of a personal agreement between Eduardo I and his English namesake, Edward V. Thus, Eduardo turned his attention to the south and, while Dávila remained organizing the Yucatan settlements and Cortés departed to explore again the Paraná. Diego de Ordás (1480-1542) thus departed from Cuba in the Spring of 1525 to explore the shores of the island of Trinidad, thus starting both the exploration and colonization of Venezuela . However, the lack of news about the discovery of El Dorado would push an impartiendo Eduardo I to overlook Venezuela, which only mattered to him as a springboard go discover the mysterious golden city. Thus, the process of colonization was trusted to De Ordás, while a new expedition under Francisco de Montejo (1479 - 1553) was being assembled in Cuba during the last months of 1525.

As we have seen, a possible conflict with England had been avoided through the direct intervention of Eduardo I. The 16th century is an unusual chapter in the long history of Spain's complex international relations. Eduardo I and Edward V enjoyed a mutual respect, even if sometimes was marked with deep suspicion about the real intentions of the other side. Eventually, this relation would change into an idiosyncratic compound of brotherhood, rivalry and mutual distrust. Under the treaty of London (October 4, 1518), they agreed as a gesture of good will to post one of their chamber gentlemen as ambassador resident at the other’s court. This was the first English resident embassy established by treaty and the only permanent English embassy of the century. The Spanish embassy in London ranked with those in Rome and Paris. The treaty was to led to the best-known royal meeting of the century, which took place at El Escorial, a magnificient palace built in San Lorenzo de El Escorial, one hundred kilómeters to the North of Toledo, in central Spain.

In addition to England, throughout the century there was also a diplomatic (and occasionally military) struggle for influence over Portugal, which also involved England due to the old ties that linked both countries. The reign of Eduardo would be thus characterised by a trilateral relationship between England, the Castilian-Aragonese Crown and Portugal. As it has been already mentioned, England began to emerge as a new power in Western Europe at that time, while the united Hispanic kingdoms were still a lessee power, and Eduardo, who wanted to have a saying in international politics, began to court hid English namesake.

He had already been successful in his talks with Francis I of France, They had signed the 1521 Treaty of Bordeaux, a non-aggression pact to help resist the Ottoman expansion into southeastern Europe, and that had also given Eduardo some international standing and fame. However, Edward I was not swayed by his Hispanic namesake as he considered that the English and Hispanic interests had too few elements in common and, thus, in spite of Eduardo's diplomatic moves.

However, as we shall see, this would radically change during the second half of th 1520s.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 17: Clouds over Europe

Italy had become a mixed bag of success and failure for Francis I of France. What had started Francis tried and failed as Francis' bid to become Holy Roman Emperor at the Imperial election of 1519 ended in an open conflict after Francis failed in this Imperial enterprise, resulting in several campaigns with mixed results. The first one (1521–1526) broke when a French–Navarrese expedition attempted to reconquer Navarre after the Navarrese rebels offered the crown to Francis I. The reaction of Eduardo I sent the invaders back to France after crushing them at Baztan (August 20, 1521). This invasion could have been reduced to a Hispanic-French quarrel, when it grew out of proportion when Edward V of England used the chance to support his Hispanic namesake by securing an alliance with the Hispanic kingdom and then landing reinforcements at Calais. His next move, after offering an alliance to Burgundy, was to invade Brittany on behalf of Jacques of Brittany, who claimed to be the great-grandson of Arthur III, Duke of Brittany through his natural daughter named Jacqueline (who was legitimized in 1443). It was the beginning of a war that pitted France and the Republic of Venice against the Holy Roman Empire, England, the Hispanic kingdoms and the Papal States.

Sensing the delicate situation of Francis, the German Emperor, Karl V, invaded northeastern France (September 1520) but the stubborn resistance offered by Pierre Terrail, seigneur de Bayard during the three-week siege of Mézières and the arrival of a great army under the command of the French king himself forced the withdrawal of the Imperial forces. Then, Francis turned his attention to the English. The fight began with French ships attacking English ones in the Channel and North Atlantic but, after a series of serious rebukes in the Channel, the French fleet centered its actions in the Atlantic, against the sealanes to the New World. This led a naval construction effort both in England and in the Hispanic kingdoms, as both kings greatly expanded their navies with larger Galleons (the Hispanic ones were to become the heaviest and heavily armed ships afloat in that time) to protect their own shipping and with light Caravels to harass the enemy fleets. Meanwhile, in the Mediterranean Sea, Eduardo I had focused on the creation of a fleet of heavy galleys to counter the Ottoman expansion. The first attempt against Alger (1516) ended in failure, but Eduardo was to have better luck in 1518, when Hugo de Moncada, with 58 ships, annihilate the enemy fleet led by Khair ed-Din; then, the Hispanic land force, most of it Aragonese light infantry, landed in the city and sacked it in the most vicious way and then put it to torch. Alger would take almost a century to recover from the sacking. This would be followed, in 1525, by an Anglo-Hispanic expedition against Tunis, one of the main bases of Turkish piracy. This attack would be the first of many Anglo-Hispanic punitive expeditions (1537, 1541, 1555, 1572, 1593), which, in turn, became more of piracy raids against the base, as its sackings filled the royal treasuries while keeping the Turkish piracies at bay. Algiers would not recover until the early Dey period (1671-1682), but then fate repeated itself in 1682, when France bombarded Algiers for the first time, after which Admiral Duquesne also sacked Algiers.

Meanwhile, Karl V came into trouble in 1525 when the French recovered Milan and pushed the Imperial troops out of Italy. With Hispanic support, Karl V was able to trapp Francis I at Pavia, forcing his surrender after a two months siege. After Pavia, the fate of the French king, and of France itself, became the subject of furious diplomatic manoeuvring. Eduardo I, determined to take full profit of the situation, launched an invasion of Naples. The kingdom, in turmoil after the disaster of Pavia, suffered what Clausewitz named as "the first lightning war". The campaign, which lasted from October 9 to November 11, 1525, ended with the complete destruction of the Neapolitean armies and the conquest of the kingdom. To the scared eyes of the Pope and of Francis I, a new military power had appeared on the battlefield: the dreaded Tercios. Thus, Pope Clement VII became convinced that Kar'sl and Eduardo's growing power was a threat to his own position in Italy, and Venetian and papal envoys went to Francis suggesting an alliance against Charles.

Then, the world held its breath when it was know that the Aztecs had risen agains the European settlers and explorers (most of them English and a few Hispanic) and had annhilated them at the Battle of Ocotelolco (June 5, 1525) and then had massacred all the European settlements up to Cheapside (Veracruz OTL), which was finally taken and burnt to the ground in August of that year. Among the casualties there was Henry Tudor, Lord Hampton (1491 – 1525) and Lord Edward Grey (1487–1525) However, not all the European settlers were killed or sacrificied to the local goes, as a few of them were kept to extract information out or then. Be it through either threats or any kind of promises, a great part of the prisoners told the Mexica everything they knew either out of fear or gratitude for being spared. Thus, the Mexica began to adopt the Europeans' technology as much as they could. Firearms and cavalry were out of question as their lack of knowledge and familiarity to horses and arquebuses soon ended the investigations in this field. They were much more successful in adopting weapons such as pikes, swords, crossbows and even plate armor. Its production, however, was not only an artisan one, but also a very expensive process. For the moment, they had time to experiment and to expand, as Edward V had his hands full in Europe.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 18: Clouds over Barcelona (1516-1525)

As the war was going on in Italy, Hernan Cortés finally had his chance to prove his might. After exploring the Paraná river, tired of his demands for more men to explore further west, the governor of La Plata₁ , Juan Pedro Díaz de Solís, managed to send him back to the Peninsula in the summer of 1525. When he finally arrived to the Peninsula, he found himself shipped with the Tercios that were to reinforce the Hispanic holding of Naples. For a while, Cortés was going to be away of America and thus it fell on Diego de Ordás, who had managed to explore the shores of present day Venezuela and establish a few outposts. However, as Bartolomé de las Casas would write to the king, "de Ordás seemed to be possesd by the Devil, as he was completely obssesed to exploring further west"; however, de Ordás was luckier than Cortés and for his efforts he was given the command of six ships. It was the beginning of what, eventually, would be the Hispanic conquest of the Inca Empire.

Red: Diego de Ordás (1525-1526); grey: Alonso de Ojeda (1528); lilac: Diego de Almagro (1529-1531); purple: Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1529-1531);
blue: Pedro de Candía (1530-1536); yellow: Francisco Pizarro (1533-1545); green: Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada (1541-1544); pink: Nicolás Federmann (1542-1544)
​

While Diego de Ordás, Diego de Almagro and Alonso de Ojeda (1525-1531) explored the north and west coast of America, discovering the so-called "Mar del Sur", that is, the Pacific Ocean, as they were looking for the "Birú", that is, the Inca Empire, which was thorn by a vicious civil war. Thus, when Vasco Núñez de Balboa arrived to what was to become San Mateo de las Esmeraldas, he found a decaying and weak empire that was hardly able to defend itself. Balboa had with him barely 200 mem with him, but they were widely equipped with arquebuses and after a few skirmishes, their firepower deeply impressed one of the Inca pretenders, Huascar, who offered Balboa endless riches to help him in his war against Atahualpa, and dooming the Inca Empire without being aware of it. After a few battles, Atahualpa's forces were terribly mauled and his own men turned against him. Atahualpa was murdered in early 1544. Huascar seemed on the verge of victory, when Balboa turned against him. In the summer of 1545, Balboa, after joining hands with Pizarro, arrested and executed Huascar. However, this left him in control of barely the north of the Inca Empire, which by then it was broken itself into several small kingdoms that kept fighting among them.

However, Balboa's legend was to be somewhat obscured by the European events.

The chronicles claim that the sun began to set upon Eduardo I's realms after the death of his elder son, also called Jaime, in 1523. Jaime was 33 and died in a hunting accident, who was survived by two daughters; Violante and Constanza, so the king wasted no time to declare his second son Eduardo as Prince of Asturias and Duke of Girona. Eduardo, by then, had one son, Alfonso (b. in 1508), who became the future of the house of Barcelona. It is time, also, to take a look on the Hispanic Royal Family. In addition to Eduardo I's son, there were his cousins:

-Pedro, Duke of Palma (1462-1494), and his son and heir, Juan (1481-1514), his son Alfonso (1465-1525) and his daughter María (1470-1560).
-Tomas, Duke of Alcubierre (1440-1505) had two sons, Alfonso (1466-1513) and Enrique (1472-1514 )
-Ramon Berenguer, Duke of Lucena (1441-1502), had two sons, Berenguer (1452-1505), and one daughter, María (b. in 1454-1540), who was married to Pedro III of Urgell (1440-1466), with whom she had a son, Jaime, and two daughters.

The chronicles explain that Juan, the future Duke of Palma, had a tense relations with his cousins Alfonso, the future Duke of Alcubierre, and Enrique, the future Duke of Trastámara, that only went worse with time, until it became a deep hatred when they became grown men. As we shall see, this hatred was to cause a terrible drama.




₁ - PD Argentina

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 19: Blood on the royal court.

It all began in 1496, when the young Duke of Palma, Juan, was looking for a wife. Since his childhood he had been in love with Francisca Álvarez de Toledo, daughter of García Álvarez de Toledo y Carrillo de Toledo, Duke of Alba; however, Tomás of Alcubierre organized the marriage of Francisca with his elder son, Alfonso. The marriage took place in May 1496, to the great anger of Juan and the displeasure of the king Jaime VI/I, who was worried by this unexpected quarrel in the royal family. Nevertheless, the feud seemed to be forgotten until when Juan of Palma was named governor of Navarra in 1505. There Juan began by reintroducing the Navarrese Fueros and some other privileges while, at the same time, keeping an iron fist over the country, specially over the decimated Agramontese faction. Then he slowly and carefully purged his administration of any follower of his cousin Alfonso of Alcubierre, who was powerless to act as he had become an unoficial ambassador to England and was often abroad and away from the royal court. By March 1509 when Juan was sent as an Ambassador to Rome by the king. He remained there until 1510. When he returned to Hispania, he found that Enrique, the younger brother of Alfonso, duke of Alcubierre, had caught the eye of King Jaime VI/I at a hunt in Ávila and, supported by the Duke of Alba, had risen to become the king's favourite, and, after intense lobbying, secured his appointment as Royal Cup-bearer, a position that allowed him to be in constant touch with the king.

Under the king's patronage, Enrique of Alcubierre advanced rapidly through the ranks of the nobility, and intense lobbying secured his appointment, in 1511, as Royal Cup-bearer, a position that allowed him to close to the king; the following year he was made Marquis of Villa Verde, and became a Knight of the Order of Montesa. Even this was a mostly honorary post by then, it enraged many noblemen in spite of the royal blood of Enrique, as it was considered as nothing but an upstart with nothing but a royal ancestors, good looks and little brain. His cousin Juan of Palma, even if it was surprised by this act of nepotism, which was apparently as surprising as unpopular, said nothing on the issue.

However, the good luck of Enrique came to a sudden end a few months later, in October 1511, when he angered the old king after being found in bed with one of the ladies in waiting of the queen. He was replaced by Alfonso de Palma, the son of the Duke, something that further enraged Enrique; aware of this, King Jaime V/I sent him as an ambassador to París, where he remained until May 1512. On his return to Hispania, he was soon noted as a satirist, a genre he had cultivated in France. Prominent men such as Juan Alonso Pérez de Guzmán y Afán de Ribera, 3rd Duke of Medina Sidonia were frequent targets. Thus, Enrique was ordered to withdraw from court in June 1513. However, he was forgiven and returned in December of that year. To keep him appeased, he was appointed gentleman-in-waiting to Eduardo I's young wife, Anne of Shrewsbury.

It is claimed that, while in court, he attempted to seduce Ana Pérez de Guzmán, the wife of Alfonso de Palma. This led that the rivalry between Alfonso and Enrique soon became a deep hatred and, in December 21, 1513, after a heated exchange of words, Alfonso fatally wounded his cousin and namesake, Alfonso, Duke of Alcubierre. Alfonso was arrested and imprisoned on the spot. However, that was not enough for Enrique and, in January 8, 1514, he sent two men to Alfonso's rooms, and there they stabbed him in his chest. Meanwhile, Enrique fled to Portugal, but, before he could reach the border, it was attacked by unknown assailants and stabbed to death on January 18, 1514

Thus came to its end the House of Alcubierre.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Chapter 20: Hispanic Emperor (1527-1533)

After the sad events that led to the demise of the House of Alcubierre and the death of his heir, Eduardo I was determined to change the course of events and, to that, he gathered the most powerful and influential men of his kingdoms in Toledo. There, on March 23, 1519, he styled himself as Emperor of Hispania, reinventing the old title of Imperator totius Hispaniae and used under a variety of circumstances from the ninth century onwards by the kings of León and Castile. Thus, his full titulature went as follows: Eduardo, by the grace of God, Emperor of all Spains, King of Castile, Aragon, Leon, Navarre, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Majorca, Sevilla, Cordova, Murcia, Jaén, Algeciras, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, King of both Hither and Ultra Sicily, of Sardinia, Corsica, King of Jerusalem, Prince of Asturias and Catalonia, Count of Barcelona, Roussillon, Cerdagne, Lord of Biscay and Molina and Duke of Athens and Neopatria. When this was known in Rome, Pope Leo X was not amused by Eduardo's behaviour. Even if he raised no objection about the action, he deeply resented it as he considered it a slight against his dignity as a Pope. The king had made himself a powerful enemy. However, he did not worry about neither the feelings nor the dignity of Leo X.

Meanwhile, in Europe, the English and Hispanic victories had began to ennerve the French king and the German Emperor so, in 1527, Francis I of France, the Emperor Charles and Pope Clement VII signed the Treaty of Rome, which, aimed to defend Italy from foreign intervention, it resurrected the Holy League when it was joined by Milan, Venice, Florence, Bavaria and various smaller German realms joining forces. The Holy League had thus changed from opposing French or Imperial influence on Italy, as Francis, Charles and Clement managed to redirect the League against England and Hispania. In response Eduardo I and Edward V prepared themselves to defend their realms from the Holy League. Edward reinforced Calais while Eduardo did the same with Naples and the border with France.

Just as Charles and Francis had busied themselves with the Treaty of Rome, Edward not only prepared for war, but he also moved to settle accounts in the New World. Cuauhtémoc expanded its empire into the lands of the Purépecha empire in 1526, which was crushed by 1528 and the cazonci Tangáxuan II brought to Tenochtitlan to be executed there. The war, however, had left an exhausted Aztec Empire, as it caused as, even if the Mexica did win in the end, it was at the cost of thousands of lives and they were forced to leave several garrison forces in the area, as the locals would revolt at the first opportunity. It would not be until 1531 when the Aztec expansion was resumed. Meanwhile, Edward I, who was aware that the Hispanic attention was fixed south, proposed a common enterprise, that is, the conquest of the Aztecs. He proposed to use Cuba as the departing point for the conquest and the division of Central America between them, with the dividing line being the Yucatan Peninsula.

The English expedition was led by Sir Charles Brandon (c. 1484 –1545), one of the rising stars of the English court and, at the same time, a troublesome character. Thus, the chastisement of the Aztecs looked as the perfect opportunity to test his mettle. Once in Cuba, Brandon set himself to organize the expeditionary force, which was made by 280 Englishmen and 300 Hispanic mercenaries. He landed in Cheapside (Veracruz OTL), the last English outpost in Aztec lands that still held. It had survived the Aztec blacklash and several months of fruitless siege thanks to its small harbor and Cuathémoc changing his attention towards the north of his lands. From there he attacked and seized Cempoala, and then he was forced to fight the Otomis and the Tlaxcalans in three battles from 2 to 5 September 1532 that decimated his forces. He then returned to Cheapside to wait for reinforcements, where the Aztec army arrived first. Under the command of Cocijopij , one of the lieutenants of Cuáthemoc, 4,000 Aztec warriors laid siege to the colony. They breached the walls in various places after several weeks of siege, but they were bloody repulsed and pushed back. The arrival of a Hispanic fleet bringing supplies and reinforcements on November 25, 1532, forced Cocijopij to withdraw. Brandon now he had 900 men and 8 guns under his command and marched south again, taking Cempoala and from there, he advanced towards Tenochtitlan. On the way, 2,000 warriors from Cempoala and Tlaxcala. Together they marched to Cholula, the second-largest city in central Mexico. and they were pitted against the Tlatoani of Tenochtitlan's force of nearly 50,000 men.

Brandon decided to launch a surprise attack on the enemy camp on the morning of February, 4, 1533, and achieved little success. The total casualties of Brandon's force were 57 killed and 137 wounded. The Aztec army lost 25 officers of distinction and 600 men. The raid only managed to enrage Cuáthemoc, was infuriated on learning of the attack and mustered his kingdom to crush the invaders. His moment came on June 23, 1533.

At daybreak on 23 June, the Aztec army emerged from their camp and started advancing towards the enemy. Their army consisted of 40,000 infantry, some of them armed with arquebuses, swords and pikes captured to the English. Brandon had 850 English, 1800 warriors from Cempoala and Tlaxcala and eight guns. The English soldiers were placed in the centre of the line, flanked on both sides by the guns and the warriors.

In the end, in spite of their previous experience with the English, the Aztecs were defeated by the English guns and horses. By marshalling on an open plain, they also allowed the experienced English commanders to bring to bear their own tactics, weaponry, and the know-how of European warfare. The English losses were 22 killed and 50 wounded along with 2,000 native allies.. Brandon estimated that the Tlatoani 's force lost 7,000 men, including several key commanders. The battle helped the English to take control of the Aztec Empire, as Cuáthemoc was quietly removed by his own noblemen and replaced by Matlatzincatl, who soon gave significant concessions for the previous losses and revenue caused by the massacres of 1525.

Meanwhile, in the Old World, Eduardo I and his English ally were fighting for survival.