Ferdinand was succeeded by his son, Alfonso V, called variously “the Learned” or “the Magnanimous” (1416-1458) under whom the Catalan Policy of Mediterranean expansion advanced to a stage far beyond anything previously attempted. Most of his reign was passed by him in warfare in Italy. Invited by the queen of Naples, who adopted him as her heir, to assist her against the house of Anjou, Alfonso was at length able to dominate the land and to set up a brilliant court at the city of Naples. He also intervened successfully in other wars, and even thought of attempting to reconquer Constantinople from the Turks, for that city had been taken by them in 1453. Meanwhile, his absence from his Spanish dominions permitted of a revival of internal disorders, which were to come to a head in the next reign. Alfonso gave Naples (southern Italy) to his illegitimate son Ferdinand, and the rest of his domains, including Sardinia and Sicily, to his brother Juan.
Juan II, Juana Enríquez, and Charles of Viana.
The revolt of the Catalans.
Prior to his succession to the Aragonese throne Juan II (1458-1479) had married the queen of Navarre, and at her wish, consented to by their son, Charles, Prince of Viana, had continued to act as king of that land after his wife’s death. He had contracted a second marriage with a Castilian lady, Juana Enríquez, and her intrigues against Charles of Viana had already caused that prince no little trouble. In the interests of her own children (one of whom, the later great King Ferdinand, was to be a worthy exemplar of the scheming traits of his mother) she plotted to deprive him of his rights, first to the throne of Navarre, and later, after Juan had succeeded to the Aragonese crown, to that of Aragon. The Catalans took up the cause of Charles of Viana with enthusiasm, and when Juan refused to declare him his heir civil war broke out, not only in Catalonia, but also in Aragon and Navarre. Charles was at first successful, and his father consented to recognize him as his successor and to appoint him governor of Catalonia, but the agreement had hardly been signed when the young prince died. Public opinion ascribed his death to poisoning at the instigation of his step-mother, and so great was the general indignation over this event that civil war in Catalonia broke out afresh. The Catalans were at a legal disadvantage in not having a legitimate lord to set up against Juan II. They elected various individuals as count of Barcelona, and even thought of organizing a republic, but the successive deaths of their chosen rulers, and the length of the war, which had already lasted twelve years, inclined many, toward the close of the year 1470, to make peace with the king. The very misfortunes of the latter, despite the crimes which he had committed, tended to this end, for he had again become a widower, and was blind and alone, for his son, Ferdinand, had remained in Castile after his important marriage with Isabella in 1469. Finally, in 1472, a peace satisfactory to both sides was arranged. It is to be noted that this war had nothing to do with the earlier struggle of the lords against the king, but was sustained rather by the city of Barcelona and the permanent committee, or deputation, representing the Cortes of Catalonia, against the king, being fought mostly in Catalonia, and being involved also with the attempts of the Catalan peasant classes to shake off the social burdens which they had so long been obliged to bear. The former seigniorial stronghold of Aragon proper was in this war the most powerful royalist element. The closing years of Juan’s reign were devoted to a war against France for the reconquest of Cerdagne and the Roussillon, which had previously been granted by Juan to the French king in return for support against the former’s Catalan enemies. This war was still going on when, in 1479, Juan died, and Ferdinand ascended the throne, to rule, jointly with Isabella, the entire realms of Castile and Aragon. Thus had the evil intrigues of Juana Enríquez redounded to the benefit of Spain.
Navarre
Navarre re-enters the current of peninsula history.
From 1285 to 1328 Navarre was a French province, but recovered its independence under the house of Evreux on the death of Charles IV of France without succession. The next heir after Charles of Viana was his sister Blanche, but her father, Juan II of Aragon, had her imprisoned, and a younger sister, Leonor, was enthroned in her stead.[34] Leonor and her husband, the count of Foix, established a new dynasty which was destined to be of short duration, for in 1512 Ferdinand of Aragon conquered Spanish Navarre. French Navarre remained for a time under the rule of the house of Foix, but presently became a part of the kingdom of France.
The Basque Provinces
Early history of the Basque provinces and their ultimate incorporation in the kingdom of Castile.
The three Basque provinces of Álava, Vizcaya, and Guipúzcoa had more of interest in their internal organization than in their external political history, since in the latter respect they were closely united to Navarre and Castile, which states disputed the dominion of these provinces. They were usually subject to one power or the other, although some of their towns, together with others of the Castilian north coast, formed themselves into leagues (hermandades), and enjoyed a certain amount of independence in their dealings with England and France. A number of popular beliefs exist with regard to the history of these provinces, one of which is that they have never been conquered. It is true that no conqueror ever stamped out the indomitable spirit and the customs of the people, but the land was rarely independent. It is believed that the Moslem invasion of the eighth century did not extend to these provinces, but at a later time they did suffer from Moslem incursions. With the organization of the kingdom of Asturias, both Álava and Vizcaya seem to have been either dependent on that realm or at least in close relationship with it. At times, from the eighth to the tenth centuries, the counts of Álava were also counts of Castile. Passing into the hands of Sancho the Great of Navarre, Álava was incorporated in that kingdom until the reign of Alfonso VIII of Castile. Alfonso VIII won the battle of Vitoria, and conquered the land in 1200. Thenceforth it remained under the sovereignty of the Castilian monarch, although with an assembly, the Cofradía (Fraternity, or Association) of Arriaga, of its own. In 1332, in the reign of Alfonso XI, the incorporation with Castile was made complete, although with a retention of the charters and liberties of the province. Vizcaya also vacillated between Navarre and Castile as a more or less independent, protected country, until in 1370 it passed over to the Castilian crown by inheritance of the wife of Henry III. The course of events in Guipúzcoa was very similar. In 1200 the province submitted to the conqueror of Vitoria, and from that time forth the external political history of Guipúzcoa was that of Castile.