The part played by the King in this land of independent crusaders and aristocratic cut-throats was difficult and precarious. Though not so legally bound by the concessions he had been forced to make as in Aragon—where no king might pass a law without the consent of his Cortes and where the ‘Justiciar’, a popular minister, disputed his supreme right of justice—mediaeval Castilian monarchs were in practice very much at the mercy of their subjects.
Henry II of England had been able to burn down his barons’ castles and hang some of their owners, thus paving the way of royal supremacy; but kings of Castile could scarcely adopt such drastic measures against subjects usually more wealthy than themselves, whose castles were required as national fortresses, and whose retainers formed the main part of Christian armies against the Moors. Instead, custom and circumstances seemed ever forcing the rulers of Castile to grant new liberties, and to alienate their lands and revenues in constant rewards and bribes.
The ‘Siete Partidas’
This was one of the failings of Alfonso ‘the Learned’, who in spite of his boast, ‘Had I been present at the Creation I would have arranged the world better,’ was certainly not ‘the Wise’, as he is sometimes called. Alfonso was a great reader and a scientist in advance of his day; but the best work that he ever did for his kingdom was the publication of the Siete Partidas (Seven Divisions), a compilation of all the previous laws of Spain, both Roman and Gothic, drawn up and arranged in a single code. For the rest, apart from his somewhat academic cleverness, he was vain, irresolute, and superficial. On one occasion he divorced his wife; and then, when the new wife he had chosen, a Norwegian princess, had already arrived at a Spanish port, he decided to send her away and retain the old. This capriciousness was of a piece with the rest of his actions.
During the ‘Great Interregnum’[35] Alfonso was one of the claimants for the imperial crown, but had neither money nor sufficient popularity to carry through this foolish project, for which he heavily overtaxed his people. He also planned an invasion of Africa in grand crusading style, but had to turn his attention instead to struggling against unruly sons. He died with little accomplished save his reputation for wisdom.
The reign of Alfonso X was a prelude to a century and a half of anarchy in Castile, a period when few of her kings could claim to be either ‘wise’ or ‘learned’, and when four of them by ill fortune ascended the throne in childhood, and so presented their nobles with extra opportunities for seeking their own ambitions at the royal expense.
On one struggle during this century and a half we have already touched—the bitter feud between Pedro ‘the Cruel’, the Nero of Spain, and his half-brother, Henry of Trastamara.[36] There is no end to the list of crimes of which this monster has been accused, from strangling his rival’s mother, and calmly watching while his half-brother, a twin of Henry of Trastamara, was pursued and cut down unarmed by the royal guard, to ordering that the young bride with whom he had refused to live should be given poisonous herbs that she might die.
Stained, indeed, must the Black Prince have felt his honour when he discovered what a brother-in-arms he had crossed the Pyrenees to aid—one who would massacre prisoners for sheer love of butchery, burn a priest for prophesying his death, and murder an archbishop in a fit of savagery. It is probably true to describe this worst of the Spanish kings as mad: many of his atrocities were so meaningless, such obvious steps to his own downfall, because they alienated those who tried to remain loyal to his cause. His end, when it came, rejoiced the popular heart and imagination, for Pedro, according to tradition, was at last entrapped by the crafty Du Guesclin, lately released from imprisonment by the Black Prince, and once more in the service of Henry of Trastamara.
King Pedro believed that every man had a price, and, on Du Guesclin’s pretence that he might be bought over, stole secretly one night to the Frenchman’s tent. Here he found his hated brother with some of his courtiers who cried aloud ‘Look, Señor, it is your enemy.’ ‘I am! I am!’ screamed Pedro furiously, seeing he was betrayed, and flung himself on his brother, while the latter struck at him with his dagger. Over and over they rolled in the half-light of a tallow candle, until Pedro, who had gained the upper hand, fumbled for his poignard with which to strike a fatal blow. Then, according to the old ballad, Du Guesclin interfered. ‘I neither make king nor mar king, but I serve my master,’ he said, and turned Pedro over on his back, enabling those who were standing by to dispatch him with their knives. The tale, if creditable to Du Guesclin’s loyalty, is hardly so to his love of fair play, but the murdered king had lived like a wild animal, and it is difficult to feel any regret that he died like one instead of in battle as a knight.
The House of Trastamara was now established on the Castilian throne by the triumphant Henry II. Some years later it gave also a king to its eastern neighbour, when the royal House of Aragon had become extinct in the male line. This was the Infante Ferdinand, a man of mature judgement, who had already won golden opinions for his honesty and statesmanship when acting as guardian for his young nephew, John II of Castile.