After Juan Ferrandez de Henestrosa left Toledo, Queen Blanche held converse with many great ladies of that city, who dwelt there and came every day to visit her. And she told them how she went in fear of her life, and that she had heard that the king was minded to come to Toledo, and have her seized and put to death; and therefore she begged and prayed for some protection. And all this business of Queen Blanche, she being very young, for she was not then more than eighteen, was managed by a lady who was her governess, holding this office by the appointment of Queen Doña Maria, the king’s mother, who had bestowed it on her. The ladies of Toledo, when they heard these things every day from Queen Blanche and her governess, Doña Leonora de Saldaña, were filled with pity for the queen, and they spoke to their husbands and kinsmen, saying that they would be the meanest men on earth if such a queen as this, their lady and the wife of their lord the king, should die such a death in the city where they were; but since they had power, let them prevent it. For the queen thought and feared that Juan Ferrandez de Henestrosa would return with the king’s order to seize and imprison her in the Alcazar, where she was certain she would be put to death. And she thought that this was not the true will of the king, but that he had been persuaded to it by certain of his counsellors, kinsmen of Doña Maria de Padilla, and that the time would come when the king her lord and husband would hold that they who had saved her from such a death had done him good service, and would understand that they had not done wrongfully, but in his interest.
The knights of Toledo, by the many representations made to them, with tears for the imprisonment and death of so noble a lady as Queen Blanche, who was a creature without blame and of so high lineage, and because the highest and best in the kingdom were ill contented with the kinsmen of Doña Maria de Padilla, were for the most part moved to defend the queen to the utmost of their power, and to hazard their lives and possessions for her. And when the knights and squires and true men of the city heard that Juan Ferrandez de Henestrosa was coming to Toledo, although he was with the king, and that he was about to seize the queen and imprison her, as they were given to understand, they took Queen Blanche from the church of Sancta Maria where she abode, and placed her in the Alcazar of the said city, on Thursday at the hour of tierce, on the eve of the feast of St. Mary in August, of that year. And with her all her ladies and damsels, and many other ladies of the city. And they gave the towers of the Alcazar and of the city into the keeping of the knights and loyal citizens of that city, for their defence; for all came to this work right willingly. And on the day that this was done they seized all their kinsmen who would not take part in it.[h]
PEDRO’S FALSE MARRIAGE
In the meanwhile Pedro wavered in his fidelity to his mistress long enough to be infatuated with Doña Juana de Castro. Not being able to win her to his desires, he proposed marriage; and the bishops of Avila and Salamanca stooped first to substantiate his pretence that he had not really married Blanche of Bourbon and then to marry him to Juana de Castro. When he had tired of her person, the king told her that his marriage with Blanche was a true marriage, and the other only a ruse to overcome her scruples. A son was born of this outrageous deception.[a]
When news of this base transaction reached the brother of Juana, Ferdinand Perez de Castro, who was one of the most powerful lords of Galicia, he instantly joined the league of the discontented. A civil war now commenced, which, during some months, raged with more animosity than success to either party. On its commencement, the king, persuaded that the fortress of Arevalo was not a secure prison for the unfortunate Blanche, ordered her, as we have seen, to be conveyed to Toledo and lodged in the Alcazar of that city. She was immediately rescued from the power of her jailer, who returned to acquaint his employer with the event. Furious at the intelligence, Pedro ordered the commanders of Santiago, first to depose their grand-master, his brother Fadrique, then to march on Toledo, and force the princess from her sanctuary. But she was no longer there; the whole city had taken her part, and honourably placed her, under a strong guard, in the palace of their kings. These defenders of oppressed innocence were now joined by the heads of the league, whose party daily acquired strength.
[1354-1355 A.D.]
Neither the sudden, perhaps suspicious, death of Albuquerque, nor the deposition of Don Fadrique, depressed their zeal. To show that a redress of grievances, and not individual ambition, was their object, they despatched messengers to the king, with the assurance of their attachment to his person, and proposed that, if he would dismiss his mistress with her kinsmen, and return to his queen, they would instantly lay down their arms. Pedro was resolved to do neither; but, as it suited his views to protract the negotiation, he nominated commissioners to treat with those of the league, which was now strengthened by the accession of the queen-mother. To bring about an amicable adjustment between her son and his barons, she invited both to Toro, where she then abode—an invitation which both accepted. But Pedro now found that he was the prisoner of the leaguers, who changed the officers of his household, substituted others from their own body, and closely watched his motions at the time they were treating him with the highest outward respect. To escape from his situation, he had recourse to his usual arts—to bribing some heads of the league, and, above all, to dissimulation, in both cases with success. The king soon contrived to escape, and threw himself into the fortress of Segovia.
After his escape (1355), Pedro assembled his states at Burgos, and, by artfully representing himself as thwarted in all his proceedings for the good of his people by his mother, his brothers, and the other rebels, whose only aim was to tyrannise over the nation, he procured supplies for carrying on the war. These supplies, however, were granted on the condition of his living with Queen Blanche—a condition which he readily promised to fulfil, without the slightest intention of so doing. After an unsuccessful assault on Toro, he returned to Toledo, the peculiar object of his hatred. Contrary to all reasonable expectation, he forced an entrance, and expelled the troops of his brother Henry. This success would, however, have been unattainable, had not most of the inhabitants believed in the sincerity of his declaration to the pontifical representative. The unfortunate Blanche was transferred—not to his palace, to enjoy her rights as queen, but to the fortress of Siguenza; the bishop of that see was also consigned to a prison; and some of the most obnoxious individuals of the league were beheaded or hung.
The legate, Bertrand, no longer withheld the thunders of the church: Pedro, Maria de Padilla, and even Juana de Castro, were excommunicated, and the kingdom subjected to an interdict. But these thunders passed harmless over the head of the royal delinquent, who lost no time in marching against Toro, where his mother and many of the leaguers still remained. His first attempt on that place was repulsed with loss; but, after a siege of some months, he prevailed on the inhabitants, by lavishing extraordinary promises of clemency, to open their gates to him. How well he performed his promise appeared the very day of his entrance, when he caused some barbarous executions to be made in his mother’s sight.[33] The queen fainted at the spectacle; and, on recovering her senses, requested permission to retire into Portugal, which was granted. About the same time many Castilian barons fled into Aragon.