The short reign of this prince was not without its troubles. An insurrection broke out among those most restless and faithless of subjects, the Sardinians. As usual, the efforts of his generals to repress it were but partially successful. The affairs of Sicily were not more promising. None of these commotions appears to have occasioned King Juan the least anxiety: he resumed his diversions, that of hunting especially, with as much eagerness as before, leaving the cares of government to his queen. One day, while occupied in this favourite occupation in the forest of Foja, he fell from his horse, and was killed on the spot.
On receiving intelligence of this catastrophe Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia proclaimed Don Martin, brother of the late king, who was then in Sicily supporting the rights of his son and daughter-in-law, sovereigns of that island. This choice gave great umbrage to Matthieu count de Foix, who had married the eldest daughter of Juan, and who contended that the crown belonged to him in her right. He collected troops and penetrated into Catalonia; but he found the inhabitants averse to his pretensions, and indignant at his proceedings. As the states were sitting at Saragossa, he now adopted the wiser mode of deputing ambassadors to that assembly, with instructions to espouse his rights, which, according to the laws of legitimate succession, were well founded. But Aragon had seen only one female sovereign, Doña Petronilla, and had for some time been inclined to consider the Salic law as tacitly in force. The count met with a repulse both there and at Barcelona; but he hoped that arms would be more effectual than arguments; and, with a second and more numerous army, he invaded Aragon. There he and his countess solemnly assumed the royal title and arms, and reduced several towns; but he was soon compelled to retire into Navarre.
[1408-1412 A.D.]
Having pacified Sicily, in appearance at least, and caused his son and daughter-in-law to be acknowledged by the rebels, Martin, who seems to have been in no anxiety about the security of his kingdom, proceeded to Sardinia and Corsica, with the view of restoring tranquillity also in those islands. The following year he convoked his prelates, barons, and deputies at Saragossa, and caused his son, the Sicilian king, to be acknowledged his successor; it was also decreed that Sicily and Aragon should forever be united under the same sceptre. No sooner had Martin arrived in Spain, than Sardinia again became the theatre of civil war. The Aragonese had acknowledged the rival pontiff, Benedict, and Boniface had conferred the fiefs of Sardinia and Sicily on the count de Molineto. In 1408, the Sicilian king marched against the rebels, who, with eighteen thousand infantry, did not refuse the battle. It ended in a complete triumph for the king, and was followed by the surrender of an important fortress. As the heat of the weather began to be intensely felt, the victor returned to Cagliari. That heat and the festivities consequent on his success threw him into a fever, which, though not in itself fatal, he is said to have rendered so by incontinence. He died on the 24th of July, 1409. On the death of this prince Martin and the Aragonese were anxious to name a successor to the crown.[c]
Civil war was imminent when King Martin departed this life (1410), leaving the succession of the kingdom by his last will and testament to him to whom it was lawfully due. By his death the male line of the counts of Barcelona became extinct—a dynasty which had vigorously and gloriously filled the throne of Aragon for nearly three centuries.
INTERREGNUM IN ARAGON (1410-1412 A.D.)
[1410-1414 A.D.]
No nation whose political sagacity was less highly developed by a free constitutional and political system could have emerged from the two years of revolution upon which Aragon now entered without detriment to its liberty and legal institutions. For during the interregnum the kingdom fluctuated between two perils; it might either have broken up into its three constituent parts or succumbed to a military despotism.
Count James of Urgel, an ambitious and unscrupulous nobleman, counted the majority of the great nobles of Aragon, more particularly the partisans of the powerful family of Luna, among his adherents, the cortes of Catalonia was on his side, and what his title might lack he was prepared to make good by the sword, for the lower classes everywhere were in his service. The murder of the archbishop of Saragossa by his brutal associate Antonio de Luna, an act of violence in which he himself was not unconcerned, was intended to cow all resistance. The ricos hombres[43] saw in anticipation the return of the time when the right of the mailed fist should override the law, when the aristocracy, allied with the town rabble, should triumph over the middle classes, and the anarchy of the unions settle down upon the country once more. The danger was realised by the wise justiciary Cerdaño, his friends and those likeminded with him, chief among whom were Gil Ruiz de Lihori, governor of Aragon, and Berengar de Bardaxi, a man distinguished alike for genius and learning, and to their judicious and patriotic exertions the preservation of the ancient constitution is mainly due. Allying themselves with the freemen of the communes and the minor nobility, they endeavoured to force the decision into the hands of the cortes. Fortunately for them the great nobles were split up by faction, for the Urrea family sided with the constitutional party out of hatred to the Lunas, and their ranks were soon further reinforced by the accession of the Heredia family, to which the murdered archbishop belonged. The latter contrived that the infante Ferdinand should garrison the frontier with Castilian troops to prevent violent measures on the part of the count of Urgel.
Nevertheless the situation was full of peril, owing to the mutual jealousies of the three divisions of the kingdom; the cortes of each held separate consultations and each was anxious to give the casting vote. It was then that the patriotic energy of the men above mentioned intervened to save the kingdom from impending ruin. They proposed that a general parliament should be called together, and that the legal decision should be left to it, as King Martin had wished; representing at the same time to the separate assemblies that if the question of the succession were decided by the sword, the victor would dictate new laws at the sword’s point, as though to a conquered nation. According to their proposal the cortes of the three kingdoms were to elect committees for joint deliberation. By this time, however, they were all too deeply imbued with party spirit, and the cortes of Valencia refused to co-operate with the rest. Those two astute politicians Cerdaño and Bardaxi then ventured upon a bold stroke. They induced the cortes of Aragon and Catalonia to authorise them to nominate a committee of nine members at their own discretion from the three divisions of the country. This committee was to sit at Caspe on the Ebro, and after conscientiously examining the claims of all pretenders was to give its decision according to law. The Urgel party at Valencia tried to interfere, but the victory of the barons at Murviedro put an end to their resistance, and the patriotic caution and justice displayed by Cerdaño and Bardaxi in the selection of the nine secured general recognition and public confidence.