[1369-1373 A.D.]
Henry assumed the government of Castile under difficulties. As the illegitimate son of King Alfonso XI, he met with strong opposition. Moreover his right to the throne was contested by others besides a large body of the Castilian nobility. King Ferdinand of Portugal, who had renewed the alliance which his father had concluded with Don Pedro, tried to win the crown of Castile for himself after the murder of the latter, on the ground that he, being the grandson of Beatrice, princess of Castile, was the only male descendant born in lawful wedlock. To support his claim he allied himself with Muhammed, the Moorish prince of Granada. Like Pedro IV of Aragon, he received with all honour the malcontent and fugitive Castilian nobles. He paid no heed to the murmurs of the Portuguese at their king’s liberality to foreigners, but marched into Galicia with an army, while the Moors took Algeciras; and the king of Aragon endeavoured to unite Molina, Almazan, Soria, and other frontier districts with his own dominions. At the same time the duke of Lancaster, uncle of Richard II, assumed the title of king of Castile in right of his wife, the eldest daughter of Don Pedro, and was acknowledged as such by the English court.
But Henry extricated himself from the difficulties that encompassed him in his own country with prudence and skill, and turned the disadvantages of his opponents to his own profit; and thus he succeeded in putting down all resistance and seated himself firmly on the throne of Castile, though he was still regarded by enemies as a usurper. The Moorish conquests were confined to Algeciras; the king of Portugal, who also styled himself “king of Castile,” carried on the war with so little success that the Spanish historian López de Ayala[b] says that it would have been more to his honour to have discontinued the campaign; the English had their hands full in their own country, and the Aragonese, besides having their attention diverted by a war in Sardinia, found themselves, by Henry’s shrewd contrivance, confronted with another adversary in the person of James III of Majorca, the pretender to the throne of the Balearic kingdom.
This adventurous infante, though married to Queen Juana of Naples, had entered the service of Pedro the Cruel and been taken prisoner at Montiel. Henry set him at liberty on payment of a heavy ransom by the wealthy queen of Naples, and thus fulfilled the double object of filling his own coffers and setting up a rival to his enemy. He had already taken possession of the abundant treasure which the fallen tyrant had amassed in the strong vaults of the castles of Seville and Carmona, and had obtained large subsidies besides from the estates of the kingdom at Medina del Campo; and was therefore able to pay off and discharge the mercenary troops which had carried him to victory and to surround himself with a well disciplined army. Bertrand du Guesclin and the leaders of other companies received gifts of towns and territory over and above their pay, and promptly sold them again.
Henry of Castile
The history of Castile for the next few years is like a diplomatic game of chess in which the French, the English, and the pope all played their parts as well as the sovereigns of the peninsula. And all did their best to win. While the faithless and fickle king of Portugal, who had given great offence to his own subjects by his marriage, made common cause with the duke of Lancaster and acknowledged him king of Castile in order to secure the assistance of England; and while the Roman see, alarmed at the alliance between Christian courts and the Mohammedans of Granada and Morocco exhausted itself in attempts at mediation, Henry concluded a treaty with France and invaded Portugal with an army. Viseu was occupied, Lisbon blockaded by land and sea and sorely damaged and wasted by fire, Coimbra was besieged, and only spared by the Castilians out of chivalrous gallantry, because Ferdinand’s consort Leonora was there waiting the birth of her child. Many Portuguese nobles with the king’s brother at their head abetted the Castilians out of disgust at Ferdinand’s marriage. At length the papal legate brought about a reconciliation, which was accelerated and rendered easier by Henry’s magnanimity and moderation (1373). The Portuguese king relinquished his alliance with the duke of Lancaster and England, banished from his dominions the malcontent Castilians who still refused to acknowledge Henry king, in spite of his chivalrous nature and high sovereign qualities, and joined the Franco-Castilian alliance. The war with Aragon was brought to an equally successful issue. Don Pedro concluded peace and alliance and restored the districts on the Castilian frontier which he had occupied in the course of the campaign.
[1373-1380 A.D.]
Biscay was also united to the kingdom of Castile on the death without issue of the infante Don Tello on whom the king had bestowed it in fee, but the province remained in possession of its ancient rights and liberties. When the daughter of Ferdinand de la Cerda, who had married the duke of Alençon, laid claim to Biscay and the whole of the Lara heritage in her own name and that of her children, Henry stipulated that her sons should reside in Spain. They refused, however, to resign the position they held in France, and he therefore declared the principalities fiefs that had lapsed to the crown. When Henry had further prevailed upon the king of Navarre to make peace with him by reimbursing the expenses he had incurred in the fortification of Logroño and Vitoria, Castile was once more complete within her ancient borders and his own sovereignty was firmly established and fully recognised. But by the reckless munificence with which he gave away the immediate property of the crown, in order to satisfy the nobles and attach them to the new dynasty, he laid up many troubles in store for his successors.[c]
In the schism which afflicted the church, from the rival pretensions of Urban VI and the anti-pope Clement, Henry declared for neither—doubtless to gratify his avarice by withholding the customary contributions to the papal see. He died in 1379. In character he was as cruel as Pedro; as loose in morals, and scarcely inferior as a tyrant. On the whole, however, he was a fortunate ruler. Either by bribes or force, he reduced Galicia to obedience, recovered several places from the king of Navarre, whose capital he at one time invested, and overawed his neighbours of Portugal and Aragon.