In the meantime, the Castilian was not idle: he had obtained succours from his constant ally the French king and encouragement from Clement VII, the rival of Urban. In the spring of 1387, the duke and the Portuguese king arrived at Benavente; but their progress was stayed by the plague, which daily made great ravages in their ranks. After the conquest of a few towns and fortresses, the allied army retired into Portugal. The duke himself was seriously indisposed in body, and consequently dispirited. Their retreat was hastened by intelligence of the troubles which raged in England, and which ended in the imprisonment, and eventually the death of the unfortunate Richard II. The Castilian king dreaded the resumption of hostilities at a more favourable period. He proposed to the Plantagenet the marriage of his eldest son, Henry, with Catherine, daughter of the duke, by the princess Constanza, and, consequently, granddaughter of Pedro the Cruel. To this overture the duke lent a favourable ear; towards the close of the year the conditions were definitively arranged at Bayonne. The principal were that, if Henry died before the consummation of the marriage, the princess should be given to the next son, Don Ferdinand; that Constanza, mother of the princess, should receive in fief five or six towns in Castile, besides a revenue of 40,000 francs per annum; that the duke should receive 600,000 in gold, by instalments, as an indemnification for the expenses of the war; that both Constanza and her husband should renounce all claim to the Castilian crown; and that hostages should be given him as a security for the due performance of the first three. Thus, if the personal ambition of the Plantagenet remained without gratification, he had at least the satisfaction of seeing one of his daughters queen of Portugal, and the other destined to the throne of Castile. Early in the following year, Catherine, who was in her fourteenth year, was betrothed to Henry, who was only in his ninth, and who on this occasion assumed the title of prince of the Asturias.
[1387-1390 A.D.]
The king of Castile did not long survive this reconciliation with the Plantagenet. On the 9th day of October, 1390, he was killed by falling under his horse. The reign of Juan I was one of continued troubles, which, though his abilities were moderate, his firmness prevented from ruining the state, or endangering his own power. Once, indeed, during the disputed succession to the Portuguese crown, he seriously intended to resign in favour of his own son Henry, who, as the son of Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand, was the true heir to the Portuguese no less than the Castilian throne. His object was to secure the execution of the treaty made with that prince, and forever to unite the two crowns. But his nobles, who were evidently no less averse to such a union than their western neighbours, not merely advised but compelled him to preserve his dignity.[g]
But the greatest glory of King Juan’s reign was his successful expedition against the coasts of England, to punish the presumption of the duke of Lancaster. Once more the maintenance of the Lancastrian claims was the signal for the destruction of a British fleet. Not content with threatening the ports, the Castilians, emboldened by former successes, sailed up the Thames, in 1380, and took or burned the shipping in the river almost within sight of London.[h]
THE GOOD KING HENRY III (1390-1406 A.D.)
[1390-1396 A.D.]
The crown descended to Henry, Juan’s first-born son, who since his betrothal in 1387 had taken from the ancestral seat of his family, now elevated into a principality, the title of “prince of Asturias,” which has been borne by the heir-apparent of Castile ever since.
Henry, surnamed the Infirm, was a weakly prince of eleven years of age, and a regency had to be appointed during his minority, whence much evil accrued to the realm of Castile. By the last testament of the late king the affairs of state were to be managed by a council of regency composed of the three estates of the kingdom. This arrangement was contested as showing too little regard for the rights of the heads of the great families, and a fresh regency was set up by the help of the estates, in which the lords temporal and spiritual—the duke of Benavente, a natural son of Henry II, Count Pedro of Trastamara, the marquis of Villena, the archbishops of Toledo and Santiago de Compostella, the grand-masters of the orders, and others—divided the royal authority between them.
No notice was taken of the assessors of the middle class who ought to have been admitted to their deliberations. But the nobles at the head of affairs, each one of whom was eager to take advantage of these propitious circumstances to enrich himself and increase his own power, were soon at variance and strife among themselves, the kingdom was split up into factions, the crown property alienated, disorder prevailed throughout the country.
Not until the king, having passed his fourteenth year, proclaimed himself of age with the consent of the estates and assumed the reins of government in person (1393) did a change for the better set in. For in spite of his youth and feeble frame, Henry III was possessed of sagacity and a real aptitude for political and public affairs. Trusting to the temper of the nation, which yearned for a strong government and for deliverance from the oppressive rule of the nobles and the anarchy of the knights, he promptly proceeded to energetic measures. Not content with sharing the royal authority among themselves, the lords in power had seized upon many of the estates of the crown, already much reduced by the lavishness of former kings, and consequently the necessary funds to meet public expenditure were lacking. Henry’s first step therefore was to come to an agreement with the cortes, to which he promised in return for the grant of the alcabalas that no fresh tax should be introduced without their consent, and then took vigorous action against the nobles. All gifts and pensions which had been made at the expense of the crown demesnes during his minority were cancelled and the revenues of the lords temporal and spiritual reduced to the level at which they had stood at Don Juan’s death, and at the same time all engagements which the barons had entered into with one another and confirmed by oath were annulled.