WAR OF THE SUCCESSION (1474-1479 A.D.)
[1474-1479 A.D.]
But if the majority of the people were in favour of the new reign, there were yet many barons, and those of considerable influence, who espoused the interests of Juana. The marquis of Villena, with other barons of the same party, resolved to marry the young princess to Alfonso V of Portugal, assisted by whose arms they hoped to make head against the reigning pair. Alfonso readily embraced the proposals of the disaffected: he collected troops, and at the same time, as uncle of Juana, applied to the pope for a dispensation to celebrate the marriage.
However important the stake for which the two parties now began to contend, the details of that contention are too obscure in themselves, and were too indecisive, to merit minute attention. Though the Portuguese obtained some partial successes, among others the strong fortress of Zamora, the war was decidedly in favour of the Castilian sovereigns: in the very first campaign the marquis of Villena had the mortification to see his hereditary domains in possession of the royal forces; while many of the towns and forts, which had at first declared for Juana, returned to their duty. In 1476 the Portuguese king was compelled to retreat from Zamora, which was invested by Ferdinand; near Toro he was overtaken by his active enemy, and a battle ensued, in which victory declared for the latter;[48] it was immediately followed by the surrender of the fortress. About the same time, Madrid, which had held for Juana, capitulated to the duke del Infantado: Ucles followed the example. Both the marquis and the primate were now tired of their ally and their cause. Negotiations were opened; and, in September, 1479, satisfactorily concluded at Alcacebas.
The principal conditions were that Alfonso should renounce the title of king of Castile; that he should neither marry, nor in any way favour the pretensions of Doña Juana; that “this pretended daughter of the late king, Don Henry,” should be allowed six months to decide whether she would wait until the infante Juan (only son of Ferdinand and Isabella, then but a year old) arrived at a marriageable age, or take the veil; that the Portuguese should restore the few places they still held in Estremadura. It was added that if, on arriving at a proper age, the infante should be averse to the match, he had only to pay 100,000 pistoles to be at liberty to marry whom he pleased. The unfortunate lady, seeing that she was sacrificed to the interests of the two kings, professed in the convent of St. Clair at Coimbra.[49]
The very year in which peace was thus happily restored between Castile and Portugal, Ferdinand, by the death of his father, Juan II, was called to the throne of Aragon. Having received the homage and confirmed the privileges of his Aragonese subjects at Saragossa, of the Catalonians at Barcelona, and of the Valencians in the capital of that province, he returned into Castile.[g]
There was now a Spain, though the government of the two kingdoms was separately administered under separate constitutions long after the time of Ferdinand and Isabella; yet the double throne was after all one throne, and Spain was at last a nation, fronting the world united, as far as the Spaniards of that time could be united, and the first reign of the new realm was the most glorious of all.[a]
FOOTNOTES
[44] Let us hope that the atrocities of the English allies—so gently noticed by Froissart[d]—are exaggerated; yet certain it is that the old Portuguese chroniclers dwelt largely on them: “Nao se cançaõ os nossos chronistas de encarecer as atrocidades que estas tropas auxiliares cometteraõ em todos os terrenos de Portugal por onde andaraõ,” says Lemos.[e] “King Ferdinand,” says the Chronicon Conimbricense[f] “had to seize the church plate to satisfy his allies: Mandou o ditto senhor rey tomar os thesouros das igrejas, convem a saber, frontaes, e calices et magestades, para pagar o soldo aos dittos Ingrezos.”