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Henry IV of Castile

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This article is about the King of Castille. For other uses, see Henry IV.
Henry IV
King of Castile and León
Reign22 July 1454 – 11 December 1474
PredecessorJohn II
SuccessorsIsabella I
Born5 January 1425
Valladolid, Spain
Died11 December 1474(1474-12-11) (aged 49)
Madrid, Spain
Burial
Santa María de Guadalupe, La Mancha, Spain
ConsortBlanche II of Navarre
Joan of Portugal
IssueJoanna La Beltraneja
HouseHouse of Trastámara
FatherJohn II of Castile
MotherMaria of Aragon
ReligionRoman Catholicism

Henry IV (Castilian: Enrique, Galician: Henrique) (5 January 1425 – 11 December 1474), King of the Crown of Castile, nicknamed the Impotent (ruled 1454–1474), was the last of the weak late medieval kings of Castile. During Henry's reign the nobles increased in power and the nation became less centralised.

Biography

Prince

He was born in 1425 in the Casa de las Aldabas (since destroyed) in Teresa Gil street of Valladolid. He was the son of John II of Castile and Maria of Aragon, daughter of King Ferdinand I of Aragon. He displaced his older sister, Eleanor, and became heir apparent to the Castilian throne as the Prince of Asturias.

At the time of his birth, Castile was under control of Álvaro de Luna, Duke of Trujillo, who intended to select Henry's companions and direct his education. The companions of his own age included Juan Pacheco, who became his closest confidant. The struggles, reconciliations and intrigues for power among the aristocracy, Álvaro de Luna, and the Infantes of Aragon would be constant.

By 1444, Henry became Prince of Asturias.[1] At the same time, on 10 October 1444, he became the first and only prince of Jaén.[2] He won the First Battle of Olmedo in 1445, defeating the Infantes of Aragon.

After the victory at Olmedo, Álvaro de Luna's power waned, and Prince Henry and Juan Pacheco's influence grew. To counteract John II of Aragon's politicking, Henry supported his son Charles, Prince of Viana. Charles was heir to Navarre, and he revolted against his father in 1450 when he refused to cede the throne of Navarre.[3] The favouritism of Álvaro de Luna ended with his arrest and execution in 1453.

King

John II died on 20 July 1454. Henry was proclaimed king the following day.

One of his first priorities was the alliance with Portugal. He achieved this by marrying a second time, to Joan of Portugal in 1455, and by meeting Afonso V of Portugal in Elvas in 1456. His other main concern were the possibility of intervention from John II of Navarre, establishing peace with France and Aragon, and pardoning various aristocrats.[4][5] Henry convened the Cuéllar Courts to launch an offensive against the Emirate of Granada.[6] The campaigns of 1455 and 1458 developed into a war of attrition based on punitive raids and avoiding pitched battles. It was not popular with the aristocracy or the people. Juan Pacheco, the Marquis of Villena, and his brother Pedro Girón were put in charge of government decisions. The king also took other advisors, such as Beltrán de la Cueva, Miguel Lucas de Iranzo and Gómez de Cáceres to balance against their influence.[7]

In 1458, Alfonso V of Aragon died and was succeeded by his brother, John II of Navarre. John resumed his interference in Castillian politics, supporting the aristocratic opposition to Juan Pacheco's ambitions. With the support of the king, Pacheco moved to seize Álvaro de Luna's assets, but his widow allied herself with the Mendoza family, causing a division among the aristocracy. This process resulted in the formation of a League of Nobles in March 1460.[8][9][10] They raised a large number of noblemen, took control of expenditure, and gained the acceptance of Alfonso of Castille, the King's middle brother and Prince of Asturias.[11]

Henry IV reacted by invading Navarre in support of Charles, Prince of Viana, who was at that time at war with his father, the King of Navarre and Aragon. The campaign was a military success, but the Castillian king made peace with the League of Nobles in August 1461 to ward off the power of the Mendozas, which had allowed John II of Aragon to intervene in Castille.[12] However, John II of Aragon was in conflict with the Principality of Catalonia, and on the death of his son Charles of Viana, the majority elected him to be King of Castille on 11 August 1462. Henry IV's intervention was framed as a rivalry between him and John II of Aragon, and so Catalonia became an unstable point in the Crown of Aragon. But Henry IV was unsuccessful and the Castillian economy was at risk of an enmity with France, who had supported John II of Aragon with the Treaty of Bayonne.[13] So he agreed a settlement in the Judgment of Bayonne. This caused the Catalans to be abandoned.[14]

A contemporary depiction of Henry IV of Castile.

Marital politics

Prince Henry celebrated his marriage to the infanta Blanche (who later became queen Blanche II of Navarre) in 1440, when he was 15 years old. The cardinal Juan de Cervantes presided over the official ceremony. Her parents were Blanche I of Navarre and John II of Navarre. The marriage had been agreed in 1436 as part of the peace negotiations between Castille and Navarre.[15] The dowry included territories and villas that had previously belonged to Navarre but had been won by the Castillian side during the war, and the Castillians agreed to hand the lands back provided they would be given them back again as part of this dowry.[16]

In May 1453, the bishop of Segovia Luis Vázquez de Acuña annulled the marriage of Henry and Blanche, on the grounds of Henry's sexual impotence due to a curse.[17][18] This neatly reflected the recent political changes: Castille had supported Charles, Prince of Viana in his fight against John II of Aragon for the Navarre throne since 1451, and Álvaro de Luna, Duke of Trujillo had been executed in May 1453, leaving Henry with greater control of Castille.[19] Henry alleged that he had been incapable of sexually consummating the marriage, despite having tried for over three years, the minimum period required by the church. Other women, prostitutes from Segovia, testified that they had had sexual relations with Henry, which is why he blamed his inability to consummate the marriage on a spell. Henry's alleged 'permanent impotence' only affected his relations with Blanche. Blanche and Henry were cousins, and he was also a cousin of Joan of Portugal, who he wanted to marry instead. Surely therefore, the reason he used to seek the annulment was the sort of spell that only affected his ability to consummate this one marriage, and wouldn't cause any problems for him with other women.[20] Pope Nicholas V corroborated the decision in December of the same year in the papal bull Romanus Pontifex and provided a papal dispensation for Henry's new marriage with the sister of the Portuguese king.[21][22]

One of Henry's detractors, the historiographer Alfonso de Palencia wrote that the marriage had been a sham and accused Henry of despising his wife and planning to commit adultery to bear children. According to the chronicler, Henry demonstrated 'most extreme abhorrence' to his wife, and indifference to the confines of marriage.[23] However, in 1462 Blanche gave up her right to the Navarre throne so Henry could take it, and selected him as her protector, against her own father John II of Aragon.

The remoteness of Aragon led to an approach to Portugal. In March 1453, before his divorce from Blanche was finalised, there was no record of negotiations for the new marriage between Henry and Joan of Portugal, sister of the king Alfonso V of Portugal. The first marital approaches were made in December of that year, although the negotiations were long and the proposal wasn't definitively agreed until February 1455.[22] According to chroniclers of the time, Joan did not provide a dowry and would not have to return anything even if the marriage turned out to be a failure. The length of the negotiations and the concessions could be interpreted as caused by the concerns about the rumours of Henry's impotence.[24] The wedding was celebrated in May 1455, but without an affidavit of official bull authorizing the wedding between them, although they were first cousins (their mothers were sisters) and second cousins (their paternal grandmothers were half-sisters). On 28 February 1462, the queen gave birth to a daughter Joanna la Beltraneja, whose paternity came into question during the conflict for succession to the Castillian throne when Henry died.

Civil war

Before the birth of his daughter, Henry convened the Court in Madrid and Joanna was sworn in as Princess of Asturias. But the conflict with the nobility was resolved when Beltrán de la Cueva deposed Juan Pacheco, the Marquis of Villena, and his brother Pedro Girón, Master of Calatrava.[25][26] This caused a change in alliances: Mendoza began to support the king, and Pacheco revived the Aristocratic League by eliminating the influence of Beltrán de la Cueva. Joanna changed the succession and imprisoned the king's brothers so she could use them as political instruments, because they'd launched a campaign to discredit the monarch.[27][28] They had throw doubt on the paternity of her daughter, saying that she was in fact the daughter of the new favourite, and started referring to her as "the Beltraneja".[29]

After the death of the king war started in Castile. Joanna was supported by Portugal, while the eventual winner, Henry's half-sister Isabella I of Castile had the support of Aragon because of her marriage to Ferdinand II of Aragon, and later in the war, France also supported her right to the throne.

Debate over his health and sexuality

Henry IV cuartillo from the Villalón de Campos mint.

In 1440, at the age of fifteen, he was married to Blanche II of Navarre. The marriage was never consummated. In 1453, after thirteen years, Henry sought a divorce. An official examination confirmed the virginity of Blanche, and a priest questioned the prostitutes of Segovia, who confirmed that Henry was sexually capable. Blanche was sent home; eight years later, she became de iure Queen of Navarre and died under strange circumstances.

In 1455, Henry married Joan of Portugal, sister of Afonso V of Portugal. After six years of marriage, in 1462, she gave birth to a daughter, Joan, nicknamed "La Beltraneja". Six years after the birth of the throne's heir, part of the nobility of Castile revolted against the king. The rebels claimed that the princess was not the daughter of the king, but actually the daughter of Beltrán de La Cueva, 1st Duke of Alburquerque. This hypothesis was reinforced when the Queen had another two children with the nephew of a Bishop. Though many contemporary historians and chroniclers assumed Henry was impotent[citation needed], the royal chronicles of his reign were all written or revised during the reign (and under the influence) of Isabella I, his half-sister and ultimate successor, whose strong interest in proving Joan illegitimate renders these accounts at least partially suspect. The question of Joan's paternity is therefore not firmly answerable, given the lack of available reliable sources.

The doubt of her legitimacy as an heir, the weakness of the king, the adultery of the queen, and the unruliness of the nobility all set the stage for a struggle for succession after Henry's death. Henry divorced his wife after her scandalous behavior with Bishop Fonseca's nephew. After a long period of conflict between the rival factions, Henry finally agreed to name Isabella his successor, in Guisando (Avila), provided she allow him to arrange her strategic marriage. Isabella would go on to break this stipulation of the agreement.

Henry died in 1474 and was buried at Santa María de Guadalupe, next to his mother.

Ancestry

Family of Henry IV of Castile
16. Henry II of Castile
8. John I of Castile
17. Juana Manuel of Castile
4. Henry III of Castile
18. Peter IV of Aragon
9. Eleanor of Aragon
19. Eleanor of Sicily
2. John II of Castile
20. Edward III of England
10. John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster
21. Philippa of Hainault
5. Catherine of Lancaster
22. Peter of Castile
11. Constance of Castile
23. Maria de Padilla
1. Henry IV of Castile
24. Henry II of Castile
12. John I of Castile
25. Juana Manuel of Castile
6. Ferdinand I of Aragon
26. Peter IV of Aragon
13. Eleanor of Aragon
27. Eleanor of Sicily
3. Maria of Aragon
28. Alfonso XI of Castile
14. Sancho Alfonso, 1st Count of Alburquerque
29. Eleanor of Guzman
7. Eleanor, 3rd Countess of Alburquerque
30. Peter I of Portugal
15. Infanta Beatrice of Portugal
31. Inês de Castro

References

  1. ^ Martín, p. 41. The title was created in 1388 but both Henry III and John II ascended to the throne before reaching the necessary age to become princes.
  2. ^ In the cultural magazine of Don Lope de Sosa (1913-1930), creator of the official chronicle of the province of Jaén, D. Alfredo Cazabán Laguna (1870-1929) mentions the creation of the principality of Jaén in an article for King John II (10 October 1444) with the intention of restabilising the following a revolt of the aristocracy of Baeza, which affected the whole province and was fronted by the Bishop D. Gonzalo de Zúñiga and his city. The principality was given to his son and heir Henry when he took the title Prince of Asturias in 1444, and his title became Prince of Asturias and Jaén. The province stabilised with his accession to the throne, so the principality was repealed.
  3. ^ Martín, p. 55
  4. ^ Martín, p. 73. Henry frees the counts of Alba and Treviño, prisoners since the Záfraga coup, and annulled the exile of the Admiral Don Fadrique
  5. ^ Los Trastamara y la Unidad Española. Ediciones Rialp. 1981. pp. 407–408. ISBN 9788432121005.
  6. ^ Martín, p. 73
  7. ^ Iglesias Rodríguez, Juan José; García Fernández, Manuel (1995). Universidad de Sevilla (ed.). Osuna entre los tiempos medievales y modernos (siglos XIII-XVIII). p. 79. ISBN 9788447202218.
  8. ^ Franco Silva, Alfonso (1996). La fortuna y el poder: estudios sobre las bases económicas de la aristocracia castellana: S. XIV-XV. Servicio Publicaciones Universidad de Cádiz. p. 297. ISBN 9788477863021.
  9. ^ Monsalvo Antón, José María (1988). El sistema político concejil: el ejemplo del señorío medieval de Alba de Tormes y su concejo de villa y tierra. Universidad de Salamanca. p. 47. ISBN 9788474814842.
  10. ^ Leralta, Javier (2008). Apodos reales: historia y leyenda de los motes regios. Silex Ediciones. p. 322. ISBN 9788477372110.
  11. ^ Álvarez Palenzuela, Vicente Ángel (2007). Historia de España de la Edad Media. Editorial Jethro. p. 764. ISBN 9788434466685.
  12. ^ Los Trastamara y la Unidad Española. Ediciones Rialp. 1981. pp. 414–415. ISBN 9788432121005.
  13. ^ Martín, José-Luis (2003). Enrique IV de Castilla: Rey de Navarra, Príncipe de Cataluña. Editorial NEREA. p. 125. ISBN 9788489569829.
  14. ^ María del Pilar, Rábade Obradó; Ramírez Vaquero, Eloísa; Utrilla Utrilla, Juan F. (2005). Ediciones AKAL (ed.). La dinámica política. p. 183. ISBN 9788470904332.
  15. ^ Valdeón Baruque, Julio, "Los Trastámaras", p.135
  16. ^ Martín, p. 30
  17. ^ Edwards, John; Lynch, John (2008). Edad Moderna: Auge del Imperio, 1474-1598. Vol. 4. Editorial Critica. pp. 17–18. ISBN 9788484326243.
  18. ^ Testimonial of the divorce ruling between Prince Henry and the infanta Blanche, included in Collection of unedited documents on the history of Spain, vol. XL, pages. 444-450.
  19. ^ Martín, pp. 112-113
  20. ^ Martín, José Luis, "Enrique IV", ed. Nerea, Hondarribia, 2003, pp. 312-313
  21. ^ Martín, pp.62-63
  22. ^ a b Ohara, p. 59
  23. ^ Ohara, p.57
  24. ^ Martín, pp. 65-67
  25. ^ María del Pilar, Rábade Obradó; Ramírez Vaquero, Eloísa; Utrilla Utrilla, Juan F. (2005). Ediciones AKAL (ed.). La dinámica política. p. 185. ISBN 9788470904332.
  26. ^ Álvarez Palenzuela, Vicente Ángel (2007). Editorial Ariel (ed.). Historia de España de la Edad Media. p. 777. ISBN 9788434466685.
  27. ^ Luis M., Linde (2005). Encuentro (ed.). Don Pedro Girón, duque de Osuna: la hegemonía española en Europa a comienzos del siglo XVII. p. 28. ISBN 9788474907629.
  28. ^ Juan José, Iglesias Rodríguez; Manuel, García Fernández (1995). University of Seville (ed.). Osuna entre los tiempos medievales y modernos (siglos XIII-XVIII). pp. 85–86. ISBN 9788447202218.
  29. ^ María del Pilar, Rábade Obradó; Ramírez Vaquero, Eloísa; Utrilla Utrilla, Juan F. (2005). Ediciones AKAL (ed.). La dinámica política. p. 185. ISBN 9788470904332.
  • Miller, Townsend: The Castles and the Crown. Coward-McCann, New York, (1963).
Henry IV of Castile
Born: 5 January 1425 Died: 11 December 1474
Regnal titles
Preceded by King of Castile and León
1454–1474 		Succeeded by
Spanish royalty
Preceded by Prince of Asturias
1425–1454 		Vacant
Title next held by
Infanta Joanna
Titles in pretence
Preceded by — TITULAR —
King of Aragon
Count of Barcelona
(in opposition to John II)
1462–1463 		Succeeded by

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