THE REIGN OF HENRY IV.: MISGOVERNMENT
1454–1463
“I the King ... make known to you that by the grace of Our Lord, this
Thursday just past the Queen Doña Isabel, my dear and well-beloved wife,
was delivered of a daughter; the which I tell you that you may give
thanks to God.”
With this announcement of her birth to the chief men of Segovia was
“Isabel of Castile” ushered by her father John II. into public life; but
on that April day of 1451 none could have suspected the important part
she would play in the history of her country. The future of the throne
was already provided for in the person of her elder half-brother, Henry,
Prince of Asturias; and nearly three years later the birth of another
brother, Alfonso, made that inheritance apparently secure from any
inconvenience of a female succession.
[Illustration:
HENRY IV.
FROM “BOLETIN DE LA REAL ACADEMIA DE LA HISTORIA,” VOL. LXII.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HAUSER AND MENET
]
Castile was at this time nearing the end of a long and inglorious reign,
signalized by the struggles of the King and his selfish favourite
against the domination of an equally selfish nobility. The latter
triumphed; the favourite was beheaded and John II., broken-hearted at
his own weakness in agreeing to the sentence, died in the following
year. His life had been one long negation of everything for which true
kingship stands,—dignity, honour, and power; but the son who succeeded
to his title and troubles was even less fitted for the task.
Feeble and vain, Henry, Prince of Asturias, had been from boyhood the
puppet of his father’s rebellious nobles, led by their flattery into
attacking the royal authority that it would be one day his duty to
maintain.
“In him,” says the chronicler Pulgar, “desire had the mastery over
reason”; and, when he ascended the throne, it was with a character and
constitution that self-indulgence had utterly undermined. One virtue he
possessed, strangely out of keeping with his age, a compassion arising
from dislike of bloodshed; but, since he failed to draw any distinction
between justice and indiscriminate mercy, this attribute rather
endangered than distinguished his rule. A corresponding indifference,
also, to his property, and a reluctance to punish those who tampered
with it, might have a ring of magnificence, but it could hardly inspire
awe of the King’s law.
The problems by which Henry was faced at the beginning of his reign were
not acutely dangerous; and their chief difficulty lay in the constant
friction between Castile and the neighbouring kingdom of Aragon. Between
these two the tie of mutual descent from the House of Trastamara had
been drawn ever closer by frequent intermarriage. Henry IV. was not only
cousin of Alfonso V. of Aragon, but also his nephew, while he was
son-in-law to Alfonso’s ambitious brother, John, King of Navarre. Here
was scope for the time-honoured right of family interference, a right
strengthened by quarrels as to confiscated property and abused
privileges.
[Illustration:
ALFONSO V. OF ARAGON
FROM “ICONOGRAFIA ESPAÑOLA” BY VALENTIN CARDERERA Y SOLANO
]
It is only fair to say of Alfonso V. himself, that he took little part
in these feuds. A true Aragonese by instinct, though of Castilian
descent, his interests were not so much directed towards acquiring
Spanish territory as to extending a maritime empire in the East. Such
had been for generations the ambition of a kingdom, whose backbone was
the hardy race of Catalan merchants and sailors. Alfonso dreamed of
making Barcelona and Valencia the rivals of Genoa and Venice. To this
purpose he strengthened his hold over Sardinia, and fought with the
Genoese for the sovereignty of Corsica. Foiled in his designs on that
island by a superior fleet, he sailed away to make good a claim that
Joanna II. of Naples had allowed him to establish, when in a capricious
moment she had adopted him as her son. What favour and affection she had
to bestow, and she was capable of very little, she had given to the
House of Anjou; and when she died without descendants, Naples became the
battleground of Aragonese and French claimants.
Alfonso V., after a series of misfortunes, was at length victorious; and
delighted with this new kingdom, the land of sunshine and culture in
spite of the grim background of its history, he established his court
there, and henceforth ranked rather as an Italian than a Spanish
sovereign.
While, at his ease, he wove chimerical schemes of a crusade for the
recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, and extended a liberal patronage to
Renaissance poets and philosophers; his wife, Queen Maria, remained as
regent at home, and strove to keep peace with Castile and temper the
ambitions of her brothers-in-law. This was a well-nigh impossible task,
for John the eldest and most turbulent, in default of any legitimate
descendants of Alfonso, was heir to the Aragonese throne. A judicious
marriage with Blanche, the heiress of a small state of Navarre, had made
him virtual master of that kingdom, when on her father’s death in 1425
they assumed the joint sovereignty.
Fiction has never devised a more painful domestic tragedy than resulted
from this match. Of the three children of Blanche and John of Navarre,
the death of two was to be laid at their father’s door, the third to
earn the unenviable reputation of connivance in a sister’s murder. The
Queen, with some premonition of the future, strove feebly on her
death-bed to guard against it, and in her will, that left her son
Charles of Viana as the rightful ruler of Navarre, she begged him not to
claim the title of King in his father’s lifetime. To this the Prince
agreed, but the attempt at compromise was to prove ineffectual.
In 1447, King John married again, a woman of very different temperament
to his former wife. This lady, Joanna Enriquez, daughter of the Admiral
of Castile, was as unscrupulous and greedy of power as her husband, and
from the first adopted the rôle of “cruel stepmother.” The birth of her
son, Ferdinand, in March, 1452, set fire to the slumbering jealousy she
had conceived for Charles of Viana, and henceforth she devoted her
talents and energy to removing him from her path.
It is the penalty of public characters that their private life is not
only exposed to the limelight, but its disagreements involve the
interference of many who are not directly concerned. The hatred of Queen
Joanna for her stepson not only convulsed Navarre and Aragon but dragged
Castile also into the scandal.
Throughout the long reign of John II. of Castile, the King of Navarre
had on various pretexts interfered continually in his cousin’s affairs.
On some occasions he had posed as the protector of sovereignty from the
schemes of an ambitious favourite. On others he had been an open rebel,
harrying the royal demesnes, or sulkily plotting revenge when, as the
result of his rebellion, the estates he had inherited in Castile were
taken from him. Through all these vicissitudes the thread of his policy
ran clear,—to fish in waters that he himself had previously troubled. If
his own haul proved empty, he could at least boast of spoiling the sport
of others.
In 1440, in a brief moment of reconciliation with Castile, he married
his eldest daughter Blanche to Henry, then Prince of Asturias, and was
thus provided with a plausible excuse for henceforth thwarting his
cousin in his son-in-law’s interests. From no other point of view could
the alliance be called a success. Henry proved as faithless a husband as
he was disloyal a son; and, after thirteen years of fruitless union, the
marriage was annulled on the grounds of impotence.
Blanche returned to her own land; but her father found the man who had
been her husband too useful an ally to resent her repudiation, and as
soon as Henry became King he agreed to a treaty by which, in return for
an annual income, he surrendered any rights he might have to estates or
property in Castile. With such a settlement the political horizon seemed
fair; but the Castilian royal favourite, Juan Pacheco, Marquis of
Villena, to whom a lion’s share of the said estates had fallen,
mistrusted its serenity, believing that as soon as the King of Navarre
succeeded his brother Alfonso V. on the throne of Aragon, he would
revive claims so obviously to his advantage.
The Marquis of Villena was deaf to the voice of patriotism or personal
loyalty to his master, but he was more than ordinarily acute, where his
own prosperity was concerned. He had garnered successfully the
confiscated property, but “he lived” we are told “always with the fear
of losing it, as those live who possess what does not belong to them.”
[Illustration:
JUAN PACHECO, MARQUIS OF VILLENA
FROM “ICONOGRAFIA ESPAÑOLA” BY VALENTIN CARDERERA Y SOLANO
]
In this malicious but eminently shrewd estimate of his attitude lies the
clue to the tortuous mazes in which he involved Castile. Pacheco was a
noble of Portuguese extraction, who had entered Prince Henry’s service
as a page, being created Marquis of Villena by John II. When that
sovereign died, the favourite succeeded to the practical sovereignty of
Castile through the influence he had acquired over his master’s weak and
impressionable nature. It was a position that would have dazzled and
satisfied most favourites, but Pacheco despised all but the most
tangible gains. Power was reckoned in his vocabulary as a means towards
procuring fresh wealth, and for this his thirst was insatiable. All King
Henry’s eagerness to alienate royal estates and revenues in his favour
failed to meet his constant demand for fresh grants either to himself or
to his immediate relatives. The gift of half a province, with the
lordship of all its towns and castles would leave him envious of the
small village across the border, whose rent-roll passed into other
pockets.
“He knew,” says the chronicler, “how to conceal all other vices save his
greed: that he could neither conceal nor moderate.”
In pursuance of his own interests Villena, who distrusted the King of
Navarre’s future intentions, suggested a counter-alliance with Portugal.
This western kingdom had always seemed in danger of absorption by its
more powerful neighbour; once their common enemy, the Moor, had been
driven southwards; but good fortune and a spirit of sturdy independence
had preserved its freedom. By the great victory of Aljubarrota in 1385
Portugal had vindicated her claim to be a separate nationality; and
Castile, leaving the flower of her chivalry dead on the battlefield, had
retired to nurse her resentment in secret. Nearly a century had passed,
and mutual hatred still smouldered between the two peoples, though
frequent intermarriage had long broken down the barriers in the case of
the royal families.
The bride now selected by Henry IV. was the Infanta Joanna, sister of
the reigning King, Alfonso V., a lady of sufficient youth and beauty to
appeal, at any rate temporarily, to her bridegroom’s jaded taste. Her
journey to her new home was a triumphal progress of banquets and
receptions, culminating in jousts and feasts at Madrid, where a crowning
touch of extravagant display was given by Alonso de Fonseca, Archbishop
of Seville, when, after a magnificent banquet, he ordered salvers, laden
with rings and precious stones to be handed round, that the Queen and
her ladies might take their choice.
Unfortunately, real feelings, if they had ever been in tune, ceased to
correspond with these outward rejoicings. Henry soon tired of his bride,
probably because he was legally bound to her, and bestowed his
attentions instead on a Portuguese lady of her retinue, Doña Guiomar.
The latter increased the Queen’s mortification by her insolent
behaviour; and, after a stormy scene, in which royal dignity was thrown
to the winds and slaps and blows were administered, Henry removed his
mistress to a country-house. The Court, watching to see which way the
wind would blow, divided into factions according to its decision; the
Marquis of Villena supporting the Queen, the Archbishop of Seville the
cause of Doña Guiomar.
Matters became even more serious when scandal, always busy with the
King’s name, began to attack the honour of his bride. Queen Joanna, who
according to Zurita had objected to the match from the first, was
incapable of the gentle resignation of her predecessor, Blanche of
Navarre. As extravagant and devoted to pleasure as her husband, she had
no intention of playing the rôle of deserted wife.
“She was a woman to whom love speeches were pleasant ... delighting more
in the beauty of her face than in the glory of her reputation.” Such was
the court chronicler’s summary of her character; nor did public opinion
remain vague in its accusations.
Amongst the principal Castilian nobles was a certain Beltran de La
Cueva, who by his handsome looks and adroit manners had gained for
himself the King’s confidence and the lucrative office of “Mayordomo,”
or Lord High Steward.
On one occasion the King and Queen had been entertaining the ambassadors
of the Duke of Brittany at their country-house at Pardo. Returning to
Madrid after three days’ hunting, they found on nearing the city that
Beltran de La Cueva, gorgeously arrayed, was waiting lance in hand to
challenge all who came by that road. This was a form of entertainment
highly popular with the chivalry of the time; and the tiers of
scaffolding erected for spectators were soon crowded.
Every knight, as he rode up, was summoned to tilt six rounds with the
Mayordomo or to leave his left glove in token of his cowardice. If he
succeeded in shivering three lances, he might go to a wooden archway,
resplendent with letters of gold, and from there take the initial of the
lady of his choice. This famous “Passage of Arms” lasted from morning
till sunset; and thus to the satisfaction of the Court did Beltran de La
Cueva maintain the cause of an unknown beauty, to whom rumour gave no
less a name than that of royalty itself.
If the King had his suspicions, they did not hinder his pleasure in the
spectacle; and he proceeded to celebrate the event by establishing a
monastery on the site, to be called “San Jeronimo del Paso,” or “Saint
Jerome of the Passage of Arms.” Such an origin for a religious
foundation was to say the least of it bizarre; yet it compares
favourably with Henry’s cynical appointment of a discarded mistress as
abbess of a convent in Toledo, on the excuse that the said convent was
in need of reform.
Little good could be expected from a Court whose rulers set such an
example of licence and selfish pleasure; but, fortunately for Castile,
her hopes for the future lay not in the idle throng that surrounded
Henry IV. and Joanna, but in the old walled town of Arévalo. Here, since
the death of John II., had lived his widow, Isabel of Portugal, and her
two children, in an atmosphere rendered doubly retired by her own
permanent ill-health.
“Her illness,” according to the chronicler, “was so grievous and
constant that she could in no way recover”; and with conventional
propriety he attributes the cause to grief at the loss of her husband.
This may have been, though John II. was hardly the type of man to
inspire _une grande passion_. It is more likely that her mind was
already the prey of the burden of melancholy that became the curse of
her descendants; and that the malady was aggravated by the uncertainty
of her new position.
According to one of the royal chaplains Henry treated his half-brother
and sister “with much love and honour and no less the Queen their
mother.” This account, however, conflicts with Pulgar’s description of
Isabel as “brought up in great necessity.” It is more than probable that
the fortunes of the family at Arévalo varied with the policy or whim of
the Marquis of Villena; and thus, in her most impressionable years, the
little Princess learned her first lessons in the hard school of
experience. Such a theory would explain the extraordinary discretion and
foresight she displayed at an age when most girls are still dreaming of
unrealities. If the contrast is not wholly to her advantage, and
precocity is seldom charming, we must remember that only sheltered fruit
can keep its bloom. What Isabel lost of childish softness, she gained in
self-reliance and a shrewd estimate of the difference between true and
false.
Though far enough removed from the succession to escape the flattery
that had ruined her elder brother, she was early a pawn on the political
chess-board, and by the age of six had made her début in the matrimonial
market. Henry IV. and King John of Navarre were at that time eager to
show their mutual love and confidence; and a double alliance was
suggested that would make this patent to all the world. For Isabel was
destined John’s favourite son, the five-year-old Ferdinand, while the
latter’s sister Leonora was chosen as bride for the little Alfonso,
Henry’s half-brother.
Amid all the turns of Fortune’s wheel that were to bring in search of
Isabel’s hand now one suitor, now another, this first alliance alone was
to reach consummation; yet few, versed in the changing politics of the
day, could have believed it likely. The kings had sworn eternal
friendship; but in little more than twelve months an event happened that
made of their treaties and complimentary letters a heap of waste paper.
In 1458, Alfonso V. died at Naples leaving his newly acquired Italian
kingdom to his illegitimate son Ferrante, and the rest of his dominions,
including the island of Sicily, to his brother John. The latter was now
in a far stronger position than ever before; he need not depend on
Henry’s friendship; indeed his inheritance from past rulers was rather a
policy of feud and aggression against the neighbouring kingdom, while
the influence of his father-in-law, the Admiral of Castile, drew him in
the same direction.
This Admiral, Don Fadrique Enriquez, was himself a descendant of the
royal House of Trastamara; and his haughty and choleric nature found the
dreary level of loyalty little to its taste. His sense of importance,
vastly increased by his daughter’s brilliant marriage, revelled in plots
of all sorts; and soon conspiracy was afoot, and he and the majority of
Castilian nobles were secretly leagued with John of Aragon against their
own sovereign. Even the Marquis of Villena consented to flirt with their
proposals, in the hope of reaping some benefit; while his uncle, the
Archbishop of Toledo, and his brother, Don Pedro Giron, Master of
Calatrava, were amongst the leading members of the league.
Looking about him for an ally, Henry’s glance lit naturally on Charles
of Viana, whose disputes with his father had reached a stage beyond the
chance of any peaceful settlement. Navarre, always a prey to factions as
irreconcilable as Montagues and Capulets, had broken into civil war on
the advent of Queen Joanna as regent; the powerful family of the
Agramonts welcoming her eagerly; while the Beaumonts, their rivals, out
of favour at Court and wild with jealousy, called hourly upon Charles to
avenge their wrongs and his own. His mother’s will, leaving Navarre to
her husband during his lifetime, had, they declared, been made null and
void by the King’s subsequent remarriage. Not only was it the duty of a
son to resist such unlawful tyranny, but it was folly to refuse with
imprisonment or a poison cup lurking in the background.
The latter argument was convincing; but never was rebellion undertaken
with a heavier heart. The Prince of Viana was a student and philosopher
who, like the Clerk of Oxenford, would have preferred a shelf of
Aristotle’s books at his bed’s head to the richest robes, or fiddle, or
psaltery. The quiet of a monastery library, with its smell of dust and
parchment, thrilled him more than any trumpet-call; and he would gladly
have exchanged his birthright for the monk’s garb of peace. Fortune
willed otherwise, laying on his shoulders in pitiless mockery the burden
of the man of action; and the result was the defeat that is the usual
reward of half-heartedness.
His uncle’s Court at Naples proved a temporary asylum for him in his
subsequent enforced exile; and also the island of Sicily, where he soon
won the affection of the people, and lived in happiness, till Alfonso’s
death awoke him rudely from his day-dreams. He was overwhelmed by fear
for his own future; though, had he been a different man, he might have
wrested away the sceptre of Sicily. In Aragon itself public opinion had
been growing steadily in his favour, and not only in Navarre were there
murmurs at his absence, but up and down the streets of Barcelona, where
the new King was far from popular, and his haughty Castilian wife an
object of dislike.
Prudence dictated to King John a policy of reconciliation; and after
prolonged negotiations the exile returned; but the cold forgiveness he
received from his father and stepmother for the wrongs they had done him
was in marked contrast to the joyous welcome of the nation. No outward
ceremony of a loving father pardoning a prodigal son could mask the lack
of confidence that still denied the Prince his recognition as rightful
heir, and drove him to enter into a secret alliance with Henry IV. of
Castile.
As a result of these negotiations, a marriage was arranged between
Charles and the Infanta Isabel. That the suggested bride was only ten
and the bridegroom nearing forty was a discrepancy not even considered;
and the messengers, who went to Arévalo to report on the appearance of
the Princess, returned to her suitor, as the chroniclers expressed it,
“very well content.” Far different were the feelings of the King of
Aragon, when he learned of the intended match from his father-in-law,
the Admiral of Castile. Isabel had been destined for his favourite son,
and, in spite of the conspiracy to which he had lent his aid, this
alliance still held outwardly good. It did not need the jealous
insinuations of his wife to inflame afresh his hatred of his first-born;
and the Prince of Viana soon found himself in prison, accused of no less
a crime than plotting against his father’s life.
Unfortunately for King John, popular belief ran in a contrary direction,
and his son’s release was soon demanded by all parts of the kingdom. In
Barcelona, the citizens rose, tore down the royal standard and took the
Governor prisoner. Revolt flamed through the land; but even more
alarming was the sudden declaration of war by Henry IV., who, taking
advantage of the King of Aragon’s embarrassments, hastily dispatched a
force to invade Navarre, where the Beaumonts were already in the field.
It was a bitter moment for King John. Realizing his critical position,
he agreed to his son’s release; and Charles of Viana passed in triumph
to Barcelona. For once, almost without his intervention, Fortune had
smiled on him; but it proved only a gleam before the final storm. Three
months after he had been publicly proclaimed as his father’s heir, the
news of his sudden illness and death fell on his supporters with
paralysing swiftness.
Nothing, on the other hand, could have been more opportune for King John
and his Queen; and their joy can be gauged by the haste with which they
at once proclaimed the ten-year-old Ferdinand heir to the throne,
demanding from the national Cortes of the three kingdoms the oath they
had so long denied his elder brother. Yet Queen Joanna’s maternal
ambitions were not to be satisfied by this easy assumption of victory.
Charles of Viana dead was to prove an even more potent foe than Charles
of Viana living.
Gentle and unassuming, yet with a melancholy dignity that accorded well
with his misfortunes, he had been accepted as a national hero by the
impulsive Catalans; and after death they translated the rather negative
qualities of his life into the attributes of a saint. Only the halo of
martyrdom was required to fire the general sympathy into religious
fervour; and this rumour supplied when it maintained that his tragic end
had been due to no ordinary fever, but to poison administered by his
stepmother’s orders.
The supposition was not improbable; and the inhabitants of Barcelona did
not trouble to verify the very scanty evidence for the actual fact. They
preferred to rest their accusations on the tales of those who had seen
the Prince’s unhappy spirit, like Hamlet’s father, walking abroad at
midnight demanding revenge. Soon his tomb became a shrine for pilgrims,
and there the last touch of sanctity was added. He who in life had
suffered acutely from ill-health became in death a worker of miracles, a
healer whom no absence of papal sanction could rob of popular
canonization.
The effect upon the public mind was to fan smouldering rebellion into
flames; and when Queen Joanna, having gained the recognition of her son
as heir to the throne by the Aragonese Cortes at Calatayud, proceeded
with the same object to Barcelona, the citizens rose and drove her from
their gates. Only the timely intervention of some French troops, which
Louis XI. had just hired out to King John, saved her and Ferdinand from
falling into the hands of their furious subjects.
This foreign assistance had contributed not a little to the bitterness
of the Catalans, for the French King had secretly encouraged their
turbulence and disaffection, promising them his support.
“As for peace he could hardly endure the thought of it,” wrote Philip de
Commines of his master, Louis XI. That monarch, like King John of
Aragon, had studied the art of “making trouble,” and in this truly
mediæval pursuit excelled all rivals. It suited his purpose admirably
that his ambitious neighbour should be involved in civil war, just as it
fitted in with his schemes that his troops should prevent that conflict
from going too far. The question was all part and parcel of his policy
of French aggrandizement; the ultimate object of his design nothing less
than the kingdom of Navarre, that semi-independent state, nominally
Spanish, but projecting in a tantalizing wedge across the Pyrenees.
With Charles of Viana the male line of Evreux had come to an end, and
the claims on Navarre had passed to his sister Blanche. On Blanche’s
death, and Louis in his schemes leapt to the possibility of such a
fortunate accident, the next heir would be Eleanor, her younger sister,
wife of a French Count, Gaston de Foix. It would be well for France to
establish a royal family of her own nationality on the throne of
Navarre. It would be even better for that family to be closely connected
with the House of Valois; and, calculating on the possibilities, Louis
gave his sister Madeleine in marriage to the young Gaston de Foix,
Eleanor’s son and the heir to her ambitions.
It only remained to turn the possible into the certain: to make sure
that Blanche’s claims should not prejudice those of her younger sister.
At this stage in his plans Louis found ready assistance in the King of
Aragon, who included in his hatred of Charles of Viana a still more
unnatural dislike of his gentle elder daughter, whose only sins were
that she had loved her brother in his misfortunes and proved too good a
wife for Henry of Castile.
Thus the tragedy was planned. Blanche must become a nun or pass into the
care of her brother-in-law in some mountain fortress of Navarre. Then
the alternative was whittled away. Nunneries and vows were not so safe
as prison walls and that final silence, whose only pleading is at God’s
judgment-bar. Eleanor, fierce and vindictive as her father, was
determined there should be no loophole of escape, no half-measures by
which she might miss her coveted inheritance.
John of Aragon went himself to fetch his elder daughter to her fate,
assuring her of his intention of marrying her to a French prince, once
they had crossed the Pyrenees; but his victim was not deceived.
Powerless to resist, as she had been in bygone days to help her brother,
Blanche made one last desperate appeal before the gates of the castle of
Orthez closed for ever behind her. On the 30th of April, 1462, she wrote
a letter to Henry IV. of Castile, ceding to him her claims on Navarre,
and beseeching him by the closeness of the tie that had once united
them, and by his love for her dead brother, to accept what she offered
and avenge her wrongs.
It was in vain. Even before Charles of Viana’s death, Henry IV.,
repenting of his rash invasion of Navarre, had come to terms with the
Aragonese King, regardless of his ally’s plight; while just at the
climax of Blanche’s misfortunes, an event happened in Castile that was
to make all but domestic affairs slide into the background.
In March, 1462, Queen Joanna gave birth to a daughter in the palace at
Madrid. The King had at last an heir. Great were the festivities and
rejoicings at Court, many the bull-fights and jousts in honour of the
occasion. Below all the sparkle of congratulation and rejoicing,
however, ran an undercurrent of sneering incredulity. It was nearly
seven years since the Queen came a bride to Cordova, and for thirteen
before that had Henry been married to the virtuous Blanche of Navarre,
yet neither by wife nor mistress had he been known to have child.
“Enrique El Impotente,” his people had nicknamed him, and now, recalling
the levity of the Queen’s life and her avowed leaning towards the hero
of the famous “Passage of Arms,” they dubbed the little Princess in
mockery “Joanna La Beltraneja.”
Was the King blind? or why was the handsome Beltran de La Cueva created
at this moment, almost it seemed in celebration of the occasion, Count
of Ledesma, and received into the innermost royal councils? There were
those who did not hesitate to affirm that Henry was indifferent to his
own honour, so long as his anxiety for an heir was satisfied.
Whatever the doubts and misgivings as to her parentage, there was no
lack of outward ceremony at the Infanta’s baptism, in the royal chapel
eight days after her birth. The Primate himself, the Archbishop of
Toledo, performed the rites, and Isabel, who with her brother Alfonso,
had been lately brought up to court, was one of the godmothers, the
other, the Marquesa de Villena, wife of the favourite. Two months later,
a Cortes, composed of prelates, nobles, and representatives of the Third
Estate, assembled at Madrid, and, in response to the King’s command,
took an oath to the Infanta Joanna as heir to the throne; Isabel and her
brother being the first to kneel and kiss the baby’s hand.
The Christmas of 1462 found Henry and his Queen at Almazon; and thither
came messengers from Barcelona with their tale of rebellion and the
fixed resolution they had made never to submit to King John’s yoke.
Instead the citizens offered their allegiance to Castile, imploring help
and support in the struggle before them.
Henry had been unmoved by Blanche’s appeal, for he knew the difficulties
of an invasion of Navarre, but the present project flattered his vanity.
He would merely dispatch a few troops to Barcelona, as few as he could
under the circumstances, and the Catalans in return would gain him, at
best an important harbour on the Mediterranean, at worst would act as a
thorn in the side of his ambitious neighbour. He graciously consented
therefore to send 2500 horse, under the leadership of one of the
Beaumonts, as earnest of his good intentions; but almost before this
force had reached Barcelona, those intentions had already changed, and
he had agreed to the mediation of the King of France in the disputes
between him and the King of Aragon.
Louis XI., “the universal spider,” as Chastellain called him, had been
spreading his web of diplomacy over the southern peninsula. By the
Treaty of Olito, signed by him and King John in April, 1462, he had
promised to lend that monarch seven hundred lances, with archers,
artillery, and ammunition, in return for two hundred thousand gold
crowns to be paid him on the reduction of Barcelona. Whether he would
ever receive this sum was perhaps a doubtful matter; but Louis had
accepted the pledge of the border counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne,
that commanded the eastern Pyrenees, should the money fail, and would
have been more annoyed than pleased by prompt repayment. According to
his own calculations he stood to gain in either case; and in the
meantime he was well content to increase his influence by posing as the
arbiter of Spanish politics.
After a preliminary conference at Bayonne, it was arranged that the
Kings of Castile and France should meet for a final discussion of the
proposed terms of peace on the banks of the Bidassoa, the boundary
between their two territories. It is a scene that Philip de Commines’
pen has made for ever memorable; for though he himself was not present
he drew his vivid account from distinguished eye-witnesses on both
sides. Through his medium and that of the Spanish chroniclers we can see
the showy luxury of the Castilian Court, the splendour of the Moorish
guards by whom Henry was surrounded, the favourite Beltran de La Cueva
in his boat, with its sail of cloth-of-gold dipping before the wind, his
very boots as he stepped on shore glittering with precious stones. Such
was the model to whom Castilian chivalry looked, the man, who with the
Archbishop of Toledo and the Marquis of Villena dictated to their master
his every word.
It is small wonder if Louis XI. had for the ruler of Castile “little
value or esteem,” or that Commines himself, summing up the situation,
caustically dismisses Henry as “a person of no great sense.” There could
not have been a stronger contrast between the two kings: Henry with his
pale blue eyes and mass of reddish hair, his awkwardly-built frame,
overdressed and loaded with jewels, towering above his meagre companion;
Louis, sardonic and self-contained, well aware of the smothered laughter
his appearance excited amongst Castilian courtiers, but secretly
conscious that his badly cut suit of French homespun and queer shaped
hat, its sole ornament an image of the Virgin, snubbed the butterfly
throng about him.
“The convention broke up and they parted,” says Commines, “but with such
scorn and contempt on both sides, that the two kings never loved one
another heartily afterwards.”
The result of the interview, May, 1463, was soon published. In return
for King John’s future friendship, and in compensation for her expenses
as an ally of Charles of Viana, a few years before, Castile found
herself the richer for the town of Estella in Navarre, a gain so small
that it was widely believed the Archbishop of Toledo and his
fellow-politicians had allowed themselves to be bribed.
If the Castilians were bitter at this decision, still more so were the
Catalans, deserted by their ally and offered nothing save the
unpalatable advice that they should return to King John’s allegiance.
The messengers from Barcelona quitted Fuenterrabia as soon as they
heard, openly uttering their contempt for Castile’s treachery.
“It is the hour,” they exclaimed, “of her shame and of her King’s
dishonour!”
They could not realize to the full the truth of their words, nor to what
depths Henry was shortly to fall and drag the fortunes of his country
with him.