Spain

The Kings of Castile.

Alphonso X. of Castile (1252-84) was a writer, and a man of keen intelligent interest in science and law. As a ruler he was at once weak, unstable and obstinate. He wasted much time and great sums of money in endeavouring to secure his election as emperor—not in Spain, but in the Holy Roman empire. He did indeed add the town of Cadiz to his pos sessions with the help of his vassal, the Moorish king of Granada, but his reign is filled with quarrels between himself and his nobles. He ended his life in a war with his son Sancho, who claimed the succession in preference to the children of his elder brother. Fer nando de la Cerda, in virtue of a doctrine that the younger son, being nearer to the father than the grandson, had a right to suc ceed in preference to the children of an elder brother who had died before the succession was open. Alphonso, after first ac cepting Sancho's claim, repudiated it, and made a will by which he not only left the Crown of Castile to the eldest son of Fer nando de la Cerda, but cut vassal kingdoms out of the southern parts of Spain for Sancho's younger brothers. The reign of Sancho IV., surnamed El Bravo, or the Fierce (1284-96), was one constant struggle with the very nobles who had helped him against his father, with his younger brothers, and with the sons of Fernando de la Cerda. Murder and massacre were his familiar methods. He was succeeded by his infant son Fernando (Ferdi nand IV.) whose long minority was an anarchy, tempered by the courage and the tact of his mother, Maria de Molina. Fernando, ungrateful to his mother and incapable as a king, died in 1312, leaving a son of less than a year old, Alphonso XI. (1312-5o). After another minority of confusion, Alphonso, surnamed "of the Rio Salado," from the great victory he won over an invading host from Africa, ruled with energy and real political capacity. He did something to found the judicial and administrative unity of the country. His death at the age of 38, during the great plague, and while he was besieging Gibraltar, was a misfortune to Spain. His successor, Peter, called the Cruel (1350-68) was destined to show the Castilians exactly what the constant use by "the prince" of the reserved rights of the sovereign authority could be made to mean, when they were exercised by a passionate man mad dened by suspicion of all about him. Administering the civil side of his Government through Jewish tax-gatherers and farmers of the taxes, and surrounded by the Mudejar guard, who were the executors of his justice, his path is marked by one long succession of murders. With all his appearance of energy, he shrank from action at the critical moment of his wars out of utter want of trust in all about him. His expulsion by his brother, Henry of Trastamara, the eldest son of Leonora de Guzman, his restora tion by the Black Prince (q.v.), his treachery to him, and his final defeat and murder at Montiel, are famous episodes. Henry of Trastamara, the beginner of the "new kings" (1368-79), reigned by election. In his reign and those of his immediate successors the cortes flourished, although it failed to establish checks on the absolute power of the king. Henry was on the whole a successful ruler. He forced his neighbours of Portugal to make peace, his fleet defeated an English squadron off Rochelle, and he restored internal order. The civic hermandades, or brotherhoods, enforced respect from the nobles. John I. (1379-9o), Henry's son and suc cessor, had to contend with John of Gaunt, son of Edward III.

of England, who had married the eldest daughter of Peter the Cruel, and claimed the Crown of Castile in her name. John averted the danger by arranging a marriage between his son Henry and Constance, the eldest daughter of John of Gaunt, an alliance which united the two equally illegitimate lines representing Al phonso XI., and so closed the dispute as to the succession. He was less fortunate in his efforts to vindicate the rights of his wife Beatriz to the throne of Portugal. The defeat of the Castilians at the battle of Aljubarrota (1385), compelled the king to re nounce his pretensions. The minority of his son, Henry III. (139o-14o6) was long, and his effective reign short, but in the brief space allowed him the king, a weakly man surnamed El Doliente (the sufferer) did something to establish order. He re covered all the immense grants of Crown lands and rents, im pounded by the nobles during his minority. The first years of the minority of his infant son, John II. (14o6-54), were by a rare exception peaceful. The young king's uncle Ferdinand acted as regent. Ferdinand was able and honest. His succession to the throne of Aragon is an event of capital importance.

The Kings of Aragon.

The kings of Aragon from the death of James the Conqueror in 1276 to the death of Martin I. in 1410 were so largely concerned in the struggle with the Angevin Party in Naples and Sicily, that their history belongs rather to Italy than to their Peninsular kingdom. They were six in number : Peter III. Alphonso III. (1285-91 ) , James II. ( 1291– 1327), Alphonso IV. (1327-36), Peter IV. (1336-87), John I.

(1387-95), and Martin I. (1395-1410). Their double task was to reunite the Balearic islands and Roussillon, which James the Conqueror had left by will to a younger son, to the Crown of Aragon, and to reduce their turbulent barons, in Aragon, Cata lonia and Valencia alike, to the position of obedient subjects. In both tasks Peter IV. ultimately achieved success. The barons of Aragon and Valencia had extorted from his weak father the char ter known as the "Union," an instrument which was incompatible with the monarchical or any other form of government. The object of the life of Peter IV. was to force the barons to surrender their charter. After years of struggle and preliminary failures, Peter IV. defeated the "Union" utterly at the decisive battle of Epila (1348). He was a typical king of the i 5th century, im measurably false, and unspeakably ferocious, but he was not a mere bloodthirsty sultan like his enemy, Peter the Cruel of Castile. When he won he took, indeed, a brutal vengeance on indi viduals, and he extorted the surrender of the charter and de stroyed it with his dagger in the presence of the cortes at Sara gossa. He cut his hand in his eagerness, and declared that the blood of a king was well shed in securing the destruction of such an instrument—whence his popular nickname of Peter of the Dagger (del Punyalet). But his use of the victory was statesman like. He fully confirmed the right of the nobles to trial by law and security against arbitrary punishment he left the franchises of the city untouched, and respected the independence of the justicia. The result of his victory was to give Aragon and his other do minions a measure of internal peace unknown in Castile. The reigns of his sons and successors, John and Martin, were insignifi cant and tranquil. The death of Martin without children in 1410 left the succession open. The cortes was able to administer in peace, and the question of the succession was debated as if it had been in a suit between private persons. The judges finally decided in favour of Ferdinand, on the ground that his mother, Eleanor, was the daughter of Peter IV., and that though a woman could not reign as a "proprietary queen" in Aragon, she could convey the right to her husband or transmit it to her son.

The years 1412-79 marked a growing approximation between the two States whose interests touched one another so closely. In Castile John II. (1406-54), a man of amiable but indolent char acter and of literary tastes, was governed by his favourite, Alvaro de Luna, and harassed by his nobles. At the end of his life he sacri ficed his favourite at the instigation of his second wife. Of his son, Henry IV. (1454-74) it is enough to say that he was called "the Impotent," and that there is every reason to believe that he deserved the description in all the senses of the word. His reign was an inferior copy of his father's. As the legitimacy of his alleged daughter Juana was disputed, his sister Isabella claimed the succession, and married her cousin, Ferdinand of Aragon, son of John II., in 1469 in defiance of her brother. In Aragon, Ferdi nand I. "of Antequera" (1412-16) was succeeded by Alphonso V. (1416-58) the Magnanimous, whose brilliant life belongs to Italy. In Aragon he was represented by his brother John, who ad ministered as lieutenant-general, and who reigned in his own right (1458-79) when Alphonso V. died without legitimate heirs, leaving Naples by will to a bastard son. John II., a man of indomitable energy and considerable capacity, spent most of his life in endeav ouring to enforce his claims to the kingdom of Navarre as the husband and heir of its queen Blanche. His conflict with his son by his first marriage, Charles, prince of Viana, was settled in his favour by the death of the prince. A national revolt was sup pressed in Catalonia. At the age of over 8o, the blind old king transmitted his kingdom to Ferdinand, his son by his second marriage, with Juana Enriquez, of the family of the hereditary admirals of Castile. Navarre went to a daughter, and Roussillon was somewhat fraudulently retained by Louis XI. as security for a debt. Ferdinand conquered the Spanish half of Navarre later, and recovered Roussillon from Charles VIII., the successor of Louis XI.