[67] Bernaldez, Reyes Catolicos, MS., cap. 201.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. p. 362.--Garibay, Compendio, lib. 18, cap. 1.
[68] Mariana, Hist. de Espana, tom. ii. p. 465.
[69] Carbajal, a.n.a.les, MS., ano 1469.--Alonso de Palencia, Coronica, MS., part. 2, cap. 16.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, lib. 18, cap. 26.--See a copy of the official record of the marriage, Mem. de la Acad., tom. vi. Apend. 4. See also the Il.u.s.t. 2.
[70] The intricacies of this affair, at once the scandal and the stumbling-block of the Spanish historians, have been unravelled by Senor Clemencin, with his usual perspicuity. See Mem. de la Acad., tom. vi. pp.
105-116, Il.u.s.t. 2.
[71] Alonso de Palencia, Coronica, MS., part. 2, cap. 16.--A lively narrative of the adventures of Prince Ferdinand, detailed in this chapter, may be found in Cushing"s Reminiscences of Spain, (Boston, 1833,) vol. i.
pp. 225-255.
[72] Castillo, Cronica, cap. 137.--Alonso de Palencia, Coronica, MS., part. 2, cap. 16.
CHAPTER IV.
FACTIONS IN CASTILE.--WAR BETWEEN FRANCE AND ARAGON.--DEATH OF HENRY IV., OF CASTILE.
1469-1474.
Factions in Castile.--Ferdinand and Isabella.--Gallant Defence of Perpignan against the French.--Ferdinand Raises the Siege.--Isabella"s Party gains Strength.--Interview between King Henry IV. and Isabella.--The French Invade Roussillon.--Ferdinand"s Summary Justice.--Death of Henry IV., of Castile.--Influence of his Reign.
The marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella disconcerted the operations of the marquis of Villena, or, as he should be styled, the grand master of St.
James, since he had resigned his marquisate to his elder son, on his appointment to the command of the military order above mentioned, a dignity inferior only to the primacy in importance. It was determined, however, in the councils of Henry to oppose at once the pretensions of the princess Joanna to those of Isabella; and an emba.s.sy was gladly received from the king of France, offering to the former lady the hand of his brother the duke of Guienne, the rejected suitor of Isabella. Louis the Eleventh was willing to engage his relative in the unsettled politics of a distant state, in order to relieve himself from his pretensions at home.
[1]
An interview took place between Henry the Fourth and the French amba.s.sadors in a little village in the vale of Lozoya, in October, 1470. A proclamation was read, in which Henry declared his sister to have forfeited whatever claims she had derived from the treaty of Toros de Guisando, by marrying contrary to his approbation. He then with his queen swore to the legitimacy of the princess Joanna, and announced her as his true and lawful successor. The attendant n.o.bles took the usual oaths of allegiance, and the ceremony was concluded by affiancing the princess, then in the ninth year of her age, with the formalities ordinarily practised on such occasions, to the count of Boulogne, the representative of the duke of Guienne. [2]
This farce, in which many of the actors were the same persons who performed the princ.i.p.al parts at the convention of Toros de Guisando, had on the whole an unfavorable influence on Isabella"s cause. It exhibited her rival to the world as one whose claims were to be supported by the whole authority of the court of Castile, with the probable co-operation of France. Many of the most considerable families in the kingdom, as the Pachecos, [3] the Mendozas in all their extensive ramifications, [4] the Zunigas, the Velascos, [5] the Pimentels, [6] unmindful of the homage so recently rendered to Isabella, now openly testified their adhesion to her niece.
Ferdinand and his consort, who held their little court at Duenas, [8] were so poor as to be scarcely capable of defraying the ordinary charges of their table. The northern provinces of Biscay and Guipuscoa had, however, loudly declared against the French match; and the populous province of Andalusia, with the house of Medina Sidonia at its head, still maintained its loyalty to Isabella unshaken. But her princ.i.p.al reliance was on the archbishop of Toledo, whose elevated station in the church and ample revenues gave him perhaps less real influence, than his commanding and resolute character, which had enabled him to triumph over every obstacle devised by his more crafty adversary, the grand master of St. James. The prelate, however, with all his generous self-devotion, was far from being a comfortable ally. He would willingly have raised Isabella to the throne, but he would have her indebted for her elevation exclusively to himself.
He looked with a jealous eye on her most intimate friends, and complained that neither she nor her husband deferred sufficiently to his counsel. The princess could not always conceal her disgust at these humors, and Ferdinand, on one occasion, plainly told him that "he was not to be put in leading-strings, like so many of the sovereigns of Castile." The old king of Aragon, alarmed at the consequences of a rupture with so indispensable an ally, wrote in the most earnest manner to his son, representing the necessity of propitiating the offended prelate. But Ferdinand, although educated in the school of dissimulation, had not yet acquired that self- command, which enabled him in after-life to sacrifice his pa.s.sions, and sometimes indeed his principles, to his interests. [9]
The most frightful anarchy at this period prevailed throughout Castile.
While the court was abandoned to corrupt or frivolous pleasure, the administration of justice was neglected, until crimes were committed with a frequency and on a scale, which menaced the very foundations of society.
The n.o.bles conducted their personal feuds with an array of numbers which might compete with those of powerful princes. The duke of Infantado, the head of the house of Mendoza, [10] could bring into the field, at four and twenty hours" notice one thousand lances and ten thousand foot. The battles, far from a.s.suming the character of those waged by the Italian _condottieri_ at this period, were of the most sanguinary and destructive kind. Andalusia was in particular the theatre of this savage warfare. The whole of that extensive district was divided by the factions of the Guzmans and Ponces de Leon. The chiefs of these ancient houses having recently died, the inheritance descended to young men, whose hot blood soon revived the feuds, which had been permitted to cool under the temperate sway of their fathers. One of these fiery cavaliers was Rodrigo Ponce de Leon, so deservedly celebrated afterwards in the wars of Granada as the marquis of Cadiz. He was an illegitimate and younger son of the count of Arcos, but was preferred by his father to his other children in consequence of the extraordinary qualities which he evinced at a very early period. He served his apprenticeship to the art of war in the campaigns against the Moors, displaying on several occasions an uncommon degree of enterprise and personal heroism. On succeeding to his paternal honors, his haughty spirit, impatient of a rival, led him to revive the old feud with the duke of Medina Sidonia, the head of the Guzmans, who, though the most powerful n.o.bleman in Andalusia, was far his inferior in capacity and military science. [11]
On one occasion the duke of Medina Sidonia mustered an army of twenty thousand men against his antagonist; on another, no less than fifteen hundred houses of the Ponce faction were burnt to the ground in Seville.
Such were the potent engines employed by these petty sovereigns in their conflicts with one another, and such the havoc which they brought on the fairest portion of the Peninsula. The husbandman, stripped of his harvest and driven from his fields, abandoned himself to idleness, or sought subsistence by plunder. A scarcity ensued in the years 1472 and 1473, in which the prices of the most necessary commodities rose to such an exorbitant height, as put them beyond the reach of any but the affluent.
But it would be wearisome to go into all the loathsome details of wretchedness and crime brought on this unhappy country by an imbecile government and a disputed succession, and which are portrayed with lively fidelity in the chronicles, the letters, and the satires of the time. [12]
While Ferdinand"s presence was more than ever necessary to support the drooping spirits of his party in Castile, he was unexpectedly summoned into Aragon to the a.s.sistance of his father. No sooner had Barcelona submitted to King John, as mentioned in a preceding chapter, [13] than the inhabitants of Roussillon and Cerdagne, which provinces, it will be remembered, were placed in the custody of France, as a guaranty for the king of Aragon"s engagements, oppressed by the grievous exactions of their new rulers, determined to break the yoke, and to put themselves again under the protection of their ancient master, provided they could obtain his support. The opportunity was favorable. A large part of the garrisons in the princ.i.p.al cities had been withdrawn by Louis the Eleventh, to cover the frontier on the side of Burgundy and Brittany. John, therefore, gladly embraced the proposal, and on a concerted day a simultaneous insurrection took place throughout the provinces, when such of the French, in the princ.i.p.al towns, as had not the good fortune to escape into the citadels, were indiscriminately ma.s.sacred. Of all the country, Salces, Collioure, and the castle of Perpignan alone remained in the hands of the French.
John then threw himself into the last-named city with a small body of forces, and instantly set about the construction of works to protect the inhabitants against the fire of the French garrison in the castle, as well as from the army which might soon be expected to besiege them from without. [14]
Louis the Eleventh, deeply incensed at the defection of his new subjects, ordered the most formidable preparations for the siege of their capital.
John"s officers, alarmed at these preparations, besought him not to expose his person at his advanced age to the perils of a siege and of captivity.
But the lion-hearted monarch saw the necessity of animating the spirits of the besieged by his own presence; and, a.s.sembling the inhabitants in one of the churches of the city, he exhorted them resolutely to stand to their defence, and made a solemn oath to abide the issue with them to the last.
Louis, in the mean while, had convoked the _ban_ and _arriere-ban_ of the contiguous French provinces, and mustered an array of chivalry and feudal militia amounting, according to the Spanish historians, to thirty thousand men. With these ample forces, his lieutenant-general, the duke of Savoy, closely invested Perpignan; and, as he was provided with a numerous train of battering artillery, instantly opened a heavy fire on the inhabitants.
John, thus exposed to the double fire of the fortress and the besiegers, was in a very critical situation. Far from being disheartened, however, he was seen, armed cap-a-pie, on horseback from dawn till evening, rallying the spirits of his troops, and always present at the point of danger. He succeeded perfectly in communicating his own enthusiasm to the soldiers.
The French garrison were defeated in several sorties, and their governor taken prisoner; while supplies were introduced into the city in the very face of the blockading army. [15]
Ferdinand, on receiving intelligence of his father"s perilous situation, instantly resolved, by Isabella"s advice, to march to his relief. Putting himself at the head of a body of Castilian horse, generously furnished him by the archbishop of Toledo and his friends, he pa.s.sed into Aragon, where he was speedily joined by the princ.i.p.al n.o.bility of the kingdom, and an army amounting in all to thirteen hundred lances and seven thousand infantry. With this corps he rapidly descended the Pyrenees, by the way of Mancanara, in the face of a driving tempest, which concealed him for some time from the view of the enemy. The latter, during their protracted operations, for nearly three months, had sustained a serious diminution of numbers in their repeated skirmishes with the besieged, and still more from an epidemic which broke out in their camp. They also began to suffer not a little from want of provisions. At this crisis, the apparition of this new army, thus unexpectedly descending on their rear, filled them with such consternation, that they raised the siege at once, setting fire to their tents, and retreating with such precipitation as to leave most of the sick and wounded a prey to the devouring element. John marched out, with colors flying and music playing, at the head of his little band, to greet his deliverers; and, after an affecting interview in the presence of the two armies, the father and son returned in triumph into Perpignan.
[16]
The French army, reinforced by command of Louis, made a second ineffectual attempt (their own writers call it only a feint) upon the city; and the campaign was finally concluded by a treaty between the two monarchs, in which it was arranged, that the king of Aragon should disburse within the year the sum originally stipulated for the services rendered him by Louis in his late war with his Catalan subjects; and that, in case of failure, the provinces of Roussillon and Cerdagne should be permanently ceded to the French crown. The commanders of the fortified places in the contested territory, selected by one monarch from the nominations of the other, were excused during the interim from obedience to the mandates of either; at least so far as they might contravene their reciprocal engagements. [17]
There is little reason to believe that this singular compact was subscribed in good faith by either party. John, notwithstanding the temporary succor which he had received from Louis at the commencement of his difficulties with the Catalans, might justly complain of the infraction of his engagements, at a subsequent period of the war; when he not only withheld the stipulated aid, but indirectly gave every facility in his power to the invasion of the duke of Lorraine. Neither was the king of Aragon in a situation, had he been disposed, to make the requisite disburs.e.m.e.nts. Louis, on the other hand, as the event soon proved, had no other object in view but to gain time to reorganize his army, and to lull his adversary into security, while he took effectual measures for recovering the prize which had so unexpectedly eluded him.
During these occurrences Isabella"s prospects were daily brightening in Castile. The duke of Guienne, the destined spouse of her rival Joanna, had died in France; but not until he had testified his contempt of his engagements with the Castilian princess by openly soliciting the hand of the heiress of Burgundy. [18] Subsequent negotiations for her marriage with two other princes had entirely failed. The doubts which hung over her birth, and which the public protestations of Henry and his queen, far from dispelling, served only to augment, by the necessity which they implied for such an extraordinary proceeding, were sufficient to deter any one from a connection which must involve the party in all the disasters of a civil war. [19]
Isabella"s own character, moreover, contributed essentially to strengthen her cause. Her sedate conduct, and the decorum maintained in her court, formed a strong contrast with the frivolity and license which disgraced that of Henry and his consort. Thinking men were led to conclude that the sagacious administration of Isabella must eventually secure to her the ascendency over her rival; while all, who sincerely loved their country, could not but prognosticate for it, under her beneficent sway, a degree of prosperity, which it could never reach under the rapacious and profligate ministers who directed the councils of Henry, and most probably would continue to direct those of his daughter.
Among the persons whose opinions experienced a decided revolution from these considerations was Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, archbishop of Seville and cardinal of Spain; a prelate, whose lofty station in the church was supported by talents of the highest order; and whose restless ambition led him, like many of the churchmen of the time, to take an active interest in politics, for which he was admirably adapted by his knowledge of affairs and discernment of character. Without deserting his former master, he privately entered into a correspondence with Isabella; and a service, which Ferdinand, on his return from Aragon, had an opportunity of rendering the duke of Infantado, the head of the Mendozas, [20] secured the attachment of the other members of this powerful family. [21]
A circ.u.mstance occurred at this time, which seemed to promise an accommodation between the adverse factions, or at least between Henry and his sister. The government of Segovia, whose impregnable citadel had been made the depository of the royal treasure, was intrusted to Andres de Cabrera, an officer of the king"s household. This cavalier, influenced in part by personal pique to the grand master of St. James, and still more perhaps by the importunities of his wife, Beatriz de Bobadilla, the early friend and companion of Isabella, entered into a correspondence with the princess, and sought to open the way for her permanent reconciliation with her brother. He accordingly invited her to Segovia, where Henry occasionally resided, and, to dispel any suspicions which she might entertain of his sincerity, despatched his wife secretly by night, disguised in the garb of a peasant, to Aranda, where Isabella then held her court. The latter, confirmed by the a.s.surances of her friend, did not hesitate to comply with the invitation, and, accompanied by the archbishop of Toledo, proceeded to Segovia, where an interview took place between her and Henry the Fourth, in which she vindicated her past conduct, and endeavored to obtain her brother"s sanction to her union with Ferdinand.
Henry, who was naturally of a placable temper, received her communication with complacency, and, in order to give public demonstration of the good understanding now subsisting between him and his sister, condescended to walk by her side, holding the bridle of her palfrey, as she rode along the streets of the city. Ferdinand, on his return into Castile, hastened to Segovia, where he was welcomed by the monarch with every appearance of satisfaction. A succession of and splendid entertainments, at which both parties a.s.sisted, seemed to announce an entire oblivion of all past animosities, and the nation welcomed with satisfaction these symptoms of repose after the vexatious struggle by which it had been so long agitated.
[22]
The repose, however, was of no great duration. The slavish mind of Henry gradually relapsed under its ancient bondage; and the grand master of St.
James succeeded, in consequence of an illness with which the monarch was suddenly seized after an entertainment given by Cabrera, in infusing into his mind suspicions of an attempt at a.s.sa.s.sination. Henry was so far incensed or alarmed by the suggestion, that he concerted a scheme for privately seizing the person of his sister, which was defeated by her own prudence and the vigilance of her friends. [23]--But, if the visit to Segovia failed in its destined purpose of a reconciliation with Henry, it was attended with the important consequence of securing to Isabella a faithful partisan in Cabrera, who, from the control which his situation gave him over the royal coffers, proved a most seasonable ally in her subsequent struggle with Joanna.
Not long after this event, Ferdinand received another summons from his father to attend him in Aragon, where the storm of war, which had been for some time gathering in the distance, now burst with pitiless fury. In the beginning of February, 1474, an emba.s.sy consisting of two of his princ.i.p.al n.o.bles, accompanied by a brilliant train of cavaliers and attendants, had been deputed by John to the court of Louis XI., for the ostensible purpose of settling the preliminaries of the marriage, previously agreed on, between the dauphin and the infanta Isabella, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, then little more than three years of age. [24] The real object of the mission was to effect some definitive adjustment or compromise of the differences relating to the contested territories of Roussillon and Cerdagne. The king of France, who, notwithstanding his late convention with John, was making active preparations for the forcible occupation of these provinces, determined to gain time by amusing the amba.s.sadors with a show of negotiation, and interposing every obstacle which his ingenuity could devise to their progress through his dominions. He succeeded so well in this latter part of his scheme, that the emba.s.sy did not reach Paris until the close of Lent. Louis, who seldom resided in his capital, took good care to be absent at this season. The amba.s.sadors in the interim were entertained with b.a.l.l.s, military reviews, and whatever else might divert them from the real objects of their mission. All communication was cut off with their own government, as their couriers were stopped and their despatches intercepted, so that John knew as little of his envoys or their proceedings, as if they had been in Siberia or j.a.pan. In the mean time, formidable preparations were making in the south of France for a descent on Roussillon; and when the amba.s.sadors, after a fruitless attempt at negotiation, which evaporated in mutual crimination and recrimination, set out on their return to Aragon, they were twice detained, at Lyons and Montpelier, from an extreme solicitude, as the French government expressed it, to ascertain the safest route through a country intersected by hostile armies; and all this, notwithstanding their repeated protestations against this obliging disposition, which held them prisoners, in opposition to their own will and the law of nations. The prince who descended to such petty trickery pa.s.sed for the wisest of his time. [25]
In the mean while, the Seigneur du Lude had invaded Roussillon at the head of nine hundred French lances and ten thousand infantry, supported by a powerful train of artillery, while a fleet of Genoese transports, laden with supplies, accompanied the army along the coast. Elna surrendered after a st.u.r.dy resistance; the governor and some of the princ.i.p.al prisoners were shamefully beheaded as traitors; and the French then proceeded to invest Perpignan. The king of Aragon was so much impoverished by the incessant wars in which he had been engaged, that he was not only unable to recruit his army, but was even obliged to p.a.w.n the robe of costly fur, which he wore to defend his person against the inclemencies of the season, in order to defray the expense of transporting his baggage. In this extremity, finding himself disappointed in the cooperation, on which he had reckoned, of his ancient allies the dukes of Burgundy and Brittany, he again summoned Ferdinand to his a.s.sistance, who, after a brief interview with his father in Barcelona, proceeded to Saragossa, to solicit aid from the estates of Aragon.
An incident occurred on this visit of the prince worth noticing, as strongly characteristic of the lawless habits of the age. A citizen of Saragossa, named Ximenes Gordo, of n.o.ble family, but who had relinquished the privileges of his rank in order to qualify himself for munic.i.p.al office, had acquired such ascendency over his townsmen, as to engross the most considerable posts in the city for himself and his creatures. This authority he abused in a shameless manner, making use of it not only for the perversion of justice, but for the perpetration of the most flagrant crimes. Although these facts were notorious, yet such were his power and popularity with the lower cla.s.ses, that Ferdinand, despairing of bringing him to justice in the ordinary way, determined on a more summary process.
As Gordo occasionally visited the palace to pay his respects to the prince, the latter affected to regard him with more than usual favor, showing him such courtesy as might dissipate any distrust he had conceived of him. Gordo, thus a.s.sured, was invited at one of those interviews to withdraw into a retired apartment, where the prince wished to confer with him on business of moment. On entering the chamber he was surprised by the sight of the public executioner, the hangman of the city, whose presence, together with that of a priest, and the apparatus of death with which the apartment was garnished, revealed at once the dreadful nature of his destiny.
He was then charged with the manifold crimes of which he had been guilty, and sentence of death was p.r.o.nounced on him. In vain did he appeal to Ferdinand, pleading the services which he had rendered on more than one occasion to his father. Ferdinand a.s.sured him that these should be gratefully remembered in the protection of his children, and then, bidding him unburden his conscience to his confessor, consigned him to the hand of the executioner. His body was exposed that very day in the market-place of the city, to the dismay of his friends and adherents, most of whom paid the penalty of their crimes in the ordinary course of justice. This extraordinary proceeding is highly characteristic of the unsettled times in which it occurred; when acts of violence often superseded the regular operation of the law, even in those countries, whose forms of government approached the nearest to a determinate const.i.tution. It will doubtless remind the reader of the similar proceeding imputed to Louis the Eleventh, in the admirable sketch given us of that monarch in "Quentin Durward."
[26]
The supplies furnished by the Aragonese cortes were inadequate to King John"s necessities, and he was compelled, while hovering with his little force on the confines of Roussillon, to witness the gradual reduction of its capital, without being able to strike a blow in its defence. The inhabitants, indeed, who fought with a resolution worthy of ancient Numantia or Saguntum, were reduced to the last extremity of famine, supporting life by feeding on the most loathsome offal, on cats, dogs, the corpses of their enemies, and even on such of their own dead as had fallen in battle! And when at length an honorable capitulation was granted them on the 14th of March, 1475, the garrison who evacuated the city, reduced to the number of four hundred, were obliged to march on foot to Barcelona, as they had consumed their horses during the siege. [27]
The terms of capitulation, which permitted every inhabitant to evacuate, or reside unmolested in the city, at his option, were too liberal to satisfy the vindictive temper of the king of France. He instantly wrote to his generals, instructing them to depart from their engagements, to keep the city so short of supplies as to compel an emigration of its original inhabitants, and to confiscate for their own use the estates of the princ.i.p.al n.o.bility; and after delineating in detail the perfidious policy which they were to pursue, he concluded with the a.s.surance, "that, by the blessing of G.o.d and our Lady, and Monsieur St. Martin, he would be with them before the winter, in order to aid them in its execution." [28] Such was the miserable medley of hypocrisy and superst.i.tion, which characterized the politics of the European courts in this corrupt age, and which dimmed the l.u.s.tre of names, most conspicuous on the page of history.
The occupation of Roussillon was followed by a truce of six months between the belligerent parties. The regular course of the narrative has been somewhat antic.i.p.ated, in order to conclude that portion of it relating to the war with Prance, before again reverting to the affairs of Castile, where Henry the Fourth, pining under an incurable malady, was gradually approaching the termination of his disastrous reign.
This event, which, from the momentous consequences it involved, was contemplated with the deepest solicitude, not only by those who had an immediate and personal interest at stake, but by the whole nation, took place on the night of the 11th of December, 1474. [29] It was precipitated by the death of the grand master of St. James, on whom the feeble mind of Henry had been long accustomed to rest for its support, and who was cut off by an acute disorder but a few months previous, in the full prime of his ambitious schemes. The king, notwithstanding the lingering nature of his disease gave him ample time for preparation, expired without a will, or even, as generally a.s.serted, the designation of a successor. This was the more remarkable, not only as being contrary to established usage, but as occurring at a period when the succession had been so long and hotly debated. [30] The testaments of the Castilian sovereigns, though never esteemed positively binding, and occasionally, indeed, set aside, when deemed unconst.i.tutional or even inexpedient by the legislature, [31] were always allowed to have great weight with the nation.
With Henry the Fourth terminated the male line of the house of Trastamara, who had kept possession of the throne for more than a century, and in the course of only four generations had exhibited every gradation of character from the bold and chivalrous enterprise of the first Henry of that name, down to the drivelling imbecility of the last.
The character of Henry the Fourth has been sufficiently delineated in that of his reign. He was not without certain amiable qualities, and may be considered as a weak, rather than a wicked prince. In persons, however, intrusted with the degree of power exercised by sovereigns of even the most limited monarchies of this period, a weak man may be deemed more mischievous to the state over which he presides than a wicked one. The latter, feeling himself responsible in the eyes of the nation for his actions, is more likely to consult appearances, and, where his own pa.s.sions or interests are not immediately involved, to legislate with reference to the general interests of his subjects. The former, on the contrary, is too often a mere tool in the hands of favorites, who, finding themselves screened by the interposition of royal authority from the consequences of measures for which they should be justly responsible, sacrifice without remorse the public weal to the advancement of their private fortunes. Thus the state, made to minister to the voracious appet.i.tes of many tyrants, suffers incalculably more than it would from one. So fared it with Castile under Henry the Fourth; dismembered by faction, her revenues squandered on worthless parasites, the grossest violations of justice unredressed, public faith become a jest, the treasury bankrupt, the court a brothel, and private morals too loose and audacious to seek even the veil of hypocrisy! Never had the fortunes of the kingdom reached so low an ebb since the great Saracen invasion.