The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Volume I Part 11

Conformably to this provision, John endeavored to persuade the princess Blanche to accompany him into France, under the pretext of forming an alliance for her with Louis's brother, the duke of Berri. The unfortunate lady, comprehending too well her father's real purpose, besought him with the most piteous entreaties not to deliver her into the hands of her enemies; but, closing his heart against all natural affection, he caused her to be torn from her residence at Olit, in the heart of her own dominions, and forcibly transported across the mountains into those of the count of Foix. On arriving at St. Jean Pied de Port, a little town on the French side of the Pyrenees, being convinced that she had nothing further to hope from human succor, she made a formal renunciation of her right to Navarre in favor of her cousin and former husband, Henry the Fourth, of Castile, who had uniformly supported the cause of her brother Carlos.

Henry, though debased by sensual indulgence, was naturally of a gentle disposition, and had never treated her personally with unkindness. In a letter, which she now addressed to him, and which, says a Spanish historian, cannot be read, after the lapse of so many years, without affecting the most insensible heart, [30] she reminded him of the dawn of happiness which she had enjoyed under his protection, of his early engagements to her, and of her subsequent calamities; and, antic.i.p.ating the gloomy destiny which awaited her, she settled on him her inheritance of Navarre, to the entire exclusion of her intended a.s.sa.s.sins, the count and countess of Foix. [31]

On the same day, the last of April, she was delivered over to one of their emissaries, who conducted her to the castle of Ortes in Bearne, where, after languis.h.i.+ng in dreadful suspense for nearly two years, she was poisoned by the command of her sister. [32] The retribution of Providence not unfrequently overtakes the guilty even in this world. The countess survived her father to reign in Navarre only three short weeks; while the crown was ravished from her posterity for ever by that very Ferdinand, whose elevation had been the object to his parents of so much solicitude and so many crimes.

Within a fortnight after the decease of Carlos, the customary oaths of allegiance, so pertinaciously withheld from that unfortunate prince, were tendered by the Aragonese deputation, at Calatayud, to his brother Ferdinand, then only ten years of age, as heir apparent of the monarchy; after which he was conducted by his mother into Catalonia, in order to receive the more doubtful homage of that province. The extremities of Catalonia at this time seemed to be in perfect repose, but the capital was still agitated by secret discontent. The ghost of Carlos was seen stalking by night through the streets of Barcelona, bewailing in piteous accents his untimely end, and invoking vengeance on his unnatural murderers. The manifold miracles wrought at his tomb soon gained him the reputation of a saint, and his image received the devotional honors reserved for such as have been duly canonized by the church. [33]

The revolutionary spirit of the Barcelonians, kept alive by the recollection of past injury, as well as by the apprehensions of future vengeance, should John succeed in reestablis.h.i.+ng his authority over them, soon became so alarming, that the queen, whose consummate address, however, had first accomplished the object of her visit, found it advisable to withdraw from the capital; and she sought refuge, with her son and such few adherents as still remained faithful to them, in the fortified city of Gerona, about fifty miles north of Barcelona.

Hither, however, she was speedily pursued by the Catalan militia, embodied under the command of their ancient leader Roger, count of Pallas, and eager to regain the prize which they had so inadvertently lost. The city was quickly entered, but the queen, with her handful of followers, had retreated to a tower belonging to the princ.i.p.al church in the place, which, as was very frequent in Spain, in those wild times, was so strongly fortified as to be capable of maintaining a formidable resistance. To oppose this, a wooden fortress of the same height was constructed by the a.s.sailants, and planted with lombards and other pieces of artillery then in use, which kept up an unintermitting discharge of stone bullets on the little garrison. [34] The Catalans also succeeded in running a mine beneath the fortress, through which a considerable body of troops penetrated into it, when, their premature cries of exultation having discovered them to the besieged, they were repulsed, after a desperate struggle, with great slaughter. The queen displayed the most intrepid spirit in the midst of these alarming scenes; unappalled by the sense of her own danger and that of her child, and by the dismal lamentations of the females by whom she was surrounded, she visited every part of the works in person, cheering her defenders by her presence and dauntless resolution. Such were the stormy and disastrous scenes in which the youthful Ferdinand commenced a career, whose subsequent prosperity was destined to be checkered by scarcely a reverse of fortune. [35]

In the mean while, John, having in vain attempted to penetrate through Catalonia to the relief of his wife, effected this by the co-operation of his French ally, Louis the Eleventh. That monarch, with his usual insidious policy, had covertly despatched an envoy to Barcelona on the death of Carlos, a.s.suring the Catalans of his protection, should they still continue averse to a reconciliation with their own sovereign. These offers were but coldly received; and Louis found it more for his interest to accept the propositions made to him by the king of Aragon himself, which subsequently led to most important consequences. By three several treaties, of the 3d, 21st, and 23d of May, 1462, it was stipulated, that Louis should furnish his ally with seven hundred lances and a proportionate number of archers and artillery during the war with Barcelona, to be indemnified by the payment of two hundred thousand gold crowns within one year after the reduction of that city; as security for which the counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne were pledged by John, with the cession of their revenues to the French king, until such time as the original debt should be redeemed. In this transaction both monarchs manifested their usual policy; Louis believing that this temporary mortgage would become a permanent alienation, from John's inability to discharge it; while the latter antic.i.p.ated, as the event showed, with more justice, that the aversion of the inhabitants to the dismemberment of their country from the Aragonese monarchy would baffle every attempt on the part of the French to occupy it permanently. [36]

In pursuance of these arrangements, seven hundred French lances with a considerable body of archers and artillery [37] crossed the mountains, and, rapidly advancing on Gerona, compelled the insurgent army to raise the siege, and to decamp with such precipitation as to leave their cannon in the hands of the royalists. The Catalans now threw aside the thin veil, with which they had hitherto covered their proceedings. The authorities of the princ.i.p.ality, established in Barcelona, publicly renounced their allegiance to King John and his son Ferdinand, and proclaimed them enemies of the republic. Writings at the same time were circulated, denouncing from scriptural authority, as well as natural reason, the doctrine of legitimacy in the broadest terms, and insisting that the Aragonese monarchs, far from being absolute, might be lawfully deposed for an infringement of the liberties of the nation. "The good of the commonwealth," it was said, "must always be considered paramount to that of the prince." Extraordinary doctrines these for the age in which they were promulged, affording a still more extraordinary contrast with those which have been since familiar in that unhappy country! [38]

The government then enforced levies of all such as were above the age of fourteen, and, distrusting the sufficiency of its own resources, offered the sovereignty of the princ.i.p.ality to Henry the Fourth, of Castile. The court of Aragon, however, had so successfully insinuated its influence into the council of this imbecile monarch, that he was not permitted to afford the Catalans any effectual support; and, as he abandoned their cause altogether before the expiration of the year, [39] the crown was offered to Don Pedro, constable of Portugal, a descendant of the ancient house of Barcelona. In the mean while, the old king of Aragon, attended by his youthful son, had made himself master, with his characteristic activity, of considerable acquisitions in the revolted territory, successively reducing Lerida, [40] Cervera, Amposta, [41] Tortosa, and the most important places in the south of Catalonia. Many of these places were strongly fortified, and most of them defended with a resolution which cost the conqueror a prodigious sacrifice of time and money. John, like Philip of Macedon, made use of gold even more than arms, for the reduction of his enemies; and, though he indulged in occasional acts of resentment, his general treatment of those who submitted was as liberal as it was politic.

His compet.i.tor, Don Pedro, had brought little foreign aid to the support of his enterprise; he had failed altogether in conciliating the attachment of his new subjects; and, as the operations of the war had been conducted on his part in the most languid manner, the whole of the princ.i.p.ality seemed destined soon to relapse under the dominion of its ancient master.

At this juncture the Portuguese prince fell ill of a fever, of which he died on the 29th of June, 1466. This event, which seemed likely to lead to a termination of the war, proved ultimately the cause of its protraction.

[42]

It appeared, however, to present a favorable opportunity to John for opening a negotiation with the insurgents. But, so resolute were they in maintaining their independence, that the council of Barcelona condemned two of the princ.i.p.al citizens, suspected of defection from the cause, to be publicly executed; it refused moreover to admit an envoy from the Aragonese cortes within the city, and caused the despatches, with which he was intrusted by that body, to be torn in pieces before his face.

The Catalans then proceeded to elect Rene le Bon, as he was styled, of Anjou, to the vacant throne, brother of one of the original compet.i.tors for the crown of Aragon on the demise of Martin; whose cognomen of "Good"

is indicative of a sway far more salutary to his subjects than the more coveted and imposing t.i.tle of Great. [43] This t.i.tular sovereign of half a dozen empires, in which he did not actually possess a rood of land, was too far advanced in years to a.s.sume this perilous enterprise himself; and he accordingly intrusted it to his son John, duke of Calabria and Lorraine, who, in his romantic expeditions in southern Italy, had acquired a reputation for courtesy and knightly prowess, inferior to none other of his time. [44] Crowds of adventurers flocked to the standard of a leader, whose ample inheritance of pretensions had made him familiar with war from his earliest boyhood; and he soon found himself at the head of eight thousand effective troops. Louis the Eleventh, although not directly aiding his enterprise with supplies of men or money, was willing so far to countenance it, as to open a pa.s.sage for him through the mountain fastnesses of Roussillon, then in his keeping, and thus enable him to descend with his whole army at once on the northern borders of Catalonia.

[45]

The king of Aragon could oppose no force capable of resisting this formidable army. His exchequer, always low, was completely exhausted by the extraordinary efforts, which he had made in the late campaigns; and, as the king of France, either disgusted with the long protraction of the war, or from secret good-will to the enterprise of his feudal subject, withheld from King John the stipulated subsidies, the latter monarch found himself unable, with every expedient of loan and exaction, to raise sufficient money to pay his troops, or to supply his magazines. In addition to this, he was now involved in a dispute with the count and countess of Foix, who, eager to antic.i.p.ate the possession of Navarre, which had been guaranteed to them on their father's decease, threatened a similar rebellion, though on much less justifiable pretences, to that which he had just experienced from Don Carlos. To crown the whole of John's calamities, his eyesight, which had been impaired by exposure and protracted sufferings during the winter siege of Amposta, now failed him altogether. [46]

In this extremity, his intrepid wife, putting herself at the head of such forces as she could collect, pa.s.sed by water to the eastern sh.o.r.es of Catalonia, besieging Rosas in person, and checking the operations of the enemy by the capture of several inferior places; while Prince Ferdinand, effecting a junction with her before Gerona, compelled the duke of Lorraine to abandon the siege of that important city. Ferdinand's ardor, however, had nearly proved fatal to him; as, in an accidental encounter with a more numerous party of the enemy, his jaded horse would infallibly have betrayed him into their hands, had it not been for the devotion of his officers, several of whom, throwing themselves between him and his pursuers, enabled him to escape by the sacrifice of their own liberty.

These ineffectual struggles could not turn the tide of fortune. The duke of Lorraine succeeded in this and the two following campaigns in making himself master of all the rich district of Ampurdan, northeast of Barcelona. In the capital itself, his truly princely qualities and his popular address secured him the most unbounded influence. Such was the enthusiasm for his person, that, when he rode abroad, the people thronged around him, embracing his knees, the trappings of his steed, and even the animal himself, in their extravagance; while the ladies, it is said, p.a.w.ned their rings, necklaces, and other ornaments of their attire, in order to defray the expenses of the war. [47]

King John, in the mean while, was draining the cup of bitterness to the dregs. In the winter of 1468, his queen, Joan Henriquez, fell a victim to a painful disorder, which had been secretly corroding her const.i.tution for a number of years. In many respects, she was the most remarkable woman of her time. She took an active part in the politics of her husband, and may be even said to have given them a direction. She conducted several important diplomatic negotiations to a happy issue, and, what was more uncommon in her s.e.x, displayed considerable capacity for military affairs.

Her persecution of her step-son, Carlos, has left a deep stain on her memory. It was the cause of all her husband's subsequent misfortunes. Her invincible spirit, however, and the resources of her genius, supplied him with the best means of surmounting many of the difficulties in which she had involved him, and her loss at this crisis seemed to leave him at once without solace or support. [48]

At this period, he was further embarra.s.sed, as will appear in the ensuing chapter, by negotiations for Ferdinand's marriage, which was to deprive him, in a great measure, of his son's co-operation in the struggle with his subjects, and which, as he lamented, while he had scarcely three hundred _enriques_ in his coffers, called on him for additional disburs.e.m.e.nts.

As the darkest hour, however, is commonly said to precede the dawning, so light now seemed to break upon the affairs of John. A physician in Lerida, of the Hebrew race, which monopolized at that time almost all the medical science in Spain, persuaded the king to submit to the then unusual operation of couching, and succeeded in restoring sight to one of his eyes. As the Jew, after the fas.h.i.+on of the Arabs, debased his real science with astrology, he refused to operate on the other eye, since the planets, he said, wore a malignant aspect. But John's rugged nature was insensible to the timorous superst.i.tions of his age, and he compelled the physician to repeat his experiment, which in the end proved perfectly successful.

Thus restored to his natural faculties, the octogenarian chief, for such he might now almost be called, regained his wonted elasticity, and prepared to resume offensive operations against the enemy with all his accustomed energy. [49] Heaven, too, as if taking compa.s.sion on his acc.u.mulated misfortunes, now removed the princ.i.p.al obstacle to his success by the death of the duke of Lorraine, who was summoned from the theatre of his short-lived triumphs on the 16th of December, 1469. The Barcelonians were thrown into the greatest consternation by his death, imputed, as usual, though without apparent foundation, to poison; and their respect for his memory was attested by the honors no less than royal, which they paid to his remains. His body, sumptuously attired, with his victorious sword by his side, was paraded in solemn procession through the illuminated streets of the city, and, after lying nine days in state, was deposited amid the lamentations of the people in the sepulchre of the sovereigns of Catalonia. [50]

As the father of the deceased prince was too old, and his children too young, to give effectual aid to their cause, the Catalans might be now said to be again without a leader. But their spirit was unbroken, and with the same resolution in which they refused submission more than two centuries after, in 1714, when the combined forces of France and Spain were at the gates of the capital, they rejected the conciliatory advances made them anew by John. That monarch, however, having succeeded by extraordinary efforts in a.s.sembling a competent force, was proceeding with his usual alacrity in the reduction of such places in the eastern quarter of Catalonia as had revolted to the enemy, while at the same time he inst.i.tuted a rigorous blockade of Barcelona by sea and land. The fortifications were strong, and the king was unwilling to expose so fair a city to the devastating horrors of a storm. The inhabitants made one vigorous effort in a sally against the royal forces; but the civic militia were soon broken, and the loss of four thousand men, killed and prisoners, admonished them of their inability to cope with the veterans of Aragon.

[51]

At length, reduced to the last extremity, they consented to enter into negotiations, which were concluded by a treaty equally honorable to both parties. It was stipulated, that Barcelona should retain all its ancient privileges and rights of jurisdiction, and, with some exceptions, its large territorial possessions. A general amnesty was to be granted for offences. The foreign mercenaries were to be allowed to depart in safety; and such of the natives, as should refuse to renew their allegiance to their ancient sovereign within a year, might have the liberty of removing with their effects wherever they would. One provision may be thought somewhat singular, after what had occurred; it was agreed that the king should cause the Barcelonians to be publicly proclaimed, throughout all his dominions, good, faithful, and loyal subjects; which was accordingly done!

The king, after the adjustment of the preliminaries, "declining," says a contemporary, "the triumphal car which had been prepared for him, made his entrance into the city by the gate of St. Anthony, mounted on a white charger; and, as he rode along the princ.i.p.al streets, the sight of so many pallid countenances and emaciated figures, bespeaking the extremity of famine, smote his heart with sorrow." He then proceeded to the hall of the great palace, and on the 22d of December, 1472, solemnly swore there to respect the const.i.tution and laws of Catalonia. [52]

Thus ended this long, disastrous civil war, the fruit of parental injustice and oppression, which had nearly cost the king of Aragon the fairest portion of his dominions; which devoted to disquietude and disappointment more than ten years of life, at a period when repose is most grateful; and which opened the way to foreign wars, that continued to hang like a dark cloud over the evening of his days. It was attended, however, with one important result; that of establis.h.i.+ng Ferdinand's succession over the whole of the domains of his ancestors.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The reader who may be curious in this matter will find the pedigree exhibiting the t.i.tles of the several compet.i.tors to the crown given by Mr.

Hallam. (State of Europe during the Middle Ages, (2d ed. London, 1819,) vol. ii. p. 60, note.) The claims of Ferdinand were certainly not derived from the usual laws of descent.

[2] The reader of Spanish history often experiences embarra.s.sment from the ident.i.ty of names in the various princes of the Peninsula. Thus the John, mentioned in the text, afterwards John II., might be easily confounded with his namesake and contemporary, John II., of Castile. The genealogical table, at the beginning of this History, will show their relations.h.i.+p to each other.

[3] His grandfather, Charles III., created this t.i.tle in favor of Carlos, appropriating it as the designation henceforth of the heir apparent.-- Aleson, a.n.a.les del Reyno de Navarra, contin. de Moret, (Pamplona, 1766,) tom. iv. p. 398.--Salazar de Mendoza, Monarquia, tom. ii. p. 331.

[4] See Part I. Chap. 3, Note 5, of this History.

[5] This fact, vaguely and variously reported by Spanish writers, is fully established by Aleson, who cites the original instrument, contained in the archives of the counts of Lerin. a.n.a.les de Navarra, tom. iv. pp. 354, 365.

[6] See the reference to the original doc.u.ment in Aleson. (Tom. iv. pp.

365, 366.) This industrious writer has established the t.i.tle of Prince Carlos to Navarre, so frequently misunderstood or misrepresented by the national historians, on an incontestable basis.

[7] Ibid., tom. iv. p. 467.

[8] See Part I. Chap. 3, of this work.

[9] Gaillard errs in referring the origin of these factions to this epoch.

(Histoire de la Rivalite de France et de l'Espagne, (Paris, 1801,) tom.

iii. p. 227.) Aleson quotes a proclamation of John in relation to them in the lifetime of Queen Blanche. Annales de Navarra, tom. iv. p. 494.

[10] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iii. fol. 278.--Lucio Marineo Siculo, Coronista de sus Magestades, Las Cosas Memorables de Espana, (Alcala de Henares, 1539,) fol. 104.--Aleson, a.n.a.les de Navarra, tom. iv. pp. 494-498.

[11] Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. fol. 223.--Aleson, a.n.a.les de Navarra, tom. iv. pp. 501-503.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 105.

[12] Compendio, tom. iii. p. 419.--L. Marineo describes the heavens as uncommonly serene at the moment of Ferdinand's birth. "The sun, which had been obscured with clouds during the whole day, suddenly broke forth with unwonted splendor. A crown was also beheld in the sky, composed of various brilliant colors like those of a rainbow. All which appearances were interpreted by the spectators as an omen, that the child then born would be the most ill.u.s.trious among men." (Cosas Memorables, fol. 153.) Garibay postpones the nativity of Ferdinand to the year 1453, and L. Marineo, who ascertains with curious precision even the date of his conception, fixes his birth in 1450, (fol. 153.) But Alonso de Palencia in his History, (Verdadera Coronica de Don Enrique IV., Rei de Castilla y Leon, y del Rei Don Alonso su Hermano, MS.) and Andres Bernaldez, Cura de Los Palacios, (Historia de los Reyes Catolicos, MS., c. 8,) both of them contemporaries, refer this event to the period a.s.signed in the text; and, as the same epoch is adopted by the accurate Zurita, (a.n.a.les, tom. iv. fol. 9,) I have given it the preference.

[13] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iv. fol. 3-48.--Aleson, a.n.a.les de Navarra, tom.

iv. pp. 508-526.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 105.

[14] Giannone, Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli, (Milano, 1823,) lib.

26, c. 7.--Ferreras, Histoire Generale d'Espagne, trad. par D'Hermilly, (Paris, 1751,) tom. vii. p. 60.--L'Histoire du Royaume de Navarre, par l'un des Secretaires Interprettes de sa Majeste, (Paris, 1596,) p. 468.

[15] Compare the narrative of the Neapolitan historians, Summonte (Historia della Citta e Regno di Napoli, (Napoli, 1675,) lib. 5, c. 2) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile, lib. 26, c. 7.--lib. 27. Introd.) with the opposite statements of L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, (fol. 106,) himself a contemporary, Aleson, (a.n.a.les de Navarra, tom. iv. p. 546,) and other Spanish writers.

[16] Enriquez del Castillo, Cronica de Enrique el Quarto, (Madrid, 1787,) cap. 43.

[17] Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iv. fol. 97.--Nic. Antonio, Bibliotheca Vetus, tom. ii. p. 282.--L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 106.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. fol. 250.--Carlos bargained with Pope Pius II. for a transfer of this library, particularly rich in the ancient cla.s.sics, to Spain, which was eventually defeated by his death. Zurita, who visited the monastery containing it nearly a century after this period, found its inmates possessed of many traditionary anecdotes respecting the prince during his seclusion among them.

[18] Aleson, a.n.a.les de Navarra, tom. iv. pp. 548-554.--Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, tom. ii. fol. 251.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iv. fol. 60-69.

[19] Abarca, Reyes de Aragon, ubi supra.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, tom. iv. fol.

70-75.--Aleson, a.n.a.les de Navarra, tom. iv. p. 556.

[20] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 108.--Zurita, a.n.a.les, lib. 17, cap. 3.--Aleson, a.n.a.les de Navarra, tom. iv. pp. 556, 557.--Castillo, Cronica, cap. 27.