Henry IV of Castile

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Henry IV of Castile : biography

5 January 1425 – 11 December 1474

After the victory at Olmedo, Álvaro de Luna’s power waned, and Prince Henry and Juan Pacheco’s influence grew. To counteract John II of Aragon’s politicking, Henry supported his son Charles, Prince of Viana. Charles was heir to Navarre, and he revolted against his father in 1450 when he refused to cede the throne of Navarre.Martín, p. 55 The favouritism of Álvaro de Luna ended with his arrest and execution in 1453.

King

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

One of his first priorities was the alliance with Portugal. He achieved this by marrying a second time, to Joan of Portugal in 1455, and by meeting Afonso V of Portugal in Elvas in 1456. His other main concern were the possibility of intervention from John II of Navarre, establishing peace with France and Aragon, and pardoning various aristocrats.Martín, p. 73. Henry frees the counts of Alba and Treviño, prisoners since the Záfraga coup, and annulled the exile of the Admiral Don Fadrique Henry convened the Cuéllar Courts to launch an offensive against the Emirate of Granada.Martín, p. 73 The campaigns of 1455 and 1458 developed into a war of attrition based on punitive raids and avoiding pitched battles. It was not popular with the aristocracy or the people. Juan Pacheco, the Marquis of Villena, and his brother Pedro Girón were put in charge of government decisions. The king also took other advisors, such as Beltrán de la Cueva, Miguel Lucas de Iranzo and Gómez de Cáceres to balance against their influence.

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

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

Marital politics

Prince Henry celebrated his marriage to the infanta Blanche (who later became queen Blanche II of Navarre) in 1440, when he was 15 years old. The cardinal Juan de Cervantes presided over the official ceremony. Her parents were Blanche I of Navarre and John II of Navarre. The marriage had been agreed in 1436 as part of the peace negotiations between Castille and Navarre.Valdeón Baruque, Julio, "Los Trastámaras", p.135 The dowry included territories and villas that had previously belonged to Navarre but had been won by the Castillian side during the war, and the Castillians agreed to hand the lands back provided they would be given them back again as part of the this dowry.Martín, p. 30

In May 1453, the bishop of Segovia Luis Vázquez de Acuña annulled the marriage of Henry and Blanche, on the grounds of Henry’s sexual impotence due to a curse.Testimonial of the divorce ruling between Prince Henry and the infanta Blanche, included in , pages. 444-450. This neatly reflected the recent political changes: Castille had supported Charles, Prince of Viana in his fight against John II of Aragon for the Navarre throne since 1451, and Álvaro de Luna, Duke of Trujillo had been executed in May 1453, leaving Henry with greater control of Castille.Martín, pp. 112-113 Henry alleged that he had been incapable of sexually consummating the marriage, despite having tried for over three years, the minimum period required by the church. Other women, prostitutes from Segovia, testified that they had had sexual relations with Henry, which is why he blamed his inability to consummate the marriage on a spell. Henry’s alleged ‘permanent impotence’ only affected his relations with Blanche. Blanche and Henry were cousins, and he was also a cousin of Joan of Portugal, who he wanted to marry instead. Surely therefore, the reason he using to seek the annulment was the sort of spell that only affected his ability to consummate this one marriage, and wouldn’t cause any problems for him with other women.Martín, José Luis, "Enrique IV", ed. Nerea, Hondarribia, 2003, pp. 312-313 Pope Nicholas V corroborated the decision in December of the same year in the papal bull Romanus Pontifex and provided a papal dispensation for Henry’s new marriage with the sister of the Portuguese king.Martín, pp.62-63Ohara, p. 59