Henry IV of Castile

Henry IV of Castile (Valladolid, January 5, 1425-Madrid, December 11, 1474) was King of Castile from 1454 until his death in 1474. Some historians called him contemptuously "the Impotent". He was the son of Juan II and María de Aragón, and paternal brother of Isabel la Católica, who was proclaimed queen at her death, and of the infante Alfonso, who disputed the throne while she was alive.

Biography

Henry as prince

Enrique was born in the now-defunct Casa de las Aldabas on Teresa Gil street in Valladolid. At birth, Castilla was under the control of Álvaro de Luna, who tried to control Enrique's companies and education. Among his youth companions was Juan Pacheco, who would be his trusted man. The fights, reconciliations and intrigues for power between the various nobles, the constable Álvaro de Luna and the Infantes of Aragon would be a constant.

In April 1425, three months after his birth, Enrique was sworn in as Prince of Asturias. Likewise, on October 10, 1444, he became the first, and only, Prince of Jaén.

During the Castilian civil war of 1437-1445, he fought on the side of the constable of Castile don Álvaro de Luna, who had the support of King Juan II. He participated in the decisive and final battle of Olmedo which led to the defeat of the faction headed by the infantes of Aragon and as a result received from his father the cities of Logroño, Ciudad Rodrigo and Jaén and the town of Cáceres, while his adviser Juan Pacheco He received the important Marquesate of Villena as well as some places on the border with the Kingdom of Portugal and his brother Pedro Girón obtained the Mastership of the Order of Calatrava.

After Olmedo's victory, the power of Álvaro de Luna would weaken, and the side of Prince Enrique and Juan Pacheco would gain influence. To counteract the policy of Juan II of Aragon and Navarre, they supported his son Carlos de Viana, heir to Navarre, who had risen up against his father in 1450 by refusing to cede the throne of Navarre to him. The privanza of Álvaro de Luna would end with his arrest and execution in 1453.

Early reign

Royal Seal of Enrique IV; National Archaeological Museum.

On July 20, 1454, Juan II of Castile died; the next day Enrique was proclaimed king of Castile.

One of his first concerns was the alliance with Portugal, which materialized in 1455 when he married Juana of Portugal for the second time and with Elvas meeting Alfonso V of Portugal in April 1456. Another of his concerns was to suppress the possibilities of intervention by King Juan II of Navarre, establishing peace with France and Aragon, and granting pardon to various nobles. Enrique convened the Cortes in Cuéllar to launch an offensive against the Kingdom of Granada. The campaigns between 1455 and 1458 developed as a war of attrition, based on punitive raids, and avoiding pitched confrontations, but it was not popular among the nobility and the people. Juan Pacheco, 1st Marquis of Villena, and his brother Pedro Girón, master of Calatrava, were in charge of government decisions, but the king incorporated new advisors such as Miguel Lucas de Iranzo, Beltrán de la Cueva or Gómez de Cáceres, to offset that influence.

In 1458, King Alfonso V of Aragon died, succeeded by his brother, King Juan II of Aragon and Navarre, who resumed his interference in the politics of Castile supporting the noble opposition in favor of the ambitions of Juan Pacheco. This, with the support of the king, undertook actions to seize the patrimony of Álvaro de Luna, but his widow allied with the Mendoza clan and with this, discontent was born among the nobility. The process gave rise to the formation, in Alcalá de Henares, of a Nobility League in March 1460, in which they proposed a greater noble presence, control of expenses, and the acceptance of the king's half-brother, Alfonso de Castile, as Prince of Asturias.

Henry IV reacted by invading Navarre in support of Carlos de Viana, then at war against his father, the king of Navarre and Aragon. The campaign was a military success, but the Castilian king agreed with the Liga nobiliaria in August 1461 to ward off the power of the Mendozas, which could allow Juan II of Aragón to intervene in Castile. However, Juan II of Aragón was in conflict in the Principality of Catalonia, and on the death of his son Carlos de Viana, the Generalitat elected the Castilian king as sovereign on August 11, 1462. The intervention of Enrique IV was framed in the rivalry against Juan II of Aragon, and because of this, Catalonia had to remain an unstable point within the Crown of Aragon. But Enrique IV, in the absence of successes and the Castilian economy harmed by the enmity of France, which supported Juan II of Aragon by the Treaty of Bayonne (1462), agreed to a settlement in the arbitration sentence of Bayonne, which It meant the abandonment of the Catalans.

Marriage Policy

Enrique IV's quartz coined in Jaén.

In 1440, at the age of fifteen, in a ceremony officiated by Cardinal Juan de Cervantes, the marriage of Prince Enrique with the Infanta Blanca of Navarra, daughter of Blanca I of Navarra and Juan II of Aragon, was celebrated and from Navarre. This marriage had been agreed upon in the Concord of Toledo in 1436. The bride's dowry included previously Navarrese territories and towns, but won by the Castilian side during the war, in such a way that the Castilians delivered what they would later receive as dowry.

In May 1453, the Bishop of Segovia Luis Vázquez de Acuña declared the marriage of Enrique and Blanca null, attributing it to Enrique's sexual impotence due to a curse. The political changes that had taken place were thus reflected: the support from 1451 to Carlos de Viana in his struggle against Juan II of Aragon for the Navarrese throne; and the execution of Álvaro de Luna in May 1453, which left Enrique with greater control over Castile. Enrique claimed that he had been unable to sexually consummate the marriage, despite having tried for more than three years, the minimum period of time. required by the Church. Some women, prostitutes from Segovia, testified to having had sexual relations with Enrique, so the lack of consummation of the marriage was attributed to a spell. It was alleged "perpetual impotence" of Enrique, although related to his relations with Doña Blanca. Blanca and Enrique were cousins, just as he was also the cousin of Doña Juana de Portugal, whom he wanted to marry. Surely for this reason, the reasoning used to request an annulment was that some type of enchantment prevented him from consummating the marriage, not having such a problem with other women. Pope Nicholas V corroborated the annulment sentence in December of that same year, in the bull Romanus Pontifex and provided pontifical dispensation for Henry's remarriage to the sister of the Portuguese king.

The chronicler Alonso de Palencia, one of Enrique's detractors, wrote that the marriage had been a farce and accused Enrique of despising his wife and trying to get her to commit adultery in order to have children. According to the chronicler, Enrique would arrive in the last years of his marriage to show the "most extreme hatred" to his wife and to be indifferent to the "narrows" that she was going through. However, Blanca renounced in 1462 her rights to throne of Navarra in favor of Enrique, whom he would invoke as protector, against his own father, Juan de Aragón.

The distance from Aragon leads to a rapprochement with Portugal. And in March 1453, before signing the annulment with Blanca, there is already evidence that Enrique's new marriage with Juana de Portugal, sister of King Alfonso V of Portugal, was being negotiated. The first matrimonial capitulations were signed in December of that year, although the negotiations were long and the final capitulations were not signed until February 1455. According to the chroniclers of the time, Juana did not contribute a dowry to the marriage and would not return what was received as long as the marriage did not take place. The length of the negotiations and these concessions could be interpreted as a weakness of Enrique due to the rumors about his impotence. The wedding took place in May 1455 in Córdoba, but without a notarial deed or a specific bull that authorized the wedding between the contracting parties, who were second cousins. On 28 February 1462, the queen had a daughter, Juana, whose paternity was called into question during the conflict over the succession to the crown.

Civil War

Enrique IV de Castilla towards 1463. Contemporary image decorating a Royal Privilege signed in Almazán on January 29 of that year.

Before the birth of his daughter, King Enrique summoned Cortes in Madrid, who swore her in as Princess of Asturias. But the conflict with the nobility resumed when Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, and his brother Pedro Girón, master of Calatrava, were removed from power by Beltrán de la Cueva. This produced an alteration in the alliances: the Mendozas would become support the king, and Pacheco instigated the reactivation of the Nobiliary League to eliminate the influence of Beltrán de la Cueva, remove Juana from the succession and guard the king's brothers to use them as political instruments, for which a campaign was launched of delegitimization of the monarch, questioning the paternity of his daughter, who was said to be the daughter of his new favourite, hence they referred to her as la Beltraneja. he formed the League in Alcalá de Henares asking for control of the king's brothers, whom they referred to as the legitimate successors of the kingdom.

Large noble lineages gradually joined the League, including King Juan II of Aragon. In September the noble opposition drafted a manifesto in Burgos, in which they poured accusations and insults against the monarch, such as that he favored Jews and Muslims, harmed the nobles for the benefit of people of low social extraction, to which excessive taxes were added, and above all, Beltrán de la Cueva was held responsible for the evils of the kingdom; it was demanded that Alfonso (11 years old), the king's brother, be recognized as heir, and be educated by Juan Pacheco, and the departure of the Court of Beltrán de la Cueva, thus making Juana illegitimate. The king gave in to the League's demands and agreed to negotiate. On October 25, an agreement was reached at the hearings in Cigales, and Enrique gave in to the demands of the nobility: Alfonso was handed over to Juan Pacheco and was sworn in as heir on November 30, on the condition that he marry Juana. Juan Pacheco regained his power, Beltrán de la Cueva was away from the court and Alfonso recalls The mastership of Santiago perished. The League did not finalize its claims, and agreed to name an arbitral commission appointed between the nobles and the king to decide the future governance of the kingdom.

On January 16, 1465, the Arbitral Judgment of Medina del Campo was handed down, with the king weakened by the absence of Miguel Lucas de Iranzo and Beltrán de la Cueva. Its chapters include an exhaustive series of government measures, such as the organization of the courts, the justice to be applied to the nobles, the control of fairs, the appointment of ecclesiastical positions, measures against Muslims and Jews, etc. Enrique does not accept the measures and on April 27 of the same year his adversaries proclaimed Alfonso king. The following June 5 the proclamation was ratified with a ceremony called Farsa de Ávila. Alfonso was then 11 years old. Thus, two armies are raised, but military actions are interspersed with negotiations: Enrique makes concessions to his supporters and tries to win over his opponents. As part of these negotiations, the marriage of the Infanta Isabel with Pedro Girón is offered, although he would die before the wedding could take place. The nobles also faced each other and the cities and towns revived the Brotherhoods in order to try to impose a certain order. Within the general disorder, there were abuses by the brotherhoods, and attacks on converts. In 1467, the second battle of Olmedo took place between supporters and opponents of the king, from which he emerged favored. However, he lost Segovia, the seat of the royal treasury, and a new agreement attempt led him to hand over his wife Juana as a hostage, which would later harm him when it was argued that the queen had become pregnant again during her captivity.

Succession conflict

On July 5, 1468, however, Alfonso, who had reigned about three years, died. For those who did not accept Juana as heir, the succession then passed to Isabel. Since both were women, the accusation of illegitimacy against Juana gained force. Isabel refused to take the royal title, but that of princess, and King Enrique, faced with his sister's conduct, agreed to negotiate. In 1468, Enrique and Isabel signed an agreement, the Treaty of the Bulls of Guisando, by which Enrique declared Isabel his heir, reserving the right to agree to their marriage, and the different factions of the nobility renewed their loyalty to the king. the infanta Juana aside is not her status as the daughter of another man, but the dubious legality of Enrique's marriage with his mother and her recent bad behavior, which is accused of infidelity during her captivity. Enrique had to divorce her his wife, according to the treaty, but does not get to start procedures. Enrique arranged for the marriage of Isabella with Alfonso V, King of Portugal, procuring the marriage of the Infanta Juana with one of Alfonso's sons. But Isabella secretly married in 1469 in Valladolid, with Fernando de Aragón, son of the King of Aragon, with which King Enrique considered the treaty violated and proclaimed his daughter Juana as heir to the throne in Val de Lozoya, publicly swearing that she was a legitimate daughter, who returned to the rank of princess and who should be sought a marriage accordingly.

The kingdom fell into anarchy, the king stopped ruling, agreeing as just another nobleman. Isabel and Fernando garnered more support as guarantors of the restoration of order. In November 1473, Andrés Cabrera, the king's butler and warden of the alcázar of Segovia was able to organize a reconciliation agreement between the king and his sister, to prevent Juan Pacheco from seized control of the treasury of the Alcazar of Segovia. Between the end of December and the beginning of January 1474, the king met with Isabel and Fernando and although there was cordiality, no peace agreement was reached, in which Isabel would be the heiress. The king fell ill, and faced with accusations of poisoning, the interlocutors separated. While Isabel remained in Segovia, the king spent the rest of the year practically in Madrid under the custody of Juan Pacheco.

Juan Pacheco died in October 1474, and the king followed him in December of the same year. Fernando del Pulgar recounted the event thus:

And then the king came to the villa of Madrid, and gave fifteen days, Gele aggrieved the sickness that he had, and died there in the alcazar onze the days of the month of Deciembre of this year of thousand and four hundred and seventy four years, at eleven hours of the night: he died of the age of fifty years, was home of good complexion, he drank not much wine; but daughter was dol

Chronicle of the Lords Catholic Kings Don Fernando and Doña Isabel de Castilla y de Aragón

Shortly after, the War of the Castilian Succession began between supporters of Isabel and those of Juana, Enrique's daughter.

The king's will disappeared. According to Lorenzo Galíndez de Carvajal, a clergyman from Madrid guarded the document and fled with it to Portugal.At the end of her life, Queen Isabel learned of the whereabouts of the will and ordered it brought to her. It was found and brought to court a few days before the death of the queen, in 1504. Always, according to Galíndez de Carvajal, who witnessed the queen's death, some said that the will was burned by King Ferdinand, while others others held that it was taken by a member of the royal council.

Enrique IV lies buried in the royal pantheon of the Monastery of Guadalupe, in Cáceres.

Debate on the health and sexuality of Henry IV

Henry IV. Artistic recreation Book of portraits of kings of Hernando de Avila (1594).

The question of whether Enrique was really impotent and Juana's paternity is not settled at all. The testimonies that affirm that she was capable of having sexual relations can be branded as partisan, while her impotence was proclaimed by her detractors, who saw in her signs that she could not govern correctly. The chronicler Fernando del Pulgar insistently reiterates the condition King. He explains, for example, that his opponents accused him with the following arguments:

(...) they had maculated their real person, saying that it was not done to king, and that he was an ephemed man, and that he had given of his will the King his muger to his private Beltran of the Cave, to whom he made Duke of Albuquerque, whose daughter claimed that it was that Doña Juana, and that it was odious to the righteousness, and distributed the royal heritage to their private ones, and to whom they chewed

Chronicle of the Lords Catholic Kings Don Fernando and Doña Isabel de Castilla y de Aragón

With the death of Alfonso, preferred to Isabel for being a man, his supporters went over to Isabel's side. Since they were both women, Isabel's legitimacy as heir would require Juana's illegitimacy. In more recent times the debate continues, as Isabel still has numerous supporters, even promoting a beatification process in her name.

Enrique has been blamed for impotence and homosexuality and has been accused of forcing his wife's relations with other men. Some sources even include the way in which he would have impregnated the queen, through an early artificial insemination technique using a golden cannula (per cannam auream), and other descriptions that allowed Gregorio Marañón to carry out his Biological essay on Enrique IV of Castile and his time (Madrid 1930), which diagnosed the king with eunuchoid dysplasia with an acromegalic reaction, and which It is currently defined as an endocrinopathy, possibly a pituitary tumor, manifesting chronic renal lithiasis, impotence, penile anomaly and infertility, in addition to psychopathological characteristics.

Also in his time, Enrique was attributed to being homosexual, in the work of his detractor Alonso de Palencia and in satirical poetry. However, Alonso de Palencia also accused Juan II of Castilla, father of Enrique and Isabel the Catholic herself, of homosexuality and his mother, Queen María, of adulteress. Álvaro de Luna and others were also accused of homosexuality. notable court figures, which makes one suspect that this type of accusation was common in smear campaigns. Gregorio Marañón, based on the work of Alonso de Palencia, also speaks of Enrique's homosexuality, although he concludes that it is not proven.

Finally, both the "Crónica Castellana" and that of Alonso de Palencia speak of "lovers" of the king, including Catalina de Sandoval, Guiomar de Castro and Beatriz de Vergara. Although they usually add that love affairs were "vain", it is not surprising that an impotent king sought love affairs that could expose him.

Genealogy

Succession

Predecessor: Catalina de Castilla (Leonor of Castile)	Prince of Asturias 1425-1454	Successor: Juana de Trastámara y Avís
Predecessor: New creation	Prince of Jaén 1444-1454	Successor: Title in disuse
Predecessor: John II	Administrator of the Order of Santiago (during the minority of Alfonso de Castilla) 1453-1462	Successor: Beltrán de la Cueva
Predecessor: Juan II de Castilla	King of Castile Deputated with Alfonso (1465-68) 1454-1474	Successor: Isabel I (in war with Juana and Alfonso V of Portugal)
Predecessor: John II of Aragon	Count of Barcelona (Disputed to John II of Aragon during the Catalan civil war) 1462-1463	Successor: Pedro de Portugal