John I of Castile

Juan I of Castilla (Épila or Tamarite de Litera, 1358-Alcalá de Henares, October 9, 1390) was King of Castile from May 29, 1379 to 9 October 1390. He was the son of Enrique II of Castile and Juana Manuel de Villena, daughter of Don Juan Manuel.

Juan I of Castile was born in Aragon during the exile of his father, who was not yet king. He was the last solemnly crowned Castilian king. After him, monarchs assumed royal dignity by proclamation and acclamation. The full title was: King of Castile, León, Portugal (since 1383), Toledo, Galicia, Seville, Córdoba, Murcia, Jaén, the Algarve, Algeciras and Lord of Lara (until 1387)., from Vizcaya and from Molina (until 1387).

Family origins

He was the son of Enrique II of Castile and Juana Manuel de Villena. On his paternal side his grandparents were King Alfonso XI of Castile and Leonor de Guzmán. On his maternal side were his grandparents Don Juan Manuel and Blanca Núñez de Lara.

He was the brother of Leonor de Trastámara, queen consort of Navarre by her marriage to Carlos III the Noble.

Hundred Years War

Major Tovar and Vienne attacks on England (1374–1380)

Henry II had received the help of French knights, led by Bertrand Du Guesclin himself, during his confrontation with Pedro I the Cruel or the Justiciero. Enrique's final victory in the Castilian Civil War will provide France with a powerful ally on the naval plane. Both Enrique and his son Juan send the Castilian Armada, which destroys the English fleet at La Rochelle (1372) and sacks or burns numerous English ports (Rye, Rottingdean, Lewes, Folkestone, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Wight, Hastings) in 1374 and (after the Truce of Bruges) between 1377 and 1380, the year in which the combined fleet of the Castilian admiral Fernando Sánchez de Tovar and the Frenchman Jean de Vienne even threatened London. Sir Richard Knolles in 1360 and the Duke of Lancaster, Juan de Gante, formed in 1363 expeditionary forces that attacked the continent, but were stopped.

He maintained his friendship with Carlos III of Navarre, who was married to his sister Leonor, putting an end to the conflicts between the two kingdoms.

Crisis of 1383-1385 in Portugal

Escudo del Rey Juan de Castilla (as a Spanish monarch and suitor to the throne of Portugal).

To ensure the succession to the Portuguese throne of Beatriz de Portugal, daughter of Ferdinand I of Portugal, the Portuguese Court agreed to the marriage between Beatriz and Juan I of Castile. The matrimonial capitulations were made on April 2, 1383 in Salvaterra de Magos and they stipulated that on the death of Ferdinand I without sons, the crown would pass to Beatriz and her husband would become King of Portugal. Although Juan I of Castile could call himself King of Portugal, the Castilian and Portuguese parties agreed not to mix the kingdoms of Castile and Portugal, and therefore Eleanor, the widow of King Ferdinand, would remain as regent and in charge of the government of Portugal until Beatriz had a son who reached fourteen years of age, who would assume the government and title of King of Portugal, and his parents would cease to be. If Beatriz died without children, the crown would pass to other hypothetical younger sisters, and in case negative, the crown would pass to Juan I of Castilla, and through him to his son Enrique, discarding the children of Inés de Castro. Pedro de Luna, papal legate for the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, Portugal and Navarra, began the betrothal by words in Elvas on May 14, and the ceremony took place on May 17 in the Badajoz cathedral. To ensure compliance with the treaty, on May 21 a group of Castilian knights and prelates swore to denaturalize themselves from the kingdom and fight against their king if the Castilian king broke the commitments agreed in the treaty, and a group of Portuguese knights and prelates did the same if the king of Portugal broke the treaty with Castile, the master of Avís being among them.

Miniature of the Battle of Aljubarrota in the Anciennes et nouvelles chroniques d'Angleterre by Jean de Wavrin, c.1470. British Library.

The death of King Ferdinand I of Portugal took place on October 22, 1383; Leonor, his widow, in accordance with the treaty of Salvaterra de Magos and the testament of the deceased king, took charge of the regency and government in the name of her daughter.

The news of the death of the Portuguese king reached Juan I of Castile and Beatriz in Torrijos, once the Cortes in Segovia had been closed. The master of Avís wrote to him urging him to take the Portuguese crown that belonged to him through his wife, and the master himself would assume the regency. To avoid dynastic problems with Inés de Castro's eldest son, Juan, he locked him up in the Alcazar of Toledo. The Castilian king met the Council in Montalbán and sent Alfonso López de Tejeda with instructions for the Portuguese regent to proceed to proclaim Beatriz and himself kings of Portugal. The proclamation was made, but in Lisbon and in In other places, such as Elvas and Santarém, there was a popular rejection in favor of Juan, the eldest son of Inés de Castro.

Juan I of Castile adopted the title and arms of King of Portugal, which was recognized by the pope of Avignon and ordered the start of his troops, since the chancellor of Beatriz, who was the bishop of Guarda, Affonso Correia, promised him the delivery of the square. King Juan I of Castile entered Portugal with his wife to ensure obedience in Portugal and the rights of his wife.

For Juan I of Castilla, the marriage to Beatriz meant maintaining a protectorate over the Portuguese kingdom and the possibility of preventing the English from establishing themselves in the Peninsula. But the expectation of a commercial monopoly, the fear of Castilian domination and the loss of Portuguese independence, as well as the opposition to the regent and her clique, surfaced at the end of November and beginning of December, when the uprising took place in Lisbon. The master of Avís assassinated the regent's favorite, Juan Fernández de Andeiro, Count of Ourém, and after that there was an uprising of the common people against the government at the instigation of Álvaro Pais, in which Martinho Anes, bishop of Lisbon. The uprising spread through the provinces, claiming the lives of the abbess of Benedictine nuns in Évora, the prior of the collegiate church of Guimarães or Lançarote Pessanha, admiral of Portugal, in Beja. The uprising had the support of the bourgeoisie, but not of the aristocracy, which continued to support Eleanor. Queen Eleanor fled Lisbon with the Court and took refuge in Alenquer. In Lisbon, Álvaro Pais proposed the marriage of the Master of Avís with Leonor to take charge of the regency jointly, but Leonor rejected it and before the news of the coming of the Castilian king, the Master of Avís was elected defender and regent of the kingdom. On December 16, 1383, as defender of the rights of the infant Juan de Portugal, Inés de Castro's eldest son, he appointed João das Regras as chancellor and Nuno Álvares Pereira as constable, and asked England for help. He tried to besiege Alenquer but Eleanor fled to Santarém, so they returned to prepare the defense of Lisbon. In Santarém, Leonor proceeded to recruit an army and asked her son-in-law, the King of Castile, for help. Juan I of Castilla made the decision to control the situation in Portugal and left a Regency Council formed by the Marquis in the Kingdom of Castile. de Villena, the Archbishop of Toledo and the King's butler. In January 1384 King Juan I of Castile, together with Beatriz, set out on the road to Santarém at the call of the Queen Regent in order to control the situation of the kingdom. On January 13, King Juan I of Castilla obtained from Queen Leonor the resignation of the regency and the government in his favor, which caused many knights and governors of castles to appear to swear obedience to both him and his wife Beatriz, like those of Santarém, Ourém, Leiría, Montemor o Velho, Feira, Penella, Óbidos, Torres Vedras, Torres Novas, Alenquer, Cintra, Arronches, Alegrete, Amieira, Campomayor, Olivenza, Portel, Moura, Mértola, Braga, Lanhoso, Valencia de Miño, Melgazo, Vila Nova de Cerveira, Viana do Castelo and Ponte de Lima, Guimarães, Caminha, Braganza, Vinhais, Chaves, Monforte, Miranda do Duero, Montalegre, Mirandela, Castelo Rodrigo, Almeida, Penamacor, Guarda, Covilana or Celorico da Beira. Since Leonor tried to conspire against her son-in-law, she was sent to the Tordesillas monastery. This encouraged the cause of the master of Avís to justify the revolt as the treaty of Salvaterra de Magos had been violated.

Although he had the majority of the Portuguese aristocracy loyal to his cause, King Juan I of Castile did not repeat the Castilian successes of the Fernandina Wars and failed before Coimbra and Lisbon. On September 3, 1384, Juan I of Castile left garrisons in the squares of his supporters, returned to Castile and asked the King of France for help. Meanwhile, the master of Avís tried to seize places loyal to his adversaries, and although he took Almada and Alenquer, he failed in Cintra, Torres-Novas and Torres Velhas, after which he went to Coimbra, where he had convened Cortes for March 1385. In them Beatriz was declared illegitimate and the master was elected and proclaimed as Juan I of Portugal on April 6. After the Cortes, the new sovereign undertook a campaign to control the north of the kingdom, and thus obtained Viana do Castelo, Braga and Guimarães. Juan I of Castile re-entered Portugal via the Ciudad Rodrigo y Celorico route. But the defeats suffered by his army in Trancoso and Aljubarrota in May and August 1385 meant the end of the possibility of imposing himself as King of Portugal.

In Aljubarrota, the Castilian disaster was absolute, the king fled to Santarém and from there he descended the Tagus until he met his fleet around Lisbon. In September the Castilian fleet returned to Castile and Juan I of Portugal obtained control of the squares that were still adverse to him. From the region of Santarém, he undertook control of the region north of the Duero, where there were Portuguese knights who were loyal to Beatriz and Juan I of Castilla: Villareal de Pavões, Chaves and Braganza capitulated at the end of March 1386, and Almeida, at the beginning of June 1386.

Constance and Juan de Gante, Kings of Castile

With the defeat of Aljubarrota, the legitimist aspirations of the descendants of Pedro I the Cruel returned from lethargy: his daughter Constanza and her husband Juan de Gante, who called themselves kings of Castile since 1372. On May 9, 1386, Portugal and England stipulated an alliance by the Treaty of Windsor and in July Juan de Gante, his wife and their daughter, Catalina de Lancáster, landed in Galicia, establishing their court in Orense. Juan I of Castilla reacted and summoned Cortes in Segovia to ensure the defense of the Castilian kingdom. Given the poor results of the Anglo-Portuguese campaign and the loss of support in Galicia, Juan de Gante and Juan I of Castilla negotiated an agreement behind the back of the Portuguese king, the Treaty of Bayonne on July 8, 1388, by which Juan de Gante and his wife renounced their Castilian inheritance rights in favor of the marriage of their daughter Catalina with the eldest son of Juan I of Castile, the future Enrique III, who were granted the status of Princes of Asturias. Thus the two succession branches of Alfonso XI were united and the title of Prince of Asturias was established, which will always be held by the heir to the crown of Castile and later of Spain. Enrique, son of Juan I, was the first prince to possess this title, together with the inherent income, since the Asturian territory belonged to them as patrimony.

The interruption of the Hundred Years' War in the truce of Leulinghem motivated the truce of Monçao on November 23, 1389, by which Castile and Portugal restored the occupied squares to the adversary.

Death and burial

Sepulchre of Juan I. Chapel of the New Kings of the Cathedral of Toledo.

Juan I of Castilla died on October 9, 1390 next to the Burgos gate, located outside the walls of the Archiepiscopal Palace of Alcalá de Henares, as a result of having fallen from a horse that had been given to him. His death was kept secret by Cardinal Pedro Tenorio for several days, alleging that he was wounded, until everything related to the regency of Enrique III, a minor at the time, was resolved.

After his death, the body of Juan I of Castilla was transferred to the city of Toledo, where he was buried in the Chapel of the New Kings of the Toledo Cathedral, where his mortal remains rest today.

Marriages and offspring

He married Leonor de Aragón, daughter of Pedro IV the Ceremonious, in the convent of San Francisco de Soria in 1375. Two children were born from his first marriage:

• Henry III of Castile (1379-1406), King of Castile.
• Fernando I de Aragón (1380-1416), king of Aragon.

Later, he remarried Beatriz, heiress to the throne of Portugal, in the city of Badajoz. From this union there was no offspring.

Ancestors

Predecessor: Tello de Castilla	Lord of Vizcaya 1370-1390	Successor: Incorporated into the Crown
Predecessor: Henry II	King of Castile 1379-1390	Successor: Henry III
Predecessor: Fernando I	King disputed from Portugal Together with Beatriz de Portugal 1383-1385 Rival and war against Juan de Avis	Successor: Juan I