John II of Castile

Juan II of Castile (Toro, March 6, 1405-Valladolid, July 21, 1454) was King of Castile between 1406 and 1454, son of King Enrique III "el Doliente" » and Queen Catherine of Lancaster.

Biography

Minority (1406-1419)

He was born in Toro, in the palace of the Royal Monastery of San Ildefonso. He was only one year old when his father died in 1406. The regents were his mother, Catalina de Lancaster, and his paternal uncle, Fernando de Antequera, in accordance with Henry III's will, which established that they should "govern both of them jointly ». However, the education and custody of the child king, according to the wishes of Enrique III, would be the responsibility of the mayor waiter Juan de Velasco, the mayor justice Diego López de Estúñiga and Pablo de Santa María, bishop of Cartagena.

During his minority, the war against the Nasrid kingdom of Granada resumed (from 1410 to 1411) and there were rapprochements with England in 1410 and with Portugal in 1411.

After the Caspe Compromise (1412), the regent Fernando left Castile, becoming the first Trastámara king of the Crown of Aragon with the name of Fernando I, leaving four lieutenants in his place: Bishop Juan de Sigüenza, Bishop Pablo de Santa María de Cartagena, Enrique Manuel de Villena, Count of Montealegre de Campos, and Per Afán de Ribera el Viejo, adelantado mayor of Andalusia. Catalina de Lancaster died on June 1, 1418 and her disappearance was taken advantage of by the infantes of Aragon to obtain, through the Archbishop of Toledo Sancho de Rojas, that the marriage of one of them, the Infanta María, be arranged with King Juan II, a ceremony that was held in Medina del Campo on October 20 of 1418, months before on March 7, 1419 the king's majority was proclaimed by the Cortes of Castile meeting in Madrid. The marriage between the king and an infanta of Aragon, together with the death of the regent, the queen mother Catherine of Lancaster, strengthened the power in Castile of the sons of Ferdinand I who had died in 1416.

At this time a Concordat was signed with the Holy See, being Pope Martin V, a concordat that is considered the first signed in the History of Spain.

Effective reign (1419-1454)

On July 14, 1420, the Infante of Aragon don Enrique perpetrated the so-called coup of Tordesillas by which he seized the person of the young king. His objective was to seize power by removing from their posts the nobles of the faction of his brother, the Infante of Aragon, Don Juan, and to wrest from the king the authorization of the marriage between him and the monarch's sister, the Infanta Catalina of Castile. Ávila, had the planned wedding between his sister María and the king celebrated there on a Sunday in August 1420. He also brought together the Cortes of Castilla, getting them to validate the coup of Tordesillas.

Don Enrique's plans collapsed when the king, helped by don Álvaro de Luna, managed to escape from his captivity in Talavera on November 29, taking refuge in the castle of Montalbán. Don Enrique directed his hosts there but on December 10 he lifted the siege when he was unable to storm the castle and faced with the threat of the arrival of the forces commanded by his brother Juan who from Olmedo had crossed the Sierra de Guadarrama and established his camp in Mostoles. Don Enrique went to Ocaña, one of the fortresses of the Order of Santiago, a military order of which he was master, while his brother Don Juan met with the king, putting himself at his service against any attempt to limit his freedom again, « the estates and the bodies to all danger». For his part, the king thanked Don Álvaro de Luna for his help in his escape by granting him the county of Santisteban de Gormaz.According to Gregorio Marañón, the king may have had a carnal relationship with Don Álvaro.

Despite the fact that he had given him personal guarantees, on June 14, 1423, he ordered the arrest of the Infante of Aragon, Don Enrique, and he was taken to the castle of Mora. His wife and the rest of his followers, informed of what had happened, were able to escape to Aragon. All of them were dispossessed of their assets and titles. Those of Don Enrique passed to his brother, the Infante Juan, except for the mastership of the Order of Santiago, which was provisionally granted by the king to Don Gonzalo de Mejía. The title of constable of Castile —held by one of the fled to Aragon— was granted by the king to Don Álvaro de Luna, who thus strengthened his dominant position at court.

The arrest of Don Enrique provoked the intervention of the King of the Crown of Aragon Alfonso the Magnanimous, as the elder brother of the infantes of Aragon. He sought allies for the infante's cause among the high Castilian nobility and recruited an army in Aragon that he deployed on the border with Castile. He also contacted the infante don Juan, who obtained authorization from King Juan II to leave Castilla and negotiate an agreement with the Aragonese king. The talks culminated with the signing of the Treaty of Torre de Arciel on September 3, 1425, which satisfied all the claims of King Alfonso the Magnanimous, since not only was the release of the infant Don Enrique agreed, but he also regained his position as master. of the Order of Santiago, in addition to the patrimonial assets and income that were confiscated after his arrest.

After the signing of the Treaty of Torre de Arciel, a part of the high Castilian nobility united around the infantes of Aragon to confront don Álvaro de Luna and his policy of reinforcing the Castilian-Leonese monarchy. Meeting in Valladolid, they demanded that the king banish don Álvaro de Luna from court. The pressure took effect and on September 5, 1427, Juan II ordered the exile of Don Álvaro and his supporters for a year and a half. In that same year, the king named the powerful Fadrique Enríquez de Castilla, uncle of the same monarch, Duke of Arjona. who had sided with the infantes of Aragon and against the constable. However, Don Álvaro's exile only lasted five months and on February 6, 1428 he was already back at court ―he was received resoundingly in Segovia― before the divisions that had arisen in the faction headed by the infantes of Aragón, which had prevented them from taking the governorship of the Castilian-Leonese kingdom. A few months later, on June 21, Juan II ordered the princes of Aragon, Don Enrique and Don Juan, king consort of Navarre, to leave the court and he was reluctant to conclude the pact of alliance and perpetual peace between the crowns of Castile., from Aragon and Navarra signed in Tordesillas on April 12. The arrogant Duke of Arjona appeared, summoned before the king by obscure suspicions of treason, with eight hundred horsemen and eight thousand infantry; The king said to him: "Duke, it pleases me that you be arrested." He was taken prisoner to the castle of Peñafiel, accused of treason, despite being "the greatest man in the kingdom", where he eventually died in 1430, according to the Crónica del Halconero. took as a just action in his favor, as attested by a romance:

Of you, the Duke of Arjona / big complaints give me: / that you forge women / married and to marry, / that you drank them the wine / and ate them the bread, / that you take them the barley / without wanting to pay them. - Who told you, good king, / did not tell the truth.

Next, he summoned the Cortes of Castilla in Illescas to approve a tribute of forty million maravedís with which to recruit an army to face the infants of Aragon. The kings of Navarre and Aragon interpreted these decisions as the previous step to revoke what was agreed in the Treaty of Torre de Arciel and in June the Castilian-Aragonese war of 1429-1430 began.

Cover of the edition of the Chronicle of John II (Sevilla, 1543).

During the course of the war, Juan II and his favorite, Don Álvaro de Luna, had the support of all the Castilian nobility, including that which had formed part of the faction headed by the Infantes of Aragon, which was decisive in the outcome of it. The Castilian armies managed to seize all the possessions that the Infantes of Aragon had in Castile, which were distributed among the high Castilian nobility, beginning with Don Álvaro de Luna himself, who obtained the position of perpetual administrator of the Order of Santiago, which it made him the most powerful man in Castile. The crown only kept the lordship of Medina del Campo, the town where the distribution had been made effective on February 17, 1430.

The agreement that put an end to the hostilities, called Majano's truces and which was signed in July 1430, meant a complete defeat for the kings of Aragon and Navarra, since their possessions would not be returned to the infantes of Aragon nor would they receive an equivalent income in cash for them, but only reached the commitment that at the end of the truce that would last five years ―a period of time during which the infants of Aragon could not enter Castile― some judges would resolve the claims of the infants. These harsh terms were accepted by the kings of Aragon and Navarra due to their military inferiority, the opposite of what had happened when the Treaty of Torre de Arciel was negotiated. Definitive peace was reached six years later with the signing of the Concord of Toledo on September 22, 1436 by the representatives of the Crown of Castile, the Crown of Aragon and the kingdom of Navarre. As a guarantee of the "contract of peace and harmony" of Toledo, the marriage of the Prince of Asturias, Don Enrique, with the eldest daughter of the King of Navarra, Doña Blanca, was agreed.

In the Castilian civil war of 1437-1445, he sided with the noble faction headed by his favorite, the constable of Castile don Álvaro de Luna. During the course of it, he was forced by the rival faction headed by the Infante of Aragon and King Consort of Navarre Don Juan to banish Don Álvaro from court on two occasions, the first for six months (Castronuño Agreement) and the second for six years (Medina del Campo Judgment), and was the object of a kidnapping instigated by Don Juan known as the Rámaga coup. This faction, after harshly criticizing the government of Álvaro de Luna, who was even accused of being a homosexual, "which was always more reviled in Spain than by anyone I know of", affirmed that he had been bewitched by the constable: "the saying constable has bound and bound all your bodily and animal powers by magical and devilish incantations". Finally, the faction he had supported and fought with won the war after defeating the faction of the infants of Aragon in the decisive battle de Olmedo in 1445. However, as the historian Jaume Vicens Vives has pointed out, the victory in the civil war did not serve to reinforce the Castilian monarchy, although the “royal authority recovered much of its pre-eminence in the country”, but rather “ it only served for a new distribution of perks and assets", of which the main beneficiaries were the Constable Don Álvaro and the Prince of Asturias Don Enrique.

In 1445, María de Aragón died and Juan, in his second marriage, married Isabel of Portugal. The marriage was celebrated in Madrigal de las Altas Torres on August 17, 1447.

The queen instilled in Juan II a growing detachment with the constable Álvaro de Luna, who was arrested, tried and executed by beheading in the Plaza Mayor of Valladolid on June 3, 1453. After the constable died, he was replaced in the government by Bishop Barrientos.

Juan II of Castilla died a year later, on July 22, 1454, in the city of Valladolid, saying at the time of his death: «I was born the son of a farmer and I was a friar of El Abrojo, not king of Castile". He was succeeded to the throne by his son Enrique IV of Castile.

Burial

Sepulchre of Juan II and Isabel de Portugal, made by Gil de Siloé in the Cartuja de Miraflores de Burgos.

He was buried in the church of San Pablo (Valladolid) until his remains were transferred from this place to the Cartuja de Miraflores together with his second wife, Isabel of Portugal and their son, the infante Alfonso de Castilla, by order of his daughter Isabella the Catholic. The tomb of Juan II and Isabel of Portugal, made of alabaster, is the work of the sculptor Gil de Siloé.

In 2006, on the occasion of the restoration of the Cartuja de Miraflores, the General Directorate of Heritage and Cultural Assets of the Junta de Castilla y León decided to carry out an anthropological study of the mortal remains of Juan II of Castilla and of his second wife, who were buried in the crypt under the royal tomb, as well as the study of the remains deposited inside the tomb of the infante Alfonso de Castilla, whose tomb is located on the side of the same church. The anthropological study was carried out by Luis Caro Dobón and María Edén Fernández Suárez, researchers from the Physical Anthropology area of the University of León. The skeleton of King Juan II of Castile was almost complete, unlike that of his wife, Queen Isabella. from Portugal, of which only several bones remained.

Biography and personality

It was this illustrious King of great and beautiful body, white and coloured mesurantly, of very real presence: he had the hairs of a very mature hazelnut colour: the nose a little high, the eyes between green and blue, bowed his head a bit, had legs and feet and very gentle hands. He was a very trayent man, very frank, and very funny, very devoted, very hard to read books by Philosophy and Poets: he was a good ecclesiastical, associative in the Latin language, much honorer of the people of sscience: he had many natural graces, he was a great musician, he sang and trovaba, and he danced very well, he had a lot of caval.

Fernán Pérez de Guzmán, Chronicle of Lord King Don Juan

Fernán Pérez de Guzmán himself values his personality and attitude to reign as follows:

Of this virtue /the good understanding/ was a private and demented ansi this king, who, invoking all the graces of his words, never a prayer alone wanted to understand nor to work in the regiment although in his time they were in Castile so many revolts and movements and damages and evils and quanta dangers did not ovote in time of kings past by space of two hundred years, from the qual to his person and reputation and kingdom came asaz.

Family

Ancestors

Marriages and offspring

On October 20, 1418, in Medina del Campo, he married María de Aragón, daughter of Fernando I of Antequera, King of Aragón. Four children were born from their marriage:

• Catherine of Castile (1422-1424), died in childhood, buried in the Convent of Augustines, Madrigal de las Torres extramuros.
• Leonor de Castilla (1423-1425), died in childhood, was buried in the monastery of Santa Maria de La Santa Espina.
• Henry IV of Castile (1425-1474), who inherited the throne to the death of his father and was buried next to his mother in the monastery of Guadalupe.
• María de Castilla (1428-1429), died in childhood, buried in the convent of San Agustín de Dueñas.

On August 17, 1447, he married Isabel of Portugal for the second time in Madrigal de las Altas Torres. Two children were born as a result of their marriage:

• Isabel I of Castile (1451-1504). He inherited the throne to the death of his paternal brother, Henry IV. He married his cousin Fernando II of Aragon, known as the Catholic Kings, and was buried in the Royal Chapel of Granada.
• Alfonso de Castilla (1453-1468). Prince of Asturias and suitor to the throne. He was buried in the Cartuja de Miraflores de Burgos.

Succession

Predecessor: María de Castilla	Prince of Asturias 1405-1406	Successor: Catalina de Castilla
Predecessor: Henry III	King of Castile 1406-1454	Successor: Henry IV
Predecessor: Alvaro de Luna	Master of the Order of Santiago 1453	Successor: Alfonso de Castilla (administered during its minority by Enrique IV de Castilla)