1383–1385 Portuguese interregnum
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1383–1385 Portuguese interregnum | |||||||
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Part of the Hundred Years' War | |||||||
The Battle of Aljubarrota by Jean de Wavrin | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Supported by: Kingdom of England |
Supported by: Kingdom of France Crown of Aragon | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
John I of Portugal Nuno Álvares Pereira |
John I of Castile Fernando Sánchez de Tovar † Pedro Álvares Pereira † |
The 1383–1385 Portuguese interregnum was a
The Portuguese interpret the era as their earliest national resistance movement to counter
The bourgeoisie and the nobility worked together to establish the
It is usually known in Portugal as the 1383–1385 Crisis (Crise de 1383–1385).
Background
In 1383, King
Several political factions lobbied for possible husbands, which included English and French princes. Finally, the king settled for his wife's first choice, King John I of Castile. Ferdinand had waged three wars against Castile during his reign, and the marriage, celebrated in May 1383, was intended to put an end to hostilities by a union of the two crowns but was not a widely-accepted solution. The dynastic union meant that Portugal would lose independence to Castile. Many nobles were fiercely opposed to that possibility but were not united under a common pretender to the crown. There were two candidates, both illegitimate half-brothers of Ferdinand:[2]
- John, son of Peter I of Portugal and Inês de Castro, then lived in Castile.
- John, Great Master of Aviz, another natural son of Peter I, was very popular among the Portuguese middle class and traditional aristocracy.
On October 22, 1383, King Ferdinand died. According to the
1383
The regent's privy council made the error of excluding any representation of the merchants of Lisbon. On the other hand, the popular classes of Lisbon, Beja, Porto, Évora, Estremoz, Portalegre and some other municipalities of the kingdom rose in favour of John (João), Master of Avis, seeing him as the national candidate (and the preferred national candidate). The first move was taken by the faction of John of Aviz in December 1383. João Fernandes Andeiro, Count of Ourém, called Conde Andeiro, the detested lover of the dowager queen, was murdered by a group of conspirators led by João of Aviz. Following this act, John, acclaimed "rector and defender of the realm" by the people of Lisbon, and also supported by the city's great merchants,
1384
The armed resistance met the Castilian army on April 6, 1384, in the Battle of Atoleiros. General Nuno Álvares Pereira won the battle for the Aviz party, but victory was not decisive. John I of Castile then retreated to Lisbon in May and besieged the capital, with an auxiliary fleet blocking the city's port in the river Tagus, in a severe drawback to the independence cause.[2] Without the capital and its riches and commerce, little could be done to free the country from the Castilian king. On his side, John I of Castile needed Lisbon, not only for financial reasons, but also for political ones—neither he nor Beatrice had been crowned as monarchs of Portugal, and without a coronation in the capital he was only a designated king.
Meanwhile, John of Aviz had surrendered the military command of the resistance to Nuno Álvares Pereira. The general continued to attack cities loyal to the Castilians and to harass the invading army. John of Aviz was now focused on diplomatic offensives. International politics played an important role in deciding Portuguese affairs. In 1384, the
Lisbon was struggling with famine and feared defeat by the Castilian siege. Blocked by land and by the river, the city had no hope of relief by the Aviz army, which was too small to risk an intervention and was occupied subduing other cities. An attempt was made by a Portuguese fleet to relieve the Castilian blockade. On July 18 a group of ships led by captain Rui Pereira managed to break the blockade and deliver precious supplies of food to Lisbon. The cost was high, since three of four boats were seized and Rui Pereira himself died in the naval combat. Despite this minor success, the siege held on; the city of Almada on the south bank of the Tagus surrendered to Castile. But the siege was hard not only on the inhabitants of Lisbon: the army of Castile was also dealing with a shortage of food supplies, due to the harassment of Nuno Álvares Pereira, and the bubonic plague. It was the outbreak of an epidemic in his ranks that forced John I of Castile to raise the siege on September 3 and retreat to Castile. Weeks later, the Castilian fleet also abandoned the Tagus, and Lisbon avoided conquest.
1385
In late 1384 and the early months of 1385, Nuno Álvares Pereira and John of Aviz pursued the war, but they did not manage to subdue the majority of those Portuguese cities then in favour of the Castilian cause. Answering the call for help, English troops (an Anglo-Gascon contingent) landed in Portugal on
At the same time, John of Aviz organised a meeting in Coimbra of the Cortes, the assembly of the kingdom. There, on April 6, he was proclaimed the tenth king of Portugal, a clear act of defiance against the Castilian pretensions. John I of Portugal nominated Nuno Álvares Pereira Constable of Portugal and went to subdue the resistance still surviving in the north.[2]
John I of Castile was not pleased. His first move was to send a punitive expedition, but the forces were heavily defeated in the Battle of Trancoso in May. From January, he began preparing his army to solve the problem definitively. The king himself led an enormous Castilian army that invaded Portugal in the second week of June through the central north, from Celorico da Beira to Coimbra and Leiria. An allied contingent of French heavy cavalry travelled with them. The power of numbers was on their side—about 32,000 men on the Castilian side versus 6,500 on the Portuguese. They immediately headed to the region of Lisbon and Santarém, the country's major cities.
Meanwhile, the armies of John I of Portugal and Nuno Álvares Pereira joined together in the city of
Legacy
With this victory, John of Aviz was recognised as the undisputed king of Portugal as John I, putting an end to the
The treaty, still valid today, established a pact of mutual support between the countries: Indeed, Portugal would use it again against its neighbours in 1640, to expel the Spanish Habsburg kings from the country, and again during the
Timeline
- 1383
- April 2 – Infanta Beatrice of Portugal (only child of King Ferdinand I of Portugal) is betrothed to King John I of Castile according to the Treaty of Salvaterra de Magos
- October 22 – King Ferdinand dies: dowager queen Leonor becomes regent in the name of Beatrice and John I
- The resistance starts, led by John, Great Master of Aviz: occupation of several castles
- 1384
- January – John I of Castile invades Portugal
- April – The Aviz party wins the Battle of Atoleiros, but not decisively
- May – Lisbon is besieged by the Castilians; an embassy is sent to England
- July – A Portuguese fleet breaks the siege
- September 3 – John I and his army retreat to Castile
- Winter – Álvares Pereira and João of Aviz subdue pro-Castilian cities
- 1385
- Easter – The English allied troops arrive
- April 6 – John of Aviz is acclaimed King John I
- June – John I of Castile invades Portugal once again and in force, after the defeat of a punitive expedition in Trancoso
- August 14 – Battle of Aljubarrota: decisive Portuguese victory
- October 15 – Battle of Valverde: Portuguese victory
See also
Notes
- ^ Robert Durand, in Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages (Routledge, 2000), s.v. "Portugal", p 1173; see also Armíndo de Sousa, "Portugal" in The New Cambridge Medieval History 2004, vol. II p. 629.
- ^ a b c d e f Oliveira Marques, A. H., História de Portugal
- ^ "The urban masses, linked in a movement of social revolt not peculiar to Portugal alone, were skillfully manipulated by the burgesses, intellectual elite and discontented nobility in support of what amounted to a palace revolution to regain lost honour and avenge insult... The coup, masterminded by the nobility, was soon transformed into a popular and nationwide revolution," observes Armíndo de Sousa (2004:629).
- ^ ISBN 978-0-312-08358-8.
References
- Gouveia Monteiro, João, Aljubarrota – a Batalha Real (in Portuguese)
- De Oliveira Marques, A. H., História de Portugal (in Portuguese)