1383–1385 Portuguese interregnum

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1383–1385 Portuguese interregnum
Part of the Hundred Years' War
1m
The Battle of Aljubarrota by Jean de Wavrin
Date2 April 1383 – 15 October 1385
Location
Result Portuguese victory
Consolidation of Portuguese independence
Belligerents

Kingdom of Portugal

Supported by:
Kingdom of England

Crown of Castile

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

heir and ended when King John I was crowned in 1385 after his victory during the Battle of Aljubarrota
.

The Portuguese interpret the era as their earliest national resistance movement to counter

The bourgeoisie and the nobility worked together to establish the

War of the Roses
), which had aristocratic factions fighting powerfully against a centralised monarchy.

It is usually known in Portugal as the 1383–1385 Crisis (Crise de 1383–1385).

Background

In 1383, King

Leonor Telles de Menezes, only Princess Beatrice of Portugal survived. Her marriage was the major political issue of the day since it would determine the future of the kingdom.[2]

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]

On October 22, 1383, King Ferdinand died. According to the

marriage contract
, Dowager Queen Leonor assumed regency in the name of her daughter Beatrice and son-in-law, John I of Castile. Since diplomatic opposition was no longer possible, the party for independence took more drastic measures, which started the 1383–1385 crisis.

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,

Treaty of Salvaterra.[2]

1384

The Siege of Lisbon in the Chronicles of Jean Froissart

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

John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and regent of England. Despite initial reluctance to concede men, John of Gaunt finally agreed to levy troops to reinforce the Portuguese army.[2]

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

Easter Day. They were not a big contingent, around 600 men (of which about 100 would be present in Ajubarrota), but they were mainly veterans of the Hundred Years' War battles and thereby well schooled in successful English military tactics. Among them were a small number of longbowmen
who had already demonstrated their value against cavalry charges.

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

Poitiers. These tactics allowed a reduced infantry army to defeat cavalrymen with the use of longbowmen in the flanks and defensive structures (like caltrops
) in the front. The Castilian army was not only defeated, but annihilated. Their losses were so great that John I of Castile was prevented from attempting another invasion in the following years.

Legacy

With this victory, John of Aviz was recognised as the undisputed king of Portugal as John I, putting an end to the

Infanta Constance of Castile.[4] The Castilian forces refused to offer battle, after two months no significant town was taken and the allies, struck by disease and lack of supplies, met with an overwhelming failure.[4]

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

Second World War (allowing the Allies to establish bases on the Azores) and during the 1982 Falklands War
.

Timeline

1383
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

  1. ^ 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.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Oliveira Marques, A. H., História de Portugal
  3. ^ "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).
  4. ^ .

References

  • Gouveia Monteiro, João, Aljubarrota – a Batalha Real (in Portuguese)
  • De Oliveira Marques, A. H., História de Portugal (in Portuguese)