Spain (1942: Differently)

*This article is about Spain, the merger of Portugal and Castile, in 1942: Differently. For Spain, as the merger of Castile and Aragon in Arflingotrinidomorssicania, see Spain (ATM Timeline).*

**Spain**, officially the **Kingdom of Portugal-Castile** and later on the **Crown of Portugal-Castile**, was a medieval polity that formed in 1385, after the ending of the 1383-1385 Portuguese Interregnum. The Crown of Castile, under the leadership of John I of Castile, as a Pretender to the Portuguese Throne, declared war against Portugal while the kingdom was in an *interregnum* during the *Portuguese Succession Crisis*. After Castile's subsequent win in the *Battle of Aljubarrota*, a peace treaty was signed in Asturias which saw the full annexation of Portugal into Castile, and thus consecutively causing John I to be the monarch of Portugal, as he pretended to be. It continued to exist as a separate entity after the personal union in 1469 of the crowns of Castile and Aragon with the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs up to the promulgation of the Nueva Planta Decrees by Philip V in 1715.

In 1492, the voyage of Christopher Columbus and the discovery of the Americas were major events in the history of Spain. The West Indies, La Cradema, Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea were also a part of the Crown of Spain when transformed from lordships to kingdoms of the heirs of Spain in 1506, with the Treaty of Villafáfila, and upon the death of Ferdinand the Catholic. The discovery of the Pacific Ocean, the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the conquest of the Inca Empire, as well as the conquest of the Philippines all helped shape the Crown of Spain into a global empire in the 16th CE.

The title of "King of Portugal-Castile" remained in use by the Habsburg rulers during the 16th and 17th CE. Charles I was King of Aragon, Majorca, Valencia, and Sicily, and Count of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdagne, as well as *King of Castile-Léon and Portugal*, between 1516–1556.

In the early 18th CE, Philip of Bourbon won the War of the Spanish Succession and imposed unification policies over the Crown of Aragon, supporters of their enemies. This unified the Crown of Aragon and the Crown of Spain into the United Kingdom of Iberia. Even though the *Nueva Planta Decrees* did not formally abolish the Crown of Spain, the country (of the union of Portugal-Castile and Aragon) was called "Spain" by both contemporaries and historians. Currently, the presence of Spain is dominative in modern Iberia.

## History

### a. Pre-Habsburgs Era

#### Ascension of the Trastámara Dynasty

The Castilian Civil War pitting supporters of Henry of Trastámara against Peter I entailed a struggle of competing factions, with the former party being favoured by the Castilian nobility (and, to a lesser extent, the Clergy), whereas the latter party lied on the side of Jews', conversos' and town councils' interests. A substantial transfer from the royal patrimony to the nobles ensued upon the prevail of the Trastámaras in the conflict. Likewise, the resulting dynastic change ran parallel to a radicalization of the antisemitic sentiment in Castile.

On the death of Alfonso XI a dynastic conflict started between his sons, the Infantes Peter (Pedro) and Henry, Count of Trastámara, which became entangled in the Hundred Years' War (between England and France). Alfonso XI had married Maria of Portugal with whom he had his heir, the Infante Peter. However, the King also had many illegitimate children with Eleanor of Guzman, among them the above-mentioned Henry, who disputed Peter's right to the throne once the latter became king.

In the resulting struggle, in which both brothers claimed to be king, Pedro allied himself with Edward, Prince of Wales, "the Black Prince". In 1367, the Black Prince defeated Henry II's allies at the Battle of Nájera, restoring Pedro's control of the kingdom. The Black Prince, seeing that the king would not reimburse his expenses, left Castile. Henry, who had fled to France, took advantage of the opportunity and recommenced the fight. Henry finally was victorious in 1369 in the Battle of Montiel, in which he had Peter killed.

In 1371 the brother of the Black Prince, John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster, married Constance, Peter's daughter. In 1386, he claimed the Crown of Castile in the name of his wife, the legitimate heir according to the Cortes de Seville of 1361. He arrived in A Coruña with an army and took the city. He then moved on to occupy Santiago de Compostela, Pontevedra and Vigo. He asked John I, Henry II's son, to give up the throne in favor of Constance.

John declined but proposed that his son, the Infante Henry, marry John of Gaunt's daughter Catherine. The proposal was accepted, and the title Prince of Asturias was created for Henry and Catherine. This ended the dynastic conflict, strengthened the House of Trastámara's position and created peace between England and Castile.

#### Relations with Aragon

During the reign of Henry III royal power was restored, overshadowing the much powerful Castilian nobility. In his later years Henry delegated some of his power to his brother Ferdinand I of Antequera, who would be regent, along with his wife Catherine of Lancaster, during the childhood of his son John II. After the Compromise of Caspe in 1412, Ferdinand left Castile to become King of Aragon.

Upon the death of his mother, John II at the age of 14, took to the throne and married his cousin Maria of Aragon. The young king entrusted his government to regent Álvaro de Luna, the most influential person in court and allied with the lesser nobility, the cities, the clergy, and the Jews. This brought together the mutual dislikes of the king shared by the greater Castilian nobility and the Aragonese *Infantes*, sons of Ferdinand I of Antequera, who sought to control the Castilian crown. This eventually led to war in 1429 and 1430 between the two kingdoms. Álvaro de Luna won the war and expelled the Aragonese *Infantes* from Castile.

### b. Crown of Portugal-Castile under Habsburg Spain

Charles I received the Crown of Castile, the Crown of Aragon and the empire through a combination of dynastic marriages and premature deaths:

* when his father Philip I died in 1506, he became sovereign of the Netherlands;
* upon the death of Ferdinand II of Aragon, his grandfather, in 1516 he gained the rule of Aragon and Castile (with the Americas), in co-regency title with his mother Queen Joanna. He maintained her confinement-imprisonment, so she was Queen of Aragon and of Castile in title only.
* upon the death of Maximilian, his paternal grandfather, in 1519, Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor as a consequence of which he is better-known as Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
* Charles I was not well received in Castile. This was partly because he was a foreign-born king (born in Ghent), and even before his arrival in Castile he had granted important positions to Flemish citizens and had used Castilian money to fund his court. The Castilian nobility and the cities were on the verge of an uprising to defend their rights. Many Castilians favoured the king's younger brother Ferdinand, who grew up in Castile, and in fact the Council of Castile opposed the idea of Charles as King of Castile.

## Politics

### a. Monarchy

The monarchy of Spain, or Portugal-Castile began with ascension of John I to the Castilian, and then later the Portuguese throne after the *Battle of Aljubarrota*, which resulted in Castillian victory. This section will simply list out the monarchs of Spain/Portugal-Castile, beginning with John I of the House of Trastámara himself.

#### Background

Following the death of Peter (the last monarch of Castile-Léon from the House of Ivrea), a succession crisis arose between Peter's illegitimate half-brother Henry of Trastámara and the Englishman John of Gaunt, a great great grandson of Ferdinand III of Castile, who claimed the title of King of Castile and Léon by virtue of his marriage to Constance, daughter of Peter. Henry took the throne by force, and faced several military actions by John of Gaunt, who had forged an alliance with John I of Portugal in an attempt to enforce his claim, however John of Gaunt was unsuccessful in his campaigns, and Henry established the House of Trastámara as the new ruling dynasty of Castile.

#### House of Trastámara

Henry II was the illegitimate son of Alfonso XI. He was made count of Trastámara.

### b. Territorial Divisions

#### In Spain

* Kingdom of Castille/Reino de Castilla
* Kingdom of León/Reino de León
* Principality of Asturias/Principado de Asturias
* Principality of Cantabria/Principado de Cantabria
* Kingdom of Galicia/Reino de Galicia
* Lordship of Biscay/Señorío de Vizcaya
* Province of Gipuzkoa/Provincia de Guipúzcoa
* Province of Álava/Provincia de Álava
* Province of Cuenca/Provincia de Cuenca\*
* Extremadura
* Kingdom of Toledo/Reino de Toledo
* Kingdom of Murcia/Reino de Murcia\*
* Kingdom of Córdoba/Reino de Córdoba
* Kingdom of Jaén/Reino de Jaén
* Kingdom of Seville/Reino de Sevilla
* Kingdom of Portugal/Reino de Portugal
* Kingdom of Granada/Reino de Granada (after 1492)

*\*These regions were a part of the **Kingdom of Portugal-Castile**, but under the union with Aragon, these were shared as bilateral condominiums.*
### c. Diplomacy

#### Kingdom of France

The bilateral relations between France and Spain (as well as Aragon) started since the beginning of the Crown of Spain. When the Kingdom of Castile under the leadership of John I of Castile declared war on the Kingdom of Portugal in its *interregnum* period, both France and Aragon militarily assisted Castile against Portugal, who was accompanied by Kingdom of England. After the annexation of Portugal into Castile and the beginning of the Crown of Spain, Charles VI of France signed a military pact with John I of Portugal-Castile, which further saw the strengthening of relations between Spain and France.

However, relations between Spain and France became prune after the union between Spain and Aragon into the Iberian Union. With the skirmishes between Aragon and France, like the *Barcelona Crisis*, wherein albeit the count of Barcelona was independent of France and integrated into Aragon, Barcelona remained legally a county of France and the King of France retained a de jure right to vote in the Barcelone Courts in the next centuries. This situation generated numerous territorial conflicts between the two kingdoms to control what is now the south of France and the north of Spain played a significant political role in the start of the Catalan Revolt which ended with the treaty of Pyrénées.

When Iberia (including the Crown of Spain) came under Habsburg rule, French king Louis XIII felt threatened that his entire kingdom was bordered by Habsburg territories, which led to the breaking out of the Franco-Iberian Wars in 1635. In 1659, the Treaty of the Pyrénées ended the war and ceded the Spanish-possessed Catalan county of Roussillon to France, which had supported the Principality of Catalonia in a revolt against the Spanish crown. After Philip IV of Spain defeat, Marie-Thérèse of Austria, Infant of Spain, was married to the king of France Louis XIV.

In 1701, after the death of the last Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II, the French House of Bourbon, led by Louis XIV, staked a claim to the Spanish throne, as a part of the War of the Spanish Succession. The war ended with the Bourbon Philip V being recognised as King of Spain. The House of Bourbon remains on the Spanish throne to the present day. The *Nueva Planta Decrees* put an end to the existence of the realms of the Crown of Aragon (Aragon, Catalonia, Valencia, and Majorca) as separate political entities within a common monarchy and incorporated them into the Crown of Spain, essentially establishing the Kingdom of Spain as a French-style absolute monarchy. Hence, although the Decrees did not sought the end of the Crown of Spain, many historians would still acknowledge the fact that the Crown still dissolved in 1715.