Vous êtes sur la page 1sur 2

404

THE GLORY OF CHRISTENDOM

SHADOWAND LIGHTNING 405


later he left Juana and returned to Maria de Padilla. Understandably appalled by these proceedings, Pope
Innocent VI in May 1354 overruled the annulment of Pedro's marriage to Blanche, directed him to return to
her, and encouraged the Castilian nobles to support Blanche and pressure Pedro. Blanche sought sanctuary in
the cathedral of Toledo and was protected by its Archbishop. Pedro declared Toledo in rebellion and civil war
broke out.a9
At first the war went against him, and he became a virtual prisoner in the city of Toro; then early in 1355
he escaped, whereupon the Pope's legate in Castile excommunicated him and laid an interdict on any city
supporting him. But he was the legitimate king; he was young, vigorous and active; many of the people rallied
to him, and in May he took Toledo, captured and closely confined Blanche, and executed 22 city councillors
for rebellion. Pope Innocent VI offered to lift his excommunication if he would take Blanche back, but Pedro
scornfully refused. As soon as he had triumphed over his enemies in the nobility, he went to war with
neighboring Aragon. The papal excommunication was renewed in 1357. Encouraged by Aragon, Pedro's half-
brothers, the sons of Leonor de Guzman, began to challenge him, along with some more distant relatives. His
near-pathological cruelty now began to emerge; he had his halfbrother Fadrique assassinated in Sevilla and
then ostentatiously ate dinner in the house where the bloody corpse lay, and the next month he had his cousin
and rival Juan hammered to death with maces in Bilbao, afterward throwing his body from a balcony to a
crowd in the street.so
Leadership of the resistance in Castile was now assumed by the youngest son of Alfonso XI and Leonor,
Henry, Count of Trastamara, who invaded Castile in September 1359 and won a victory at Araviana. But the
following April Pedro defeated him at the First Battle of Najera and almost captured him in that town. In May
1361 Pedro briefly made peace with Aragon; immediately afterward his Queen Blanche disappeared and was
never seen again, and in July Maria de Padilla died, though she was only 28. Pedro went before the cones of
Castile to claim that he had been betrothed to Maria de Padilla before his marriage to Blanche (betrothal was a
complete impediment to marriage in the church law of that time) and that he had secretly married her during
the brief interval between Blanche's death and hers. The cones accepted this unlikely story-Pedro's fearsome
reputation undoubtedly discouraged any awkward questioning of it-and his four children by Maria de Padilla
(three daughters

a
~Menendez Pidal, Historia de Espana, XIV, 19-26; O'Callaghan, Medieval Spain, pp. 420, 423.

Men6ndez Pidal, Historia de Espana, XIV, 27-28, 30-34, 36, 47, 54, 57, 59; O'Callaghan, Medieval Spain, pp.
422, 424; Mollat, Popes at Avignon, p. 275; P. E. Russell, The English Intervention in Spain and Portugal in the Time
of Edward III and Richard II (Oxford, 1955), pp. 14, 55.
and a son) were legitimized 51

In April 1362 Pedro murdered the rival king of Moorish Granada with his own hands, and in June invaded
Aragon and made a treaty of alliance with England as a counterweight to French support for his enemies Pedro
IV of
Aragon and Henry of Trastamara. Edward the Black Prince, now governing Aquitaine, was eager for new
military glory and found satisfaction in upholding a legitimate king against a bastard challenger regardless of
the king's moral character. Facing the best general in Europe, Henry of Trastamara sought to balance the odds
by hiring mercenaries. 52
Ferocious bands of these mercenaries, now introduced to Spain, had been ravaging France and Italy for
five years, at one point severely threatening Pope Innocent VI in Avignon, adding greatly to the suffering from
the wars being almost constantly fought among the official rulers and noblemen of those three lands.
Scandinavia was likewise stricken by a war between Denmark and Sweden, in which the Danes ravaged the
prosperous Swedish island of Gotland 53 Repeated attempts by Pope Innocent VI and his legates to make peace
had been almost entirely fruitless everywhere. He had vacillated in his support of Cardinal Albornoz in the
Papal state by removing him as legate and vicar there in 1357, though restoring him in 1358, whereupon he
secured Bologna, the largest city in the papal state which had remained outside papal rule. a But in 1361 the
tyrant Bernabd Visconti of Milan had hurled an incredible defiance at the Vicar of Christ: when his legates
came to Milan to read the Pope's decree of excommunication of Bernabo, the tyrant forced them literally to eat
it, and when the Archbishop protested, Bernabo screamed at him "that here in his own land he was Pope,
emperor and God himself, for here God could do nothing without [his] permission."" The great historic Lateran
church and palace burned down that same year. In Rome, St. Bridget of Sweden was hurling condemnation
upon the Pope's head for his use of the Inquisition against the "Spiritual Franciscans."sb And Innocent VI had
made no move to return to Rome despite the remarkable success of Cardinal Albornoz in re-establishing the
dominion and security of the papal state.
The access of unexpected strength which had come to Innocent VI the year after his election as Pope by a
College of Cardinals sworn to restrict papal
Menendez Pidal, Historia de Espana, XIV, 69, 73, 76; O'Callaghan, Medieval Spain, pp. 422-423; Russell,
English Intervention in Spain, pp. 1-2,25-26,173. s2Menendez Pidal, Historia de Espana, XIV, 76, 78, 80; Russell,
English Intervention in SAain, pp. 3-4,27; Barber, Edward, Prince of Wales and Aquitaine, pp. 175, 186. Mollat, Popes
at Avignon, p. 50; Franklin D. Scott, Sweden: the Nation's History (Minneapolis, 1977), pp. 74-75.
sa
Mollat, Popes atAvignon, pp. 137-142; Beneyto Perez, Albornoz, pp. 213-217, 221222.
ss
sigrid Undset, Catherine of Siena (New York, 1954), p. 137. s6Jorgensen, St. Catherine of Siena, p.
159; Mollat, Popes at Avignon, p. 46.

Vous aimerez peut-être aussi