When was the Battle of Montiel?

On Wednesday 14 March 1369, according to López de Ayala. King Peter was killed nine days later, on the night of 23 March 1369. Froissart gives a wrong date, August 1368.

Who won the Battle of Montiel?

Henry of Trastámara, with the Breton captain Bertrand du Guesclin and his French companies. King Peter I of Castile fled into Montiel castle.

How did Peter of Castile die?

He was lured or caught outside Montiel castle and brought to a tent, where his half-brother Henry stabbed him to death. Accounts differ on whether a knight helped Henry in the struggle.

How many died at Montiel?

Froissart claims 24,000 dead, but the Castilian chronicler López de Ayala says almost no one of note was killed, because Peter's army was surprised and scattered.

Why does Montiel matter?

Peter's death made Henry of Trastámara undisputed king as Henry II, founded the Trastámara dynasty and tied Castile to France in the Hundred Years' War.

Battle of Montiel, 1369: the fight that ended in a king's murder

Gustave Gerlier, “Duguesclin se défendant contre Dom Pedro”, wood engraving, 1863, a romantic image of Du Guesclin and Peter of Castile, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.

Quick answer

What happened at the Battle of Montiel?

On 14 March 1369, near Montiel in La Mancha, Henry of Trastámara and the Breton captain Bertrand du Guesclin surprised the army of King Peter I of Castile, Henry's half-brother, as it marched to relieve the siege of Toledo. Peter's army scattered and the king shut himself up in Montiel castle. On the night of 23 March he came out to a meeting in a tent of Du Guesclin's camp, where Henry killed him with a dagger and became sole king of Castile.¹

The battle itself was short. What made Montiel famous is what came after: a king of Castile killed by his own half-brother, who took his crown. Henry's victory founded the new royal house of Trastámara.²

Two half-brothers

Peter I, called the Cruel by his enemies, became king of Castile in 1350. His long reign, as Cecilia Devia of the University of Buenos Aires notes from the chronicle of Pedro López de Ayala, was one of almost constant war: against his illegitimate half-brother Henry, count of Trastámara, against Aragon, and against the Moors, some of whom were at times his allies. Castile was tied into the Hundred Years' War, England backing Peter and France backing Henry.³ › Peter I of Castile

Henry had already deposed Peter once, with French help. Peter turned to the English. At Nájera in 1367 an English army under Edward, the Black Prince, destroyed Henry's army and restored Peter to the throne, but he was soon in trouble again. Henry set out again from Aragon with 3,000 horse and 6,000 foot, took Burgos and León and laid siege to Toledo. In November 1368 Charles V of France sealed an alliance with him and promised to send Du Guesclin with 500 lances.⁴

Surprise in La Mancha

Peter, who held the south, made alliance with the king of Granada, whose troops raided Andalusia, and early in March 1369 he marched north from Seville to relieve Toledo. On Du Guesclin's advice Henry left part of his army before the city and set out with his best troops to meet him. Froissart, the chronicler of the Hundred Years' War, puts Henry's force at 6,000 men against an enemy six times stronger.⁵

Henry's scouts found the royal army strung out on the march near Montiel. According to Ayala, as quoted by Froissart's 19th-century editor Siméon Luce, the commander of Montiel castle, Garci Morán, had warned Peter the night before that great fires could be seen two leagues away; they were the torches of Du Guesclin's vanguard, and Peter ignored the warning. The attack came at the first hour of the day on Wednesday 14 March.⁶

Froissart tells a story of great slaughter: the Bretons and Aragonese knights doing wonders, Peter's Jewish troops fleeing at once, Granadan archers doing heavy damage, Peter laying about him with an axe, and 24,000 dead on the field. Luce points out that Ayala says the opposite: hardly anyone of note died, only one knight of Córdoba named Juan Ximénez, because many of Peter's men were still in their village quarters and the rest fled with him into the castle. Luce also notes that Froissart dated the battle wrongly, to August 1368.⁷

The night of 23 March

Montiel castle was strong, but, in Froissart's account, it had food for only four days. Henry and Du Guesclin blockaded it closely. The two chroniclers disagree about what came next. In Froissart, Peter tried to slip out at midnight and was caught by a French knight, the Bègue de Villaines, who was guarding the path.⁸

In Ayala's version, which Luce summarizes and Devia analyzes, Peter sent one of his knights, Men Rodríguez de Sanabria, to offer Du Guesclin the towns of Soria, Atienza, Almazán and others and 200,000 gold doblas if he would lead him to safety. Du Guesclin told Henry, and pretended to accept. Devia describes a trap carefully laid by Henry, with the collaboration, reluctant at first, of Du Guesclin; Peter seems to suspect it and yet cannot resist.⁹

Both versions end in a tent. Peter was led to the tent of a Breton captain, Yvon de Lakouet in Froissart's telling, and Henry came at once. In Ayala, the brothers at first did not recognize each other; then Peter named himself, and Henry struck him in the face with a dagger, followed by other blows that killed him. Froissart has the two men wrestle, Peter on top, until the Aragonese viscount of Rocaberti pulled him off and Henry stabbed him; an anonymous Catalan writer also credits Rocaberti.¹⁰

A new dynasty

The next day the commander of Montiel surrendered the castle, and Toledo opened its gates. Du Guesclin was made constable of Castile and given Soria, and on 4 May 1369 Henry created him duke of Molina. Devia argues that the chancellor Ayala became the most brilliant voice of Trastámara propaganda, turning a legitimate king into a monster and a usurper into the instrument of providence. Castile now joined France against England in the next phase of the Hundred Years' War.¹¹