Peter I of Castile: the king called the Cruel and the Just

A boy king and a divided family

Peter was born in Burgos on 30 August 1334, the son of King Alfonso XI and Queen María of Portugal, and came to the throne in 1350 at the age of fifteen. His father had several children by his mistress Leonor de Guzmán, among them Henry, count of Trastámara, and his twin Fadrique. Cecilia Devia of the University of Buenos Aires points out that Alfonso had kept his only legitimate son and the boy's mother at a distance, so resistance from the bastards, Henry above all, was to be expected when he died.²

For the first years the real power lay with a great noble of Portuguese origin, Juan Alfonso de Alburquerque. Leonor de Guzmán was imprisoned and died a violent death in 1351, apparently on the orders of the queen mother. In June 1353 Peter married the French princess Blanche of Bourbon at Valladolid, but he abandoned her within days and went back to his mistress María de Padilla, the mother of his daughters Beatriz, Constanza and Isabel. Blanche was confined at Arévalo. His desertion of Blanche gave Henry and a coalition of great nobles a pretext, and by 1354 they were in open revolt.³

The War of the Two Peters

Peter beat the rebels, and Henry left for France in 1356. That same year a quarrel over ships seized at Sanlúcar de Barrameda started a long war with Peter IV of Aragon, known as the War of the Two Peters. Julio Valdeón Baruque, in the Spanish Royal Academy of History's biographical dictionary, follows its swings: Castile took Tarazona in March 1357 and in June 1359 its fleet even blockaded Barcelona, but in September 1359 Peter's troops were beaten at Araviana by the Aragonese and Henry's men. In April 1360 Peter defeated Henry's invading army near Nájera. Peace in 1361 did not last, and when the fighting finally died down after 1365 Aragon was openly backing Henry.⁴

The war also pulled Castile into the Hundred Years' War. Castilian ships mattered to French naval strategy, John Rickard notes, which gave England a reason to take sides in Castile. In 1362 Peter signed the Treaty of London with Edward III of England.⁵

Why the Cruel?

The chronicler Pedro López de Ayala describes Peter as tall and fair, with a slight impediment in his speech, a tireless hunter and soldier who slept little, loved many women and was greedy for treasure, and adds that he killed many in his kingdom, from which came all the harm. In 1358, in Seville, Peter had his half-brother Fadrique, master of the Order of Santiago, put to death, and Ayala says he then sat down to eat in front of the body. Devia counts three of Peter's half-brothers killed on his orders before his own death: Fadrique and the younger Juan and Pedro. Blanche of Bourbon died in 1361, apparently poisoned.⁶

His defenders saw it differently and called him el Justiciero, the Just, a king who punished the mighty. Valdeón sees in him a ruler who tried to continue his father's strengthening of royal authority, whose fatal flaw was a personal style of rule that drove even loyal followers into the enemy camp. Henry's propaganda also attacked Peter as a friend of Jews and Muslims: his treasurer was the Jewish financier Samuel ha-Leví, the Tránsito synagogue in Toledo carries an inscription praising him, he kept good relations with Muslim Granada, and he filled his palace in the Alcázar of Seville with Mudéjar art.⁷

Exile and Nájera

In the spring of 1366 Henry invaded with French and Aragonese help and had himself proclaimed king at the monastery of Las Huelgas in Burgos. Peter abandoned Burgos, Toledo and Seville one after another and by August 1366 was at Bayonne. In September he signed the agreements of Libourne with Edward, the Black Prince, heir to the English crown: in return for an English army he promised a large sum of money, the lordship of Biscay and the port of Castro Urdiales.⁸

On 3 April 1367 the Anglo-Castilian army crushed Henry at Nájera. Valdeón stresses that the English archers were decisive; Ayala counts up to four hundred men-at-arms killed, and the Breton captain Bertrand du Guesclin was taken prisoner, while Henry escaped. Rickard sums it up: the victory restored Peter to his throne, but he was soon deposed again.⁹

The road to Montiel

Peter could not pay what he had promised at Libourne, and in August 1367 the Black Prince left Spain, having already released Du Guesclin. In September Henry came back through Calahorra. Town after town went over to him, and by early 1368 he held the center of the kingdom and was besieging Toledo. On 20 November 1368 he signed the Treaty of Toledo with France, which sent Du Guesclin back to him. Peter turned to Granada, but Granadan raids that burned Úbeda and part of Jaén only drove the Christians of Andalusia toward Henry.¹⁰

Early in 1369 Peter marched north to relieve Toledo. On 14 March his army, which included Muslim troops, was routed near Montiel, and he took refuge in the castle. His knight Men Rodríguez de Sanabria tried to buy Du Guesclin's help with lands and money. On the night of 22 to 23 March the two brothers met face to face in Du Guesclin's lodging. Ayala writes that Henry struck Peter in the face with a dagger, that both fell to the ground, and that Henry stabbed him again until he died.¹¹

The victor writes the chronicle

Henry II founded a new dynasty, the house of Trastámara. Much of what we know about Peter comes from Ayala, who later served the new dynasty as chancellor, and Devia argues that his chronicle is the finest piece of Trastámara propaganda: it turns a legitimate king into a monster and a usurper into the instrument of providence. Yet the American historian Clara Estow, quoted by Valdeón, still calls it the most complete contemporary narrative of the reign. Peter's remains, moved several times, now rest in Seville Cathedral.¹²