The Mediterranean in the 14th century

Peter I

King of Castile and Leon (1334-1369). Son of Alphonso XI and Maria of Portugal, ascended to the throne in the midst of a complex political situation and a profound economic crisis. When he was crowned in 1350 the country was in the midst of the crisis caused by the Black Plague. His father engendered ten bastard offspring with Leonor de Guzman, among them the Count of Trastamara, the future Henry II.

During the period from 1351 to 1353, the reign of Peter I was presided over by Juan Alphonso de Alburquerque, whose policies aggravated the political crisis of the moment and contributed to the conditions for the outbreak of civil war. The war was not long  in coming, and with it the bloody repression which the king imposed on the rebels, repression which gained him the nickname of “the Cruel.” During the civil conflict Peter I counted on the support of the petty nobles and the cities, while many of the rebel nobles took refuge in Aragon, where Peter IV, the Ceremonious, offered them his help. 

The Castilian war, which lasted from 1356 until 1369, thus became a peninsular conflict between Castile and Aragon. In 1366 French and Aragonese mercenaries arrived in Spain to support Henry de Trastámara in his pretensions to the throne. With this help, Henry was proclaimed king in Calahorra (March of 1366), taking possession of the entire kingdom, with the lone exception of Galicia. Peter I, on his part, requested help from England and pacted with Edward, the Black Prince, his intervention in the Spanish war. Thanks to this collaboration the Trastamarist armies were defeated in Najera (1367). The final triumph, however, was Henry’s, as he enlisted the help of French troops commanded by Bertrand Du Guesclin. These inflicted the definitive defeat upon Peter I in Montiel in 1369. In this same place king Peter was assessinated and his bastard son Alphonso XI ascended to the throne under the name of Henry II.