King Pedro I of Castile and Leon, known to some as ‘Pedro the Cruel’ and to others as ‘Pedro the Just’ was born in Burgos on 30 August 1334. His parents were Alphonso XI, King of Castile and Leon and Maria of Portugal, Alphonso’s queen and double cousin.
Alphonso also had a mistress, Eleanor de Guzmán, with whom he had numerous children. We may deduce Queen Maria’s hatred of Eleanor from the simple fact that after Alphonso died in 1350 the Queen had Eleanor imprisoned and then, in 1351, executed.
This no doubt helped to fuel the discontent of Eleanor’s eldest son, Enrique (Henry) who was to oppose and eventually usurp his half-brother.
Chancellor and chronicler Pero López de Ayala stated that Pedro had a pale complexion, blue eyes and very light blonde hair; he was 1.83 metres (6 ft 0 in) tall and muscular. He was accustomed to long, strenuous hours of work, lisped a little and “loved women greatly”. He was well-read and a patron of the arts, and in his formative years he enjoyed entertainment, music and poetry.
Despite popular myth, it is quite clear that the traditional hair colouring and stature of the House of York did not arise solely from the Nevilles! Given that Edmund of Langley was also blond, it is not hard to guess that his children were also. It’s a racing certainty that they were. Maybe the darker colouring of some of the family came from the Neville input? Or indeed, the Mortimer input?
Indeed, much of Ayala’s description fits King Edward IV like a glove, as does a certain penchant for secret marriages, as we shall see.
Pedro was to have married Edward III’s daughter, Joan. Unfortunately, this did not come to pass as the bride died of plague on her journey to Spain. How different history might have been had she lived! (This is one of those random events that made a huge difference to future developments, like Roger Mortimer’s death in Ireland in 1398, or the early death of the Duke of Warwick in 1446.)
If Pedro is to be believed (and he swore an oath to the Cortes on the matter) he secretly married Maria de Padilla in 1353. Maria was the mother of Constanza (later Duchess of Lancaster) and Isabella (later Duchess of York) as well as Beatrice (who became a nun) and Alphonso, who was recognised as Prince of the Asturias by the Cortes but died only a few months later, in 1362, aged three.
In the summer of 1353, pressured by his mother and the nobility, Pedro nevertheless married Blanche of Bourbon. This poor girl (who was only 14) was repudiated after three days. Pedro believed (or claimed) that she had committed adultery with one of his half-brothers. Blanche was imprisoned, and although her cousin, John II of France, tried to persuade the Pope to excommunicate Pedro over the matter, the Pope refused to assist. Blanche remained in prison until she died in 1361. It is said in some accounts that Pedro had her poisoned, but the truth cannot be known. After his downfall, Pedro was accused of many crimes and it’s impossible to be sure which are true and which are the calumnies of his enemies.
By coincidence, Maria de Padilla died in the same year. It was after her death that Pedro declared that she had been his true and only wife.
Pedro became involved in a long war against Aragon, and one of the strategies used by Aragon was to support his illegitimate half-brothers against him. This led to civil war, and in 1366 Pedro was forced to flee – at first to Portugal, but later to Gascony where he obtained the support of Edward of Woodstock ‘the Black Prince’.
His eldest half-brother usurped the throne as Enrique II, whose propaganda against Pedro included calling him ‘King of the Jews’ as it was claimed Pedro had favoured his Jewish subjects to an excessive degree. This fed an element of antisemitism within the country which in turn led to several pogroms between 1370 and 1390. Following Pedro’s death, Jews were forced to wear a yellow badge, supposedly as a punishment for having supported him.
Samuel Ha-Levi acted as Pedro’s treasurer, but there is little to suggest that Castilian Jews in general received special favour. Pedro did, however, punish the instigators of certain antisemitic events. To modern minds this is to his credit, but not necessarily so in the minds of his Christian contemporaries.
In 1367, aided by Prince Edward and John of Gaunt, Pedro regained his crown following the Battle of Najera. Prince Edward received a ruby from Pedro that is still kept among the British crown jewels. (It was given to Pedro by the Moorish ruler of Granada, who was effectively Pedro’s vassal, and whom Pedro assisted on several occasions.)
However, the financial demands of the English could not be satisfied – or at least were not. Prince Edward withdrew from Iberia, with the princesses Constanza and Isabella effectively hostages. They were, of course, eventually married to John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley respectively, demonstrating that two brothers could marry two sisters without any hint of incest, no matter what some historians may imagine in a similar case.
Meanwhile, Enrique returned to Spain with a large mercenary army led by none other than Bertrand du Guesclin. Pedro attempted to bribe Bertrand to defect, but Enrique, learning of the offer, simply outbid his brother.
On the pretext of a truce, Pedro was lured to meet his brother in a tent and was promptly stabbed to death by Enrique, who left his body exposed to ridicule and abuse for three days.
While it is clear that Pedro was no Gandhi, his treatment of Blanche of Bourbon being particularly despicable, he had his good qualities too. Hated by much of the nobility, he was also loved by many of his lesser subjects, particularly peasants and merchants whom he had protected from the worst excesses of the ruling class. It seems that he sought to treat the ethnic minorities in his kingdom with relative fairness. This no doubt explains why he is remembered as both ‘Cruel’ and ‘Just’. As so often in history, it is really a matter of perspective.
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