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| 1383–1385 Portuguese interregnum | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of theHundred Years' War | |||||||
 The Battle of Aljubarrota byJean de Wavrin | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 Party of theGrandmaster of AvisSupported by:  England |  Party ofBeatrice of Portugal CastileSupported by:  France Aragon Genoese volunteers | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| John, Grandmaster of Avis Nuno Álvares Pereira | Beatrice, Queen-consort of Castile John I of Castile Fernando Sánchez de Tovar # Pedro Álvares Pereira † | ||||||
Aninterregnum and awar of succession began in theKingdom of Portugal in 1383 when KingFerdinand I died leaving no sons and ended when KingJohn I was crowned in 1385 after his victory during theBattle of Aljubarrota.
The Portuguese interpret the era as their earliest national resistance movement to counterCastilian intervention, and Robert Durand considers it as the "great revealer ofnational consciousness".[1]
The bourgeoisie and the nobility worked together to establish theAvis dynasty, a branch of thePortuguese House of Burgundy, securely on an independent throne. That contrasted with the lengthy civil wars in France (Hundred Years' War) and England (War of the Roses), which had aristocratic factions fighting powerfully against a centralised monarchy.
In Portugal it is sometimes known simply asthe Interregnum (or theFirst Interregnum, if the1580 Portuguese succession crisis is counted as a "Second Interregnum"), the1383–1385 crisis (Crise de 1383–1385) or theAvis Revolution (Revolução de Avis).
In 1383, KingFerdinand I of Portugal was dying. From his marriage toLeonor Telles de Menezes, only PrincessBeatrice of Portugal survived. Her marriage was the major political issue of the day since it would determine the future of the kingdom.[2]
Several political factions lobbied for possible husbands, which includedEnglish andFrench princes. Finally, the king settled for his wife's first choice, KingJohn I of Castile. Ferdinand had wagedthree wars against Castile during his reign, and the marriage, celebrated in May 1383, was intended to put an end to hostilities by a union of the two crowns but was not a widely accepted solution. Thedynastic union meant that Portugal would lose independence to Castile. Many nobles were fiercely opposed to that possibility but were not united under a common pretender to the crown. There were two candidates, both illegitimate half-brothers of Ferdinand:[2]
On October 22, 1383, King Ferdinand died. According to themarriage contract, Dowager Queen Leonor assumed regency in the name of her daughter Beatrice and son-in-law, John I of Castile. Since diplomatic opposition was no longer possible, the party for independence took more drastic measures, which started the 1383–1385 crisis.
The regent's privy council made the error of excluding any representation of the merchants of Lisbon. On the other hand, the popular classes of Lisbon, Beja, Porto, Évora, Estremoz, Portalegre and some other municipalities of the kingdom rose in favour of John (João), Grandmaster of Avis, seeing him as the national candidate (and the preferred national candidate). The first move was taken by the faction of the Grandmaster of Avis in December 1383. João Fernandes Andeiro, Count of Ourém, called Conde Andeiro, the detested lover of the dowager queen, was murdered by a group of conspirators led by the Grandmaster. Following this act, John, acclaimed "rector and defender of the realm" by the people of Lisbon, and also supported by the city's great merchants,[3] was now the leader of the opposition to the pretensions of John I of Castile, who tried to be recognised as monarchiure uxoris, against theTreaty of Salvaterra.[2]
The armed resistance met the Castilian army on April 6, 1384, in theBattle of Atoleiros. General Nuno Álvares Pereira won the battle for the Avis party, but victory was not decisive. John I of Castile then retreated to Lisbon in May andbesieged the capital, with an auxiliary fleet blocking the city's port in the riverTagus, in a severe drawback to the independence cause.[2] Without the capital and its riches and commerce, little could be done to free the country from the Castilian king. On his side, John I of Castile needed Lisbon, not only for financial reasons, but also for political ones—neither he nor Beatrice had been crowned as monarchs of Portugal, and without a coronation in the capital he was only a designated king.
Meanwhile, John of Avis had surrendered the military command of the resistance to Nuno Álvares Pereira. The general continued to attack cities loyal to the Castilians and to harass the invading army. John of Avis was now focused on diplomatic offensives. International politics played an important role in deciding Portuguese affairs. In 1384, theHundred Years' War was at its peak, withEnglish andFrench forces in a struggle for the crown of France. The conflict spilled beyond the French borders, and influenced, for instance, theWestern Schism in a papacy only recently moved to Avignon from Rome. Castile was a traditional ally of France, so, looking for assistance in England was the natural option for John of Avis. In May, with Lisbon under siege, an embassy was sent toRichard II of England to make a case for Portuguese independence. Richard was seventeen years old in 1384, and power lay with his uncleJohn of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and regent of England. Despite initial reluctance to concede men, John of Gaunt finally agreed to levy troops to reinforce the Portuguese army.[2]
Lisbon was struggling withfamine and feared defeat by the Castiliansiege. Blocked by land and by the river, the city had no hope of relief by the Avis army, which was too small to risk an intervention and was occupied subduing other cities. An attempt was made by a Portuguese fleet to relieve the Castilian blockade. On July 18 a group of ships led by captain Rui Pereira managed tobreak the blockade and deliver precious supplies of food to Lisbon. The cost was high, since three of four boats were seized and Rui Pereira himself died in the naval combat. Despite this minor success, the siege held on; the city ofAlmada on the south bank of the Tagus surrendered to Castile. But the siege was hard not only on the inhabitants of Lisbon: the army of Castile was also dealing with a shortage of food supplies, due to the harassment of Nuno Álvares Pereira, and thebubonic plague. It was the outbreak of an epidemic in his ranks that forced John I of Castile to raise the siege on September 3 and retreat to Castile. Weeks later, the Castilian fleet also abandoned the Tagus, and Lisbon avoided conquest.
In late 1384 and the early months of 1385, Nuno Álvares Pereira and John of Avis pursued the war, but they did not manage to subdue the majority of those Portuguese cities then in favour of the Castilian cause. Answering the call for help, English troops (an Anglo-Gascon contingent) landed in Portugal onEaster Day. They were not a big contingent, around 600 men (of which about 100 would be present in Ajubarrota), but they were mainly veterans of the Hundred Years' War battles and thereby well schooled in successful English military tactics. Among them were a small number oflongbowmen who had already demonstrated their value against cavalry charges.
At the same time, John of Avis organised a meeting inCoimbra of theCortes, the assembly of the kingdom. There, on April 6, he was proclaimed the tenth king of Portugal, a clear act of defiance against the Castilian pretensions. John I of Portugal nominated Nuno Álvares PereiraConstable of Portugal and went to subdue the resistance still surviving in the north.[2]
John I of Castile was not pleased. His first move was to send apunitive expedition, but the forces were heavily defeated in theBattle of Trancoso in May. From January, he began preparing his army to solve the problem definitively. The king himself led an enormous Castilian army that invaded Portugal in the second week of June through the central north, fromCelorico da Beira toCoimbra andLeiria. An allied contingent of French heavy cavalry travelled with them. The power of numbers was on their side—about 32,000 men on the Castilian side versus 6,500 on the Portuguese. They immediately headed to the region of Lisbon and Santarém, the country's major cities.
Meanwhile, the armies of John I of Portugal and Nuno Álvares Pereira joined together in the city ofTomar. After some debate, a decision was made: the Castilians could not be allowed to besiege Lisbon once again, since the city would undoubtedly fall, so the Portuguese would intercept the enemy in the vicinity ofLeiria, near the village of Aljubarrota. On August 14, the Castilian army, very slow due to its huge numbers, finally met the Portuguese and English troops. The ensuing fight, theBattle of Aljubarrota, was fought in the style of the Battles ofCrécy andPoitiers. These tactics allowed a reduced infantry army to defeat cavalrymen with the use of longbowmen in the flanks and defensive structures (likecaltrops) in the front. The Castilian army was not only defeated, but annihilated. Their losses were so great that John I of Castile was prevented from attempting another invasion in the following years.
With this victory, John of Avis was recognised as the undisputed king of Portugal as John I, putting an end to theinterregnum and anarchy of the 1383–1385 crisis. Recognition from Castile would not arrive until 1411, after another Portuguese victory at theBattle of Valverde, with the signing of theTreaty of Ayllón. The English–Portuguese alliance would be renewed in 1386 with theTreaty of Windsor and the marriage of John I toPhilippa of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt. In 1387, taking advantage of the renewed alliance, John I, leading a Portuguese army of 9,000 men, reinforced by a 1,500-man English contingent that landed inGalicia, invaded Castile to sit John of Gaunt on the Castilian throne, which he claimed on his marriage toInfanta Constance of Castile.[4] The Castilian forces refused to offer battle, after two months no significant town was taken and the allies, struck by disease and lack of supplies, met with an overwhelming failure.[4]
The treaty, still valid today, established a pact of mutual support between the countries: Indeed, Portugal would use it again against its neighbours in 1640, to expel the Spanish Habsburg kings from the country, and again during thePeninsular War. TheAnglo-Portuguese Alliance would also be used byBritain (insuccession from England) in theSecond World War (allowing theAllies to establish bases on theAzores) and during the 1982Falklands War.
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