Journal of Medieval Military History by Kelly DeVries;Clifford J. Rogers;John France;

Author:Kelly DeVries;Clifford J. Rogers;John France; [France;, Kelly DeVries;Clifford J. Rogers;John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781783277186
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Published: 2022-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

The Queen Attempts to Win the Day

The only advantage gained from the hesitant water ballet between the Castilian and Aragonese fleets in the summer of 1359 seemed to fall to the Aragonese queen, at least for the short time when she put into operation across a good portion of Aragon and Catalonia her newly won authority drawn from the post of lieutenant general. Elionor may even have looked past the desperate possibilities that may have emerged from the naval conflict toward an even greater enhancement of her ruling position in the Crown of Aragon or Sicily. Her greatest concerns, however, seemed to mostly focus on the task of safeguarding Aragonese, Catalan, and Valencian territories threatened by the Castilian fleet during a period when she was not fully aware of her husband’s fate.

Between June and August 1359, Elionor remained in Barcelona, but extended her area of command as far south as Alicante on the southern Valencian coast which was the last of her husband’s towns to undergo an attack from the Castilian fleet during the eventful summer.15 While the queen’s words were bolstered by her new authority, her tone was very similar to her communications during the first months of the war. She thus repeated time and again the great danger Aragon’s royal couple were in and how desperately they needed the help and funds of their subjects.16

In the months before her husband took to the Mediterranean in pursuit of his Castilian enemy, the queen’s expanded authority became increasingly obvious even in regard to Pere III himself. As the conflict with Pedro I intensified between 1356 and 1359, she sternly warned Pere against diverting taxes to pay off his principal captain, Enrique de Trastámara. Though she distrusted that Castilian soldier, her advice to her husband against him had little to do with hatred, but rather came from an effort to maintain the stability of each realm within the Crown of Aragon.17

Occasionally unwilling to hold her tongue, however, the queen openly criticized Pere’s officials and captains alike in a tone that often brought with it new enemies. In this way, she occasionally confronted such important military leaders as Juan Fernández de Heredía, the castellan of Amposta, Prince Ferran, and Arnau de Eril in a manner that to these captains seemed dangerous meddling.18 Her scolding tone was especially galling to Pere III’s most important soldier, Count Enrique de Trastámara, whom she excoriated for having left his post on the Aragonese frontier to raise money for his unpaid troops.19 The deepest source of resentment among these professional military leaders was the imperious tone the queen often took with them. Her words, however, made clear that she was in the right, and they grudgingly had to admit it. Her communications with those who risked the dangers of the battlefield also demonstrated to them that the queen had very definite ideas about human conflict:

We know well that victory in battles comes about neither from human encounters or conflicts. Nor does it reside in the multitude and great numbers or men, but is rather in the hands of the Lord God, and in the hearts of the warriors.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.