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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Glossary
- Note on the Maps
- Chapter 1 Rethinking the Hispanic Monarchy in the First Global Age
- Chapter 2 John II's Controversial Reward
- Chapter 3 The Catholic Monarchs and the Legacy of John II
- Chapter 4 Rebellion Against Crown Administration as a Defense of Absolute Royal Authority
- Chapter 5 Pursuing Justice: Due Process, Procedure, and the Adjudication of a Major Lawsuit in the Absence of Coercive Muscle
- Chapter 6 Making Judgments: Letrado Theories and Interpretive Schemes
- Chapter 7 Philip II, The Great Fear, and the New Authoritarianism
- Chapter 8 The Paradox of Absolute Royal Authority
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Chapter 3 - The Catholic Monarchs and the Legacy of John II
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Glossary
- Note on the Maps
- Chapter 1 Rethinking the Hispanic Monarchy in the First Global Age
- Chapter 2 John II's Controversial Reward
- Chapter 3 The Catholic Monarchs and the Legacy of John II
- Chapter 4 Rebellion Against Crown Administration as a Defense of Absolute Royal Authority
- Chapter 5 Pursuing Justice: Due Process, Procedure, and the Adjudication of a Major Lawsuit in the Absence of Coercive Muscle
- Chapter 6 Making Judgments: Letrado Theories and Interpretive Schemes
- Chapter 7 Philip II, The Great Fear, and the New Authoritarianism
- Chapter 8 The Paradox of Absolute Royal Authority
- Notes
- Works Cited
- Index
Summary
Royal Leadership as a Balancing Act
John II left his heirs, Henry IV and the Catholic Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand, a bitter, dangerous, and widely followed quarrel between the city of Toledo and the heads of the House of Sotomayor, now counts of Belalcázar. Although John also bequeathed royal institutions and laws to resolve such conflicts, Crown officials lacked the capacity to do so. The history of the Belalcázar case, as the litigation was increasingly known, reveals that John had further bequeathed an influential group of magnates who were capable of pressuring rulers to observe more personal relationships with their great vassals, which could be used to block the continuation of the trial to a final verdict.
The Catholic Monarchs understood the special importance of royal justice in Castile. Both were members of the Castilian House of Trastámara, which had been established as the ruling dynasty when Henry II overthrew and murdered Peter I in 1369. Henry justified this act on the basis of king Peter's alleged failure to maintain justice in the kingdom. In 1465, Isabella's older half brother Henry IV had been symbolically removed from the throne and replaced by her younger brother Alfonso on exactly the same grounds. Although Ferdinand would become the male head of the House of Trastámara when his father, John II of Aragón, died in 1479, Isabella insisted in the marriage agreement of 1469 and afterwards that Ferdinand was no more than her co-administrator of justice in Castile and was equally bound “to guard justice and all the good usages, laws and customs of these kingdoms and domains.”
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- 'By My Absolute Royal Authority'Justice and the Castilian Commonwealth at the Beginning of the First Global Age, pp. 45 - 78Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2005