2023-04-16 23:06:26
Alfonso de Trastámara is remembered, above all, for his participation in the Farce of Ávila, where he was crowned King at the age of 11 by a group of noblemen who challenged the weak. Henry IV The Powerlessto the category of rebellion. For several years the unusual situation in Castile occurred in which there were two kings and two courts, until the adolescent died suddenly due to supposedly the plague.
However, poison was too common a substance in the renaissance courts enough to rule out his presence in the death of the young Infante. And what always belonged to the field of speculation, was confirmed a few years ago by scientific research that definitively ruled out any trace of the plague bacillus in his mortal remains.
Son of Juan II of Castile and Isabel of Portugal, Alfonso of Trastámara He was known as ‘The Innocent’ because he was considered a puppet in the hands of an out-of-control nobility who only wanted to make the most of the weakness of his half-brother, Enrique IV, at the cost of the young man’s credulity. Although both were sons of Juan II, they had different mothers and Enrique IV was always suspicious of the children of his father’s second marriage. Both Isabel ‘La Católica’ and Alfonso lived a complicated childhood, separated from the Court in the company of her mother, who suffered from a process of dementia.
Only when a part of the nobility glimpsed the possibility of using both brothers against Enrique IV, did he order them to be brought to the Alcazar of Segovia, which served as the royal residence, to keep them under surveillance. Doubts about the paternity of the only heir to the King, Juana – known as ‘la Beltraneja’ because she accused herself of Beltran de la Cueva of being his real father-, led numerous noblemen, headed by Juan Pacheco and his brother Pedro Gironto declare that Isabel and Alfonso were the legitimate successors of the Crown of Castile.
From the farce to the grave, through the war
In May 1464, the challenge of the nobility materialized in the League in Alcalá de Henares. In a new example of his lack of character, the King gave in to the demands of the League and agreed to negotiate: Alfonso was handed over to Juan Pacheco to receive a royal education and he was sworn in as heir on November 30 on the condition that he marry Juana ‘La Beltraneja’. However, after the arbitration decision in Medina del Campo, Enrique refused to accept the measures previously assumed and, consequently, the rebel nobles held a symbolic act in Ávila on June 5 to crown Alfonso King and strip him of all dignities. real to his stepbrother.
The sham of Avila staged the point of no return in the fight against the Crown. A wooden scaffold was built, located outside the walled enclosure of Ávila, where a doll was deposited, stuffed with straw and wool, with its corresponding crown and sceptre. Next, the assembled nobles stripped Henry’s wimp of the royal distinctions: the Archbishop of Toledo he took the crown (symbol of royal dignity), Juan Pacheco stripped him of the scepter (symbol of the administration of justice), and the count of Plasencia snatched the sword (symbol of the defense of the kingdom). Finally, another of the leaders of the rebellion, the Count of Benavente, knocked down and trampled on the King’s doll shouting: “To earth puto!”.
Picture showing Isabel of Portugal and Braganza, maddened, with her children.
After the humiliation of the wimp of Enrique IV and reading a long list of insults and grievances against him, Alfonso El Inocente, 11 years old, was proclaimed King of Castile amid the usual clamor of Castilian enthronements: «Castilla, Castilla! by King Alfonso!». The proclamation of the new King divided the nobility into two apparently irreconcilable factions: those who supported the insurrection (in addition to those already mentioned, the Duke of Medina Sidonia and the Enríquez family) and those faithful to the legitimate Monarch (where the family stood out). Mendoza and the ambitious First Duke of Alba).
For three years there was the situation in Castile of the coexistence of two kings with their respective courts and with the cities divided in their affiliation. The situation created by the Farce of Ávila, much bloodier if possible than the events of the reign of Juan II, remained in force, between truces and confrontations, until the celebration of the second battle of Olmedo (1467) and, above all, the death of King Alfonso (1468), supposedly poisoned, after which the leaders of the insurrection, mainly Juan Pacheco, had no qualms about working in favor of the current and once again showing loyalty to King Enrique.
In July 1468, Alfonso stopped in the small town of Cardeñosa as he headed his dwindling army toward Ávila with his sights set on recapturing Toledo. After his arrival in the town of Avila, the fifteen-year-old had trout for dinner at a local inn, as a result of which he became seriously ill. He spent several days in bed with high fevers that led to his grave. The symptoms recorded, in addition to fevers, were loss of speech and consciousness and insensitivity to pain. It was taken for granted that the young man had perished due to the plague, although it was impossible to contain the massive rumors that pointed to poisoning. The fact that “no trace of pestilence was found” in the royal body, according to the chronicler Galindez de Carvajaland that no one else was infected with such a contagious disease gave rise to speculation that pointed to Isabel’s hand.
According to three analyzes carried out on his remains, Afonso could not have suffered from the plague since the presence of Yersina pestis, the bacillus of this disease, was not found in his body.
The poison hypothesis was the object of scientific study in 2013 by the professor of Physical Anthropology at the University of León Luis Caro Dobón and the historian and professor at UNED Maria Dolores Carmen Morales Muniz. According to three analyzes carried out on his remains, Alfonso could not have suffered from the plague since the presence of Yersina pestis, the bacillus of this disease, had not been found in his body. Likewise, the authors of the investigation point out the improbability that the monarch died of a pandemic that had registered its great epicenter a century ago, in 1347, and less in a temporary location, the military camp where he lived at that time. There it was not as frequent to find burrows of black rats (those that carried the flea infected with the bacillus) as it was in cities and larger towns.
With the plague ruled out, the authors of the study dare to point to poisoning as a cause to explain such an accelerated death. In the absence of vomiting and diarrhea in the descriptions of the documentary sources, the researchers estimate the use of a plant-type poison supplied by one of his supporters. The main suspect would be Juan Pacheco, who was present at the fateful dinner where he continued to eat with “great apparatus”, according to Palencia, while the rest of those who surrounded the King were devastated. Pacheco, however, had obtained near dates the absolute ownership of the Mastership of Santiago, which, in the event that Alfonso reconciled with his stepbrother and was named crown prince, would return to the young man’s hands. His sudden death served her well.
Enrique said he felt for the death of Alfonso “very great pain and feeling, both for being my brother and for dying at such a tender and innocent age.” The ill-fated young man was buried first in the church of the Franciscans of Arévalo and then, by decision of his sister, transferred to the Cartuja de Miraflores de Burgos to a beautiful sepulcher where today he rests with his parents. Elizabeth wanted her to be among kings, although in the funeral statue of her, praying and with an expressionless face, she does not appear with a crown. On the prie-dieu that accompanies it, a mysterious hand closes her book as if wanting to highlight the premeditated disappearance of this Trastámara member.
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