The Farce of Avila
Monthly Strategy Report August 2016
Alejandro Vidal Crespo
Director of Market Strategies
Monthly Strategy Report. August 2016
The Farce of Avila
5 June 1465, Avila. A group of the highest noblemen and clergy in Castile congregated before a large
crowd on a platform outside the walls of Avila, upon which sat a wooden statue adorned with a crown,
sword, and sceptre. Incredible, right? This is the story of the fictitious overthrow of King Enrique IV of
Castile, known to history as the Farce of Avila.
The story begins with the death of Juan II, Enrique’s predecessor to the throne of Castile. King Juan had
children by two wives: Enrique himself and María of Aragón from the first marriage, and Enrique’s halfsiblings, Isabella (yes, that Isabella) and Alfonso from the second, who co-star in this chronicle.
Enrique IV ascended to the throne in 1454 at the age of 29, though he did so as a man separated from
his wife. At 15, he had married the Infanta Blanca of Navarre, a union arranged in 1436 (when Enrique
was 11) as part of the peace treaty between Castile and Navarre. But the marriage was annulled in 1453
by the Bishop of Segovia, in a curious process. The Bishop decreed that Enrique had been unable to
consummate the union with Blanca due to a curse that had prevented him from having intercourse with
his wife specifically, but not with other women, as several Segovian prostitutes attested, swearing they
had provided their services to the prince without difficulty.
Given the solvency of this argument, Pope Nicholas V issued a papal bull annulling the marriage to
Blanca of Navarre, thereby freeing Enrique to marry his next wife, Juana of Portugal, which he did in
1455, as King. His rivals in Castile, however, were not as benevolent as the Pontiff, and rumours began
circulating about the impotence and possible homosexuality of the monarch. Then, after seven years of
marriage, in 1462, Enrique and Juana welcomed a daughter, also called Juana. The King quickly named his
daughter Princess of Asturias by the Courts of the Kingdom.
But all was not well between the King and the Castilian nobility due to the meteoric rise of his righthand man, Beltrán de la Cueva. Beltrán entered the King’s council in 1461 (replacing the Marquis of
Villena, who will re-appear soon) and in 1462 he was given the title of Duke of Alburquerque. Outrage
reached a boiling point when in 1464 he was named Grand Master of Santiago. The Marquis of Villena
and several other disgruntled noblemen began questioning the legitimacy of the King’s daughter, Juana,
alleging that she was actually fathered by Beltrán and calling her “La Beltraneja,” a derogatory epithet
that passed into history. And at this point in the story, we return to the fabled walls of Avila.
After months of tug-of-war with Enrique, the Marquis of Villena finally organised in Avila the ouster of
the King, represented by the aforementioned wooden effigy. Villena was accompanied by, among others,
the Archbishops of Toledo, Santiago and Seville, and the Dukes of Alba de Tormes, Benavente and
Plasencia. A manifesto was read, accusing Enrique IV of consorting with Muslins, being a homosexual,
and having forced the queen into sexual relations with Beltrán, resulting in the birth of Juana, whose
legitimacy to rule they refused to recognise. They then proclaimed Alfonso (aged 11) the new King,
dubbing him Alfonso XII of Castile. After dispossessing the statue of all its symbols of power and nobility
(crown, sword, and sceptre), they threw it to the ground to cries of “Al suelo, puto” (Eat dirt, swine!).
Thus began a war between two Castilian factions, something not uncommon throughout history.
In 1468, “King” Alfonso XII died, and the rebellious nobles were left in a lurch. Now the legitimacy of
Enrique IV as King was no longer in doubt, but the conflict centred around his successor. Those formerly
loyal to Alfonso—the rebellious nobles—supported Enrique’s sister, Isabella, while those faithful to
the King supported Juana (you’ll excuse the expression, “La Beltraneja”). You’ll recall that, in a recent
parliamentary debate, Mariano Rajoy said that things would end “worse than the Bulls of Guisando”?
This was the episode he was referring to, symbolised by the ancient statues of bulls located in the
municipality of El Tiemblo in Avila.
Monthly Strategy Report. August 2016
In this scenario, future Queen Isabella I (the Catholic Queen) swore allegiance to her brother Enrique IV
in exchange for being named Princess of Asturias. Isabella received the title of heir and a very generous
financial pay-out, but agreed only to marry with the King’s consent. She failed to keep her side of the
bargain when she wed Ferdinand of Aragon (rather than the Portuguese suitor preferred by the King),
prompting Enrique IV to revoke the Treaty of the Bulls of Guisando and return the succession rights to
Juana, thereby triggering a new civil war in Castile between those loyal to Isabella and those in favour of
Juana (supported by Portugal and France). The strife would last from 1475 (upon the death of King Enrique
IV) to 1479, when Castile and Portugal signed the Treaty of Alcáçovas, which would prove essential to
the understanding of colonial distribution between Spain and Portugal in the coming centuries, and
which would be augmented by the famous Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, which demarcated the limits of
Spanish and Portuguese expansion in the Americas.
In short, after 30 years of nearly continuous conflict on account of a King with questionable sovereignty,
the turmoil ended in 1479, ushering in a period of domestic peace. In just over ten years, the Reconquista
would be complete and the colonial expansion that would lead to the Golden Age would begin. In the
end, in the medium term, things didn’t turn out as bad as the Bulls of Guisando, Mr. Rajoy.