ambitious woman, Juana Henriquez, daughter of the Admiral of Castille, and she became the mother of Ferdinand, afterwards known as “the Catholic.” Thenceforth she schemed to obtain all that could be grasped for her own son Ferdinand.
Charles was an amiable, accomplished youth, fond of literature and of the arts. Queen Blanche, in her will, had urged him not to assume the government without the consent of his father; but when, in 1452, the estates of Aragon recognized him as heir to the crown, and Juan declined to resign, Charles openly raised the standard of revolt. Juan marched against his son, and Charles was defeated, taken prisoner, and consigned to a fortress. There he remained for a year, and would have remained on indefinitely had not the Navarrese armed for his deliverance. Juan was forced to yield, and as a compromise confirmed Charles in the principality of Viana, and promised to abandon to him half the royal revenues.
The reconciliation thus forcibly effected was not likely to last; in fact, the compromise suited neither party. The father burned to chastise sharply his rebellious son, and Charles chafed at being defrauded of the crown which was his undoubted heritage. Hence in 1455 both prepared to renew the contest. The following year, 1456, the prince was again defeated by his father, and was compelled to fly to his uncle Alphonso, who was then at Naples. During his absence Juan summoned the estates and declared that both Charles and his eldest daughter Blanche were excluded from succession to the throne—Charles on account of his rebellion, Blanche for having espoused his cause—and Juan proclaimed his youngest daughter Leonora to be his heir. Blanche had been married to, and then separated from, Henry the Impotent, King of Castille. Leonora was married to the Count of Foix.
The inhabitants of Pampeluna, and the people generally throughout Navarre, were indignant at the injustice committed by Juan; they elected Charles to be their king, and invited him to ascend the throne. Unfortunately for him, Alphonso, King of Aragon and the Two Sicilies, died in 1458, whereupon Juan ascended the throne that had been occupied by his brother. Charles now hoped for a reconciliation, which he had reason to expect, as his father now wore three crowns which had come to him by right; and he hoped that Juan would readily surrender to him that of Navarre, which he had usurped, and to which he had no legitimate claim. The Prince of Viana landed in Spain in 1459, and dispatched a messenger to Juan entreating him to forget the past and to recognize his claim to Navarre at present and his right to succession to Aragon. But Juan would allow nothing further than restoration to the principality of Viana, and expressly forbade his son setting foot in Navarre. Had the misunderstanding ended here, it had been well for Charles; but a new occasion of dispute arose.
Henry IV of Castille offered his sister Isabella, heiress to the crown after his death, to Charles of Viana. This alarmed and enraged Juana, the stepmother of Charles, who calculated on effecting this alliance for her own son Ferdinand, and uniting under his sceptre the kingdoms of Aragon and Castille. To obtain this end Charles must be got rid of. Accordingly she induced his father Juan to invite him to a conference at Lerida. The prince went thither unsuspiciously, and was at once arrested and thrown into prison. The Estates of Aragon and Catalonia were incensed at the harsh and unjust treatment of one whom they hoped eventually to proclaim as their sovereign. They demanded his liberation. The King refused. Insurrection broke out, became general, and so menacing that Queen Juana was alarmed and herself solicited the release of the Prince. She did more; she went in person to Morella, whither the captive had been transferred, to open the prison gates. He was conducted by her to Barcelona, which admitted him, but shut its gates in her face. All Catalonia now recognized the Prince, and proclaimed him heir to the thrones of Aragon, Navarre, and Sicily. But the rejoicing of the people was of brief duration, as shortly after his release from durance Charles fell ill, lingered a few days, and died. By his testament he bequeathed the crown of Navarre to his sister Blanche as next in order of succession to himself.
The death of Charles was too opportune for it not to have been attributed to poison, administered by an agent of his stepmother. Soon after a ray of sunlight focussed by a mirror set fire to Juana’s hair. This was at once set down as a Judgment of Heaven falling on her, an indication by the finger of God that she was the murderess of her stepson.
Charles was now out of the way; Blanche, however, obstructed the path, and the will of her brother in her favour proved fatal to her. Juan was resolved to retain the sovereignty of Navarre during his own life, and none the less to transmit it at death to his favourite daughter Leonora, Countess of Foix, or her issue. He determined to compel Blanche to renounce her rights. To effect this she was sent across the Pyrenees, closely guarded, under the pretext that she was about to be given in marriage to the Duke of Berri, brother of the French king. But she perceived clearly enough what was her father’s purpose, and at Roncevaux, on her way, she caused a protest to be prepared in all secrecy, in which she declared that she was being carried out of Spain by violence, against her will, and that force would be used to compel her to renounce her rights over Navarre; and now she declared beforehand against the validity of such a renunciation. Upon reaching S. Jean-Pied-du-port, she was, as she had anticipated, constrained to make a formal surrender of all her rights, in favour of her sister and brother-in-law, Gaston, Count of Foix. In a letter addressed to Henry, couched in pathetic terms, she reminded him of the dawn of happiness that she had enjoyed when united to him years before, of his promises made to her, and of her subsequent sorrows. As she was well aware that her father was consigning her to imprisonment, and perhaps death at the hands of her ambitious and unscrupulous sister, she conferred on him all her rights to the crown of Navarre, to the exclusion of those who meditated her assassination, the Count and Countess of Foix. On the same day that this letter was dispatched she was handed over to an emissary of the Countess Leonora, 30 April, 1462, and was conveyed to the Castle of Orthez. The gates closed on her, and she was seen no more, but not long after they opened to allow a coffin to issue to be conveyed to Lescar, there to be interred.
The secret of Blanche’s death was closely kept, till the Navarrese Cortes took the matter up, and demanded her release as their rightful queen. Then only was it announced that she was dead, but on what day and in what manner she died was never revealed.
The Count and Countess of Foix now congratulated themselves on having secured the crown of Navarre to themselves and to their descendants, and their son Gaston was at once invested with the title of Prince of Viana. But the crime committed brought but a barren gain. A few years later Gaston of Viana, their hope, was killed by a lance in a tournament at Lillebourne. Count Gaston never obtained the kingdom, and died at Roncevaux in 1472. His widow, Leonora, was balked to the very last. Her father retained the title of King and the rule over Navarre up to his death in 1479, and when the coveted diadem fell to her, she retained it but for fifteen days, and then died also. Her grandson, Francis, called Phœbus on account of his beauty, was indeed crowned at Pampeluna. He was a gallant and amiable boy, but the doom of the ill-gotten crown was on him. Ferdinand the Catholic, son of the wicked Joanna, would not allow a pretty boy to stand in his way. One day, 29 January, 1483, after dinner, the prince, adonné à toutes gentillesses, took a flute on which he was wont to play. Scarcely had he raised it to his lips ere he turned deadly white and sank into a chair. In two hours he was dead, at the age of sixteen. As he lay dying he turned to his mother with a smile and said, “My kingdom is not of this world.”
It was the conviction of all contemporaries that Ferdinand the Catholic had contrived to have the lad poisoned.
The claim to the crown of Navarre now passed to Catherine, the sister of Francis Phœbus, married to Jean d’Albret. This marriage is interesting. It was determined by the Estates of Béarn. No sooner was Francis Phœbus dead than Ferdinand of Castille, his supposed murderer, sent to demand the hand of Catherine for his son, a child in the cradle. But the mother, Magdalen of France, coldly replied that the choice of a husband for her daughter was a matter for decision by the Assembly of the delegates of Béarn. The Estates were convoked to Pau, and the majority voted for Jean d’Albret, whose lands adjoined Béarn, and who was himself then but a child. During the infancy of Catherine and Jean d’Albret Magdalen acted as regent. The Count of Grammont and others formed a plot to poison her in favour of Jean de Foix, Catherine’s uncle. It was discovered, and the minor conspirators
