Here you have it. After Aragon: a bridge of blue sea. took us from 1299 to 1494, let's take the story where I left it. My aim is to, again, tell the events of the Kingdoms of Aragon and Castille from 1494 to 1699 or so...
Without too much ado...
Jaime IV of Aragon, I of Castille.(Barcelona, 1480 - Tordesillas, 1536),
called "Father of the People" (Spanish: el Padre del Pueblo, Catalan "el Pare del Poble"),
King of Aragon, Castille, Navarre, Naples, Valencia, Majorca, Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica
and count of Barcelona, Roussillon and Cerdanya.
Born 28 June 1480 in Barcelona, Jaime was the fourth child and second son of Pedro VI of Aragon & Isabel of Castilla. Not much is known about his early life because he was not expected to become king. In 1482, his father and Maximilian of Austria signed the Treaty of Zaragoza, whereby Maximilian promised to give hiis daughter Margaret in marriage to Jaime. The engagement took place in 1483. Margaret, with Franche-Comté and Artois as her dowry, was transferred to the guardianship of Pedro VI.
When his elder brother Juan died in 1493, Jaime became the heir of the two kingdoms. In the Castilian Cortes of Valladolid of 1493, and that of Barcelona in 1494, he was sworn as the Prince of Asturias and of Girona, heir-apparent to his father. When his father died in 1494, Jaime was accepted as sovereign, even though the Castillian felt uneasy with him, as he had been educated in Aragon.
Although he came unexpectedly to power, Jaime IV of Aragon and I of Castille acted with vigour, reforming both the Aragonese and Castillian legal system, reducing taxes and improving government. He was quite skilled in managing his nobility. Jaime extended the powers of royal judges and made efforts to curb corruption in the law. He also tightened up the tax collection system.
The French involvement in Italy, which began in 1494 with Charles VIII's invasion of Italy to protect the Duchy of Milan from the threats of the Republic of Venice, caused inmediate troubles to the young Jaime. Even if the French were responding to an appeal for assistance from Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan, Jaime could not allow them to grow their influence in Italy and that set off a series of wars that would last from 1494 until 1559. The first war in that series of wars resulted from, directly, Charles VIII's invasion, and is known as "King Charles's War" (1494–1498).
This war, along with "King Louis XII's War" (1499–1504), ended the hopes of France of becoming the overlord of the Italian states and created the legend of the "invincible" Spanish Tercios, that, led by Gonzálo Fernández de Córdoba, smashed the French armies, forcing Louis XII to admit his defeat. Jaime was to remain absent from Italy for some years, while Maximilian of Austria curbed the power of the Republic of Venice, destroying much of the Venetian army at the Battle of Agnadello on May 14, 1509, although this small war ended without a clear winner as Maximiliam was unable to capitalize his victory.
France invaded Italy again in 1511 when Massimiliano Sforza recovered the ducal throne of Milan. Then Venice allied with France, agreeing to partition Lombardy between them. The resulting War of the League of Cambrai (1511–1516), that ended with the French were eventually driven from Milan in 1513 by an Spanish-Swiss army.
(to be continued...)