For the Want of a Throne: the Kingdom of Aragon (Book 1)

For the Want of a Throne: the Kingdom of Aragon (Book 1)

Prologue: Aragon from 1164 to 1196.


The events that marked the reign of Alfonso II took place, in the most part, outside its kingdom, as the king was deeply involved in what was taking place north of the Pyrenees, a natural tendency given the affinity between the Occitan and Catalan dominions of the Crown of Aragon. After all, his realms incorporated not only Provence but also the counties of Cerdanya and Roussillon, and Béarn and Bigorre paid homage to Alfonso. This involvement in the affairs of Languedoc, proved highly beneficial to Aragon, but proved to be a distraction for the king, who could only pay attention from time to time to one his favourite projects: recovering Navarre.

The kings of Aragon had been also the rulers of Navarre until the death of Alfonso I, who died without a heir and prompted the kingdom into a period of uncertainty that was not solved by the ascension to the throne of his brother Ramiro but until his daughter and heir married Ramon Berenguer IV, count of Barcelona. However, by then Navarre was lost.

Alfonso II of Aragon was also influenced by the actions of his neighbour and somehow ally, Alfonso VIII of Castille, who was also eager to recover some land lost to Navarre and to conquer the kingdom of Leon, as well as taking lands to the Moors, but the defeat suffered at Alarcos at the ands of the Almohad armies had sent into disarray the plans of the Castillian king, who was greatly weakened by the disaster and forced Alfonso of Aragon to forget the Languedoc for a while.

It would take twenty years to get rid of the Almohad danger.
 
My idea is marrying Peter the Catholic of Aragon to Berengaria of Castille, another thing to look at is that Eleanor of Aquitaine is the heiress to most of Occitania excluding Dauphine..so marrying into a descendant of Eleanor of Aquitaine might be also helpful..

My other idea is marrying the dispossesed Dulce II of Provence to Richard the Lionheart, in exchange of alliance..and Berengaria marries Peter of the Catholic but in exchange of the rights to Languedoc and Provence.
 
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My idea is marrying Peter the Catholic of Aragon to Berengaria of Castille, another thing to look at is that Eleanor of Aquitaine is the heiress to most of Occitania excluding Dauphine..so marrying into a descendant of Eleanor of Aquitaine might be also helpful..

My other idea is marrying the dispossesed Dulce II of Provence to Richard the Lionheart, in exchange of alliance..and Berengaria marries Peter of the Catholic but in exchange of the rights to Languedoc and Provence.

I'm planning some Castillian-Aragonese marriages, so you smellnig sense is very good ;)

Marrying Eleanor of Aquitaine is an old habit that I have from the game Crusader Kings :winkytongue:

Oh sweet another Kurt Steiner masterpiece:D

Thanks for joining in!!!!
 
True but I think the two king would soon lose thei land Normandy couldnt be English for long more and more paesant and minor Noble wanted to be free from the English rules and it streched the English resource to Thin with the problem they had with the Scot and Welsh but I could see Aragon keeping some occitan territories for 3 or 4 centuries maybe a bit longer.
 
It all depends on when the fight for the lands takes place. If, for instance, there is a Bouvines with Aragon joining the alliance against France, there might end up having no France if they got defeated....

Well, we shall see...
 
The two POD for this have Berengaria of Castille married to Peter the Catholic and Eleanor of Brittany married to Henry VI of HRE as the second wife, having Eleanor of Brittany as the wife of Henry VI would mean that the Hohenstauffens would do nothing against the Plantagenets..
 
A bride, my kingdom for a bride!

A scourge of deaths had befallen upon many European royal houses since 1196. One of them changed the tide of events. In 1206, Marie of Montpellier, the wife of Pedro II of Aragon died from sequelae of the birth of her son, Jaime, who followed her mother to the grave a few days later (1). Hardly a year later, in 1207 Pedro married Blanca of Castilla, who became the fourth daughter of Alfonso VII of Castille to bo crownded as a queen (2). Pedro, always a colorful character himself, managed to be able of impregnating his wife several times in spite of wandering around the several kindgoms of the medieval Spain and the south of Spain, always eager to defend his rights or looking for adventure, as if he was, unconsciously, trying to overcome the legend of Richard Cœur de Lion. This lust for glory took him to take part in the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), which was the turning point of the Reconquista and broke the spine of the Almohad powers in the south of Spain; and then to go to the south of France to defend the rights of his Occitans vassals ifrom the wanton carnage that Simon of Montfort was unleashing upon the south of France with the crusade aimed at annhilating the heretic Cathars. The crusade, however, had become closer to a war of expansion. That was over in Muret (1213).

Surrounded at the small city of Muret, Montfort decided to risk everything into a bold action: he divided his army into three squadrons, and then led them across the Garonne river to meet the Aragonese forces. Pedro's ally and brother-in-law, Count Raymond, advised a defensive posture in order to weaken the advancing enemy with bowshot and javelins. Pedro, who had seen the carnage of Las Navas, was unwilling at the beginning to hear his brother-in-law's advice as he judged this suggestion as unknightly and dishonorable, but, in the end, he accepted it. When Simon charged, disaster beffell hsi troops: the vangaurd, under Guillaume de Contres and Guillaume des Barres, was decimated by the enemy archers. The second corps, led by Bouchard de Marly, in spite of the storm of arrows that fell upon it, managed to reach the front of the Aragonese-Occitan line and pushed it back, just to be surrounded by the enemy infantry on the flanks and cut to pieces. Simon of Montfort, seeing the disaster, fled the battlefield.

With the crusade in disarray and weakened by the defeat, the country rose against the invader. Many of the cities conquered by Montfort fell, and the cruades were, bit by bit, expelled from the country and, by 1214, a broken Simon offered his claim to the lands of Languedoc to Philip II, King of France, who, by then, was facing the formidable coalition that included Emperor Otto IV, King John I of England, Duke Henry I of Brabant, Count William I of Holland, Duke Theobald I of Lorraine, and Duke Henry III of Limburg. Would he be so bold as to add an enemy to that impressive list?

Of course, he didn't.

(1) You can consider this a POD or something like that. I'm sorry for Jaime, as he's not going to conquer anything in this TL...
(2) Another POD, if you like it. Sancha, born 20/28 March 1182, doesn't die in infancy and become the queen of Alfonso II of Portugal; her sister Urraca marries Louis VIII of France and then Blanca becomes the queen of Pedro.
 
I think if Conrad of Swabia survives he could have Eleanor of Brittany as his bride and Empress, since Eleanor of Aquitaine is not allowing the marriage between Berengaria and Conrad to happen....I think John would have made a better deal with Arthur on that scenario..
 
Aside from Eleanor of Brittany marrying Conrad of Swabia, also have Constance of Brittany bear a male son to Guy de Thouars in that way the succession of England and Brittany would be more stable..even if Arthur still dies..
 
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