Lancaster's Crusade
Lancaster's Crusade, also known as the
Duke of Lancaster's Crusade or
Gaunt's Crusade, was a military expedition led by John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster, in the early to mid 1380s to conquer the kingdom of Castile and León. It was part of the Hundred Years War between the kingdom of England and the kingdom of France and took place during the Western Schism. The Roman Pope Urban VI issued a papal bull endorsing Gaunt's pursuit of the Castilian throne as a crusade, as King Juan of Castile was obedient to the Avignon Pope Clement VII.
A crusading revival in the mid to late 14th century made Lancaster's Crusade popular in its own time, though it has been criticized in later centuries. Historian Christopher Tyerman has derided it as the "Hundred Years War thinly disguised" as a religious mission. The crusade's clear political motivation was not a concern for contemporary sources, though some condemned what they considered an ignoble end to the campaign.
Background
Castile had been an ally of France since the 1369 deposition and murder of King Pedro of Castile. France had supported Enrique de Trastámara, who was Pedro's illegitimate half-brother and also Pedro's murderer, in a rebellion against Pedro. Enrique crowned himself King Enrique II of Castile and, to return France's favor, brought the wealthiest and most powerful kingdom in Iberia fully into the Hundred Years War when conflict between England and France reignited later that same year.
Enrique's usurpation dispossessed Constanza and Isabel of Castile, Pedro's two surviving daughters. The girls were of questionable birth, the result of a secret marriage Pedro claimed to have gone through several years before revealing it publicly, but the
cortes of Castile had recognized them as legitimate in 1362. This made the elder of the two, Constanza,
de jure queen of Castile, though both she and her sister were exiles in Gascony.
In 1371, Constanza wed the English prince John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster. She was noted for her beauty, but Gaunt's interest was political and perhaps chivalric. Henry Knighton, a contemporary chronicler typically well-informed about Lancastrian affairs, wrote that Gaunt was moved by Constanza's dedication to her father and her interest in returning to Castile to ensure that he was properly buried. Gaunt, Knighton said, wanted to "offer comfort and aid" to the exiled princess. Still, the political reasons for the marriage were undeniable. The Franco-Castilian alliance had proven overwhelming for the English and needed to be broken. What's more, Constanza's husband would be a king if she were ever to reclaim her birthright. Toppling the new Trastámaran regime was thus a personal goal for Gaunt and a strategic priority for the English.
Gaunt planned to personally lead an invasion of Castile in 1373 and built a powerful anti-Trastámaran coalition ahead of his arrival. The kingdoms of Aragon, Navarre, and Portugal, as well as the county of Foix, all threw their lot in with Gaunt. Supporters of the slain Pedro, known as
petristas, rebelled against Enrique. Gaunt's invasion never materialized, though. England had suffered a major loss at sea in 1372 and could not move a large army to Castile, forcing Gaunt to land at Calais and march across the whole of France. The campaign, known as the Great
Chevauchée, was a fiasco. His army fell apart before it reached Gascony, never even setting foot in Castile. Gaunt's alliances with Aragon, Navarre, and Foix collapsed soon thereafter. Then Portugal, which honored its deal with Gaunt, was crushed by Castile in the Second Fernandine War.
Gaunt did little to advance his claim after the extraordinary collapse of his 1373 campaign. The English had neither the interest nor the resources to support another Iberian venture. Gaunt's hopes for a conquest of Castile grew so dim that he even attempted to negotiate the surrender of his claim in an attempt to break the Franco-Castilian alliance. Constanza, on the other hand, remained singularly focused on retaking the throne. She surrounded herself with exiles who had remained loyal to her father and sought out any and all news from her homeland. Her marriage to Gaunt grew distant and formal over the course of the mid to late 1370s, as their political interests diverged and Gaunt began an affair with Katherine Swynford.
Prelude to war
In 1377, war between England and France resumed after a two-year truce. The French launched a coordinated assault on English positions on the continent, as well as a series of raids on the southern English coast, but the French offensive stalled.
King Edward IV of England died just months after the resumption of hostilities in 1377. He was succeeded by his son, King Edward V of England, who was just 12 years old. On his deathbed, Edward IV made plans for Gaunt to govern the kingdom as lord regent of England until Edward V came of age. Gaunt was the most senior adult man in the royal family and lord of the greatest estate in England, save the crown itself. He had also been personally close with and intensely loyal to Edward IV throughout his life, making him the best-suited candidate to lead the regency, at least in Edward IV's eyes. On a personal level, though, Gaunt was domineering, ostentatious, and thin-skinned, which made him an incredibly unpopular choice outside of the upper nobility and his vast network of retainers. His critics suspected that he would manage royal government as an extension of the duchy of Lancaster, and he went to great lengths to demonstrate that his commitment to his nephew's government outweighed his own interests.
England and France ended 1377 in something of a stalemate, which King Charles II of Navarre believed he could use to his advantage. He tried to negotiate the return of lands he had lost in Normandy more than a decade earlier, but was brushed off by the French crown. Insulted, Charles then turned to the English in hopes of retaking his former lands by force. An
alliance was signed in 1378 and plans were made to wed Edward V to one of Charles's daughters, but the girls were soon
captured by the French. Instead, Charles betrothed his son and heir, also named Charles, to Gaunt's daughter, Elizabeth of Lancaster.
In 1379, Enrique II died while planning an invasion of Navarre. His son, the new King Juan of Castile, declared his intention to pick up where Enrique had left off, but Juan had neither the experience nor the temperament to dominate the Iberian peninsula. King Fernando of Portugal began negotiating with Gaunt within months of Enrique's death. In 1380, a secret alliance was sealed between England and Portugal. Not long after, Anglo-Navarrese forces handed Juan a humiliating defeat at the
Battle of Estella.
Parliamentary debate
Gaunt's interest in Castile had been fully resuscitated by summer 1380. An
English expeditionary force was sent to Portugal before the end of the year, which Gaunt intended to follow with his own army in 1381. His ambitions, however, ran aground in the parliament of 1380. The crown could not afford to bring on more debt, the Commons refused to levy taxes to support the interests of the kingdom's wealthiest magnate, and the political establishment preferred to take action against France, where the duke of Gloucester was
already on campaign. What's more, the Commons wanted to keep Gaunt in England following an outbreak of violence on the Scottish border. Gaunt reacted angrily to the notion that the Commons could dictate his movements, but accepted that he was the best man to lead talks with the Scots, given his close working relationship with King Robert II of Scotland.
The betrayal of the duke of Brittany and the failure of Gloucester's campaign pushed Scotland from the top of Gaunt's agenda in early 1381, but the deteriorating English position in northern France was itself soon overtaken as the regent's first priority when a series of tax revolts swept the country in the spring. The parliament of 1381 convened in September to deal with issues lingering from the revolt, but it was quickly consumed by debate over Gaunt's plans to invade Castile. Opposition centered on the cost of the campaign, just as it had in 1380, and was now fueled by the anxiety that followed the summer's tax revolts. Gaunt did not back down this time, though. He feared that the opportunity to overthrow the Trastámarans and break the Franco-Castilian alliance would be lost forever if he delayed any longer. An intense debate followed, which grew bitterly personal as weeks dragged on. At its height, the Commons attacked Gaunt as having "put aside all shame of man and fear of God" for "flaunting his mistress," Katherine Swynford, while he was seeking the crown of Castile in the name of his estranged wife, Constanza. Gaunt made threats to arrest the speaker of the Commons and, in return, the Commons threatened to impeach Gaunt and remove him from the regency. This last threat led young Edward V to intervene, voicing support for Gaunt's leadership.
Despenser's crusade
On 21 December, Henry Despenser, bishop of Norwich, produced a bull from the Roman Pope Urban VI empowering him to lead a crusade against adherents of the Avignon Pope Clement VII at a time and place of the bishop's choosing, and declared his intention to lead a crusade to Castile. Parliament, after months of rancorous debate, was stunned into silence. Gaunt advised the king to prorogue the session until after the New Year, giving the Lords and Commons time to cool down and wrap their heads around Despenser's move.
Despenser's decision to declare a crusade in December 1381 appears to have been prompted by the king's intervention in support for Gaunt in parliament, which the bishop interpreted as an endorsement of Gaunt's proposed invasion of Castile. His announcement was thus an audacious attempt to insert himself into the debate and take command of the campaign himself. The Commons was initially supportive of the proposal, hoping that Despenser could raise the funds to open a new front in the war from the sale of indulgences. He lost their confidence, though, when he withered under intense questioning by the Lords as to how a man with little experience in war could organize and command such a venture.
In the end, Despenser proved to be a common enemy for Gaunt and the Commons. Gaunt hated the bishop for trying to take control of the Castilian campaign. The Commons, realizing that they would need to cough up new money to hire a professional army if they were to avoid total catastrophe, resented having been forced into such a position. Parliament finally came around to raising the funds to support a secular campaign by Gaunt and forced Despenser to name Gaunt as royal lieutenant for the crusade.
Preparations for war
On 18 February 1382, Despenser formally took the cross at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. Gaunt had been recruiting men-at-arms for nearly a month by this time. Walter Fitzwalter, 3rd baron Fitzwalter, and Sir John Roches—the admirals of the northern and western fleets, respectively—oversaw the requisition of ships from across southern England. Sir John Parr sailed to Lisbon to negotiate the use of Portuguese carracks, which were known for their enormous size. Others were dispatched to Flanders and Germany to charter yet more vessels to move the Lancastrian army.
Gaunt originally envisioned an army of 8,000 or more, but tamped down his expectations as financial and logistical reality set in. The campaign's leadership positions were largely filled with Lancastrian men. It was primarily an English force, with relatively few Gascons and Welshmen. The most prominent Castilian retinue was led by Lope Pérez, who mustered 13 knights and 66 squires. Gaunt offered highly favorable contracts to encourage men to commit to a year's service, including waiving his right to a portion of all ransoms his men made and offering 2,500 marks (£1,667) for the capture of Juan on the field of battle.
Despenser, as a bishop, had no network of retainers from which he could draw professional soldiers for his crusade, but the crusading indulgence proved to be a powerful recruitment tool. Thousands enlisted in the spring of 1380, but the amateur soldiers Despenser was attracting were of little use to Gaunt. Arguments inevitably arose as to who had ultimate authority, but Gaunt had foreseen this problem and had secretly dispatched John Gilbert, bishop of Hereford, to Rome in January. Gilbert returned in the spring with a new papal bull, which named Gaunt as the highest authority on any crusade against the schismatic usurper, Juan de Trastámara. Despenser had lost control of his own crusade, which was made immediately clear to him when Gaunt emptied the bishop's crusader fund of nearly all the gold and silver it had collected.
Juan was a frighteningly religious man and he was unnerved by being made the target of a crusade. One of his first acts as king was to order an investigation into the events that had led to the election of two popes. The resulting report was the most exhaustive contemporary examination of the crisis, and it endorsed the Roman pontiff in all but name. Despite this, Juan was made to declare his support for the pope in Avignon upon renewing his alliance with France, which was then led by the
regent Louis I, duke of Anjou, who was among the Avignon pope's fiercest partisans. The decision haunted Juan. Pedro López de Ayala, Juan's ambassador to Paris and also a chronicler of the era's events, wrote that the king believed that he had dishonored himself in the eyes of God, who had then brought ruin upon Castile as punishment. This apparently was how Juan saw his loss at Estella in 1380, his struggles against Portugal in 1381, and Anglo-Portuguese raids into Andalucia, and was his frame of mind as he faced a Lancastrian invasion.
Lamenting "the pain and shame of which we feel in our heart," Juan retreated from public life. He dressed in black mourning robes, ordered penitential processions in the kingdom's major cities, fasted and prayed for God's forgiveness and guidance. Many of his responsibilities were delegated to his council, which soon broke into factions without a clear leader. Largely divided by generation, the elder party was known as the
enriqueños, as it included many holdovers from the government of Juan's father. The younger party was the
juanistas, who were of an age with the king. The
enriqueños pushed to open talks with the Portuguese king in hopes of breaking the Anglo-Portuguese alliance and taking the legs out from under Gaunt's campaign before he even landed. Juan was inclined to agree, and was even willing to open talks directly with the English, but the arrival of a small party of French military advisors quickly shut down this line of thinking. Bertrand du Guesclin, constable of France, emerged as Juan's chief advisor at this time. Guesclin, whose reputation preceded him, restored an uneasy peace between the parties and focused their attention against the coming invasion.
English preparations for an invasion of Castile were closely tracked. French ships cruising the English coastline spotted transport vessels massing at Plymouth. Reports from the French fleet were Castile's best source of information, but they were largely limited to the ship movements and numbers. Details of the English plan of attack were unknown, as the French lacked a reliable network of spies in England.
Guesclin expected Gaunt to land at Bayonne and take the Navarrese passes through the Pyrenees to attack the city of Burgos, which was the historic site of Castilian coronations. This was the same route that Gaunt's brother, the Black Prince, had taken in the Nájera campaign in 1367. Castilian forces were concentrated on the march of Navarre and the Castilian fleet
attacked Lisbon in hopes of distracting England's western ally. The fleet's raids along the Tagus were so devastating that the Portuguese began drawing down their forces on the border, effectively removing the threat to western Castile for the year.
An intense diplomatic campaign ran in tandem with military preparations. Gaunt dreamt of recreating his grand 1373 anti-Trastámaran coalition and had dispatched the veteran Gascon diplomat Geraud de Menta to the court of King Pere IV of Aragon once already, in 1380. Pere had English sympathies, but Gaunt's offer to wed one of his daughters to Pere's son and heir, Joan, duke of Girona, was made in vain, as Joan had already taken a French bride by the time Menta arrived in Barcelona. Menta's 1382 mission fared little better. Pere remained sympathetic to the English cause, but Joan was a Francophile and easily influenced his French wife. Disagreements on this and other issues had driven a wedge between Pere and Joan, and the king was unwilling to join Gaunt for fear that such an alliance would cause a permanent breach between himself and his heir.
Gaston III, count of Foix, was similarly inclined to support Gaunt, but unwilling to actually commit himself to war. Foix publicly speculated that the Trastámaran regime would fall, saying that Juan would end up being "impoverished in rags and covered in fleas" if he were not taken or killed on the battlefield. The count still refused to join Gaunt, though, as he had only recently concluded a treaty with the French and was unwilling to jeopardize it by making war on France's closest ally.
One diplomatic effort was made closer to home for Gaunt. In a stunning act of penance, Gaunt tearfully renounced Katherine Swynford and publicly confessed his adultery and lechery. He then reconciled with Constanza and asked for her forgiveness. Gaunt may have been compelled to make such a public display as a result of parliament's attack on his and Katherine's affair, but he was never one to concern himself with the opinions of others, especially not those whom he considered to be his lessers, such as the knights of the shire who had made the attack. It is more likely that Gaunt was making a political decision to shore up relations with Constanza and her Castilian followers, whose support would be crucial to the coming campaign. It's also possible that he was genuinely seeking forgiveness, as he perhaps feared God's judgment as he faced the possibility of dying on campaign. Gaunt is not known to have taken another mistress after 1382.
On 9 July, Gaunt set sail from Plymouth with a fleet of 124 ships. An estimated 2,500 men-at-arms and roughly the same number of archers were aboard. They were joined by Gaunt's household, his wife and would-be queen, his three daughters, and his nephew, Richard of Bordeaux, who had his own household. Large numbers of clerks and servants were in tow, as well as countless priests and monks who had joined the crusade for spiritual reasons. Gaunt even brought artists and entertainers to fill out the comforts of his "royal" court. In all, as many as 6,000 men and women may have been along for the journey.
Despenser was left on the shores of England. Another 5,000 men may have been left there with him. Some were rich, including a number of landlords and tradesmen, but a large majority were poor, mostly peasants and criminals looking to earn forgiveness for their sins. They had no combat experience or any other skill that would have meaningfully supported the campaign. They were useless to Gaunt, who likely would have left them behind even if he had room aboard his armada, which he had not. Despenser could not accept that he had no role to play, though. He declared that he would lead his own invasion through Navarre. He turned once again to the sale of indulgences, raising funds over the next two months to charter vessels that could carry his ragtag crusader army to Bayonne.
Campaign in Galicia
On 21 July, Gaunt landed at Corunna in northwestern Galicia. The town had strong walls, but was pitifully undermanned. Its skeleton garrison, which was the only Trastámaran force nearby, could only watch as the English disembarked. Gaunt immediately dispatched a herald to Juan, to whom he referred as the "count of Trastámara," to announce his arrival and declare his right to the throne. Juan was called upon to submit to Gaunt as the rightful king or to offer battle.
Corunna capitulated within a day. Sir Thomas Percy, an experienced negotiator, arranged the peaceful surrender and allowed the Trastámaran garrison to leave unmolested. Gaunt installed a new Lancastrian garrison of men and quickly moved on to Santiago de Compostela, which was just two days from Corunna. The timing of Gaunt's arrival was tightly choreographed so that he was welcomed into the cathedral town on 25 July, the feast day of the Apostle Saint James the Elder, whose bones were enshrined there. Inside the holy city, Gaunt gathered the clergy who had traveled with him to issue an edict in favor of Urban VI and then installed a new Urbanist archbishop upon the cathedra.
The landing at Galicia shocked contemporaries, but in retrospect it made great strategic sense. Gaunt's chief ally, Portugal, lay to its south, Corunna had a large natural harbor that made disembarkation easy and quick, and its coastline was known to English sailors who had traveled there on pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. What's more, the region had strongly supported King Pedro through the civil war and had remained sympathetic to the
petrista cause.
Perhaps greater than its strategic advantage, though, was its religious importance. Santiago de Compostela was the holiest city in Spain. Religious symbolism, always important in the legitimization of monarchs, had taken on even greater significance during the Western Schism. Given that his campaign was a crusade, Gaunt may have landed in Galicia in hopes that taking Santiago de Compostela would legitimize his campaign. Whether by accident or design, control of the holy city did just that, at least in Galicia.
Fernán Rodriguez and Juan Alfonso, Castilian knights who had long served Gaunt at his court in exile, led contingents of men through Galicia to bring people to the Lancastrian cause. The effort was remarkably successful, as members of the surrounding communities flocked to the holy city. Gaunt accepted the submissions of towns and villages over the next several weeks, bringing nearly all of Galicia under his control in what amounted to a bloodless conquest.
The Lancastrians encountered resistance only at Ourense, a walled town whose position on the Miño River made it strongly defensible. Ourense became a destination for Trastámaran supporters as its surrounding communities swiftly moved to support Gaunt. The men there were determined to hold the town for Juan. This proved to be an inconvenience for the Lancastrians, as Ourense sat at a crossroads between Galicia and Portugal, and Trastámaran control of the town interrupted communication between Gaunt and his allies in Lisbon. Gaunt's son-in-law, Sir Thomas Morieux, besieged the town.
The Galician campaign was a remarkable success and the Lancastrians largely had two people to thank for it, the first of which was Gaunt himself. The would-be king brought all of his formidable diplomatic skills to bear to quickly win over the local population. He used a light touch to gain the support of local leaders, allowing them to swear oaths that were filled with caveats. This put men's minds at ease while allowing Gaunt to quickly draw large numbers to his side. The second person most responsible for Gaunt's quick success was his rival, Juan. The buildup of forces along the march of Navarre was a major miscalculation that was compounded by the Castilian king's indecisiveness.
Castilian response
In mid August, Juan anxiously convened a war council at Soria. The fall of Galicia had pushed the king toward the
juanistas, who believed that Gaunt needed to be confronted directly, lest other areas move to support him. Guesclin recognized his mistake in guarding against an invasion from Navarre, but stressed that Castilian commanders must not be tempted into giving battle to the English. The
enriqueños agreed, recalling the disasters at Nájera and Estella. Juan was eventually brought around and issued orders to redeploy the reserves brought into the Navarrese marches west to León. The decision to not confront Gaunt led Ourense's defenders to finally surrender. The Lancastrians took control of the town on 4 September.
On 14 September, Constanza gave birth to a son at Santiago de Compostela. The boy, named John, was said to be small, possibly a sign that he was a little early, given the timing of Gaunt and Constanza's reconciliation at the start of the year. Regardless, he became a key piece of Lancastrian propaganda. Gaunt held court in Ourense and laid down the foundation of a royal government. Juan Gutiérrez, former dean of Segovia and Gaunt's longtime Castilian secretary, was named chancellor. Messages flew in every direction declaring that God had endorsed Gaunt's crusade and had delivered the rightful king of Castile a son and heir. Juan was denounced as the son of a bastard usurper whose illegal occupation of the throne was an affront to the Lord.
Gaunt's propaganda campaign struck a nerve, which was made clear to all when Juan assembled the
cortes in Segovia on 9 October. He addressed the convention at its opening ceremony, detailing at length the line of kings from which he had descended and the achievements of their reigns. He traced the crown back through four generations to King Sancho IV of Castile and then explained how his mother had descended from Fernando de la Cerda, the Castilian prince who was disinherited upon Sancho's ascension. Juan went on to vent his anger, tearing into Gaunt as a would-be tyrant and vilifying the English as enemies of God and the true church, calling them murderous schismatics who would rape and plunder the kingdom.
The
cortes was called upon to raise the
alcabala (Castile's sales tax) to 20 percent and to grant a subsidy of eight
monedas to fund the prosecution of the wars against Gaunt and Fernando. This was a terribly heavy burden for the kingdom to bear after years of heavy taxation. The
alcabala had been set at a rate of 10 percent for many years, but various exemptions kept its true rate closer to half that. Those loopholes had already been closed at the
cortes of 1381, so raising the rate to 20 percent effectively quadrupled the tax in just two years. On top of that, subsidies of four
monedas had been already awarded in each of the first three years of the king's reign. The
cortes approved the tax increases, too shocked by Gaunt's quick conquest of Galicia to refuse, but those who sat in the assembly began to openly question the king in ways that would have been unthinkable during his father's reign.
Navarrese response
King Charles II of Navarre closely tracked the movement of Trastámaran forces away from his border. A pair of captains on the march had
written off Juan's chances of survival a year prior, bringing their men and the towns of Logroño and Vitoria over to Navarre. Charles had initially feared an attack on the towns, but he instead found himself well-positioned to extend his reach into the marches even further.
On 16 November, Henry Despenser, bishop of Norwich, landed at Bayonne with about 1,400 men. He did not wait for the rest of his army to arrive, perhaps fearing that if hung around an agent of Gaunt's may try to stop his mission or that an early snow may come to block the passage through the mountains. He led his troops out of the city just three days after he arrived. They made for Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, a Navarrese town in the Pyrenean foothills that was the gateway to the mountain passes. Charles, upon receiving word that an English army was looking for safe conduct through Navarre, could not believe his luck. He welcomed the crusaders into Pamplona in early December.
Despenser's army was a motley crew. It was almost entirely composed of volunteers, with the professional soldiers who had joined the campaign having sailed with Gaunt months prior. Its only notable captains were Sir Hugh Despenser, who was the bishop's brother, and Sir Thomas Trivet, who had been serving on and off in Aquitaine and Iberia for more than a decade. Trivet only joined the crusade in Bayonne, likely looking to make a quick profit off raids into Castilian territory. The 40 men-at-arms Trivet brought with him was the largest contingent of professional fighting men in Despenser's army.
Charles offered to make Tudela, Navarre's second city and one of its greatest border fortresses, available to the crusaders as a base of operations. Despenser, who was not a particularly bright man, did not question the famously duplicitous king's motives and agreed at once. It was a terrible mistake. Tudela's position limited the bishop's range of targets to a handful of towns in the sierras and west of the Erbo, all of which were strategically valuable to the Navarrese. In effect, Despenser's crusade had been coopted into serving the territorial ambitions of the king of Navarre.
On 11 December, Despenser marched his army out of Pamplona. He arrived in Tudela on 17 December, but was too eager for action to remain there long. On 20 December, he led about 450 of his men in an assault on Alfaro, a small walled town on the Castilian side of the Erbo. Trivet lured the town's garrison out from behind the walls and led them into an ambush. The captain of Alfaro was captured and his men were slaughtered. The town surrendered at once.
Despenser, flushed with success, moved out of Alfaro on 21 December, just a day after its capture. He went for Soria, a wealthy town high in the mountains that controlled the road network through the sierras. Snow had already begun to fall in the higher altitudes, slowing his movement. Cold winds lashed Despenser's men, who were ill-prepared for such weather. The captain of Soria learned of the crusaders' approach and was more than ready when they arrived on Christmas Day. Despenser ordered an assault, but his men were exhausted and frozen. They took heavy casualties and then retreated back down the mountain.
On 24 December, Gaunt's daughter, Elizabeth of Lancaster, made her ceremonial entrance into Pamplona as the betrothed of Prince Charles of Navarre, heir to the kingdom. Elizabeth had sailed with the Lancastrians to Galicia earlier in the year. She had witnessed her father's entrance into Santiago de Compostela and had attended his conference with King Fernando of Portugal. The Portuguese king's ill health at that conference likely pushed Gaunt to send Elizabeth on to Pamplona, cementing his alliance with Charles as Fernando suddenly looked weak.
Despenser learned of Elizabeth's arrival upon his return to Tudela. His crusade had been launched without Lancastrian approval or oversight, and he was no longer of use to the king of Navarre now that the weakness of his amateur army had been exposed at Soria. He and his men wintered in and around Tudela and then were forced back across the Pyrenees to Gascony in the spring.
Campaign in León
On 1 November, Gaunt was received by King Fernando of Portugal at Ponte do Mouro. A tented pavilion large to hold 1,000 people had been erected nearby. A parade of 100 horsemen led the Lancastrian party. They were followed by 50 squires and two dozen knights. Gaunt's three daughters and nephew came next. Then, finally, Gaunt and Constanza rode in dressed in cloth of gold, covered in purple cloaks trimmed with ermine, and dripping with jewels. It was an extravagant display.
The English were showered with gifts and plied with fine wine, but it was far from the reception that they had expected. Fernando was clearly suffering through intense pain as he stood to welcome his allies. He appeared weary in the meeting that followed and visibly confused in conversation in the days thereafter. Fernando was physically broken, but his wife, Queen Leonor Teles, was newly pregnant. It was absurd to think that the king could have fathered a child in his current state. Fernando's councilors attended to the business of state as if nothing were amiss. Gaunt's longtime retainer, Juan Fernández de Andeiro, who negotiated Gaunt's alliance with Fernando in 1380, was somehow among the figures managing the Portuguese government as the king struggled to follow the summit's proceedings.
Lancastrian and Portuguese officials mapped out plans for a campaign into León. The details of Gaunt's alliance with Fernando, not spelled out in Andeiro's negotiations in early 1380, were filled in along the way. Fernando and Gaunt agreed they would not treat with Juan individually and would only engage in diplomacy together, both sides fearing that they would be overwhelmed if their ally made a separate peace. Fernando made Bragança available to the Lancastrians as a staging ground for the invasion, as the passes through the mountains that separated Galicia and León were too hazardous to move a large army. The Portuguese agreed to maintain supply lines for the English through the winter, as Englishmen were known to campaign through the year without regard for the seasons. Lastly, the Portuguese agreed to field 5,000 men to reinforce Gaunt's army in the early spring. In exchange, the would-be king of Castile promised to cede several key fortresses, including Badajoz, to the Portuguese. After 10 days of talks, the two kings sealed their agreements.
Siege of Benavente
Gaunt led his army to the Portuguese border town of Bragança in December. He was joined there by the remnants of the English expeditionary force that had sailed to Lisbon two years earlier. The advance army, contracted for a year's service, had shrunk by half in that time. Those who remained had been operating as a
routier company and using Higuera la Real, a small Castilian border town captured by the English in late 1380, as their home base. Sir John de Southeray, Gaunt's illegitimate half-brother, had emerged as their leader when they reorganized themselves at the expiration of their contracts. Southeray had a natural charisma and a willingness to take risks that earned him the nickname "the Brave Bastard." Southeray's army added about 1,000 men to Gaunt's forces, bringing his total number of fighting men to about 6,000, with Lancastrians left behind to garrison positions in Galicia offset by levies from Galician communities eager to earn the goodwill of their new king.
On 26 December, Gaunt moved southeast out of Bragança, crossed the Sierra de la Culebra and turned north toward Benavente. João, master of Avis, Fernando's illegitimate half-brother, who had joined Southeray's army in spring 1382, had helped identify the town as a good position from which to conquer León. The Lancastrian army arrived outside its walls on 3 January 1383.
The Trastámarans expected an invasion of León after Gaunt's surprise landing in Galicia and had spent months preparing for his arrival. People, livestock, and food were cleared out of the country and unwalled villages, then moved to the nearest walled towns. Bridges were destroyed to slow Gaunt's progress, and any castle or fortification that had fallen into disrepair was demolished to prevent him from gaining a foothold in the region. The principal towns and fortresses were reinforced, as some 3,000 men were brought into the area.
Bertrand du Guesclin organized the defense of León into three areas of command, with Benevente made the capital of the middle march. The town was a vital strategic position, controlling roads that went north to Asturias, west to Galicia through the mountain passes that Gaunt's army had avoided, and east into Castile proper. Álvar Pérez Osorio, count of Villalobos, led the defense of the town and had brought at least 600 of his own men in to reinforce the local garrison.
The strength of the defenders caught Gaunt by surprise. The quick conquest of Galicia seems to have warped his understanding of the political landscape, as he expected the people of León would flock to his cause as the Galicians had. Instead, the army settled in for a long siege. Construction began on siegeworks, but progress was slow, as the Lancastrians had to fend off a series of sorties on their positions around the town. Nighttime raids on the English camp left the Gaunt's men exhausted and frustrated. Gaunt fumed, damning the defenders as cowards for relying on sneak attacks while refusing to fight a pitched battle.
On 5 March, Bertrand du Guesclin died in Zamora after a short illness. Guesclin was a famous figure in Castile, having fought in the First Castilian Civil War and then gone on to crush the feared English war machine in France, and news of his death was a major blow to Trastámaran morale. It also reopened divisions at the Castilian court, as men jockeyed for the attention of the indecisive, impressionable king. Among them was Geusclin's brother, Olivier du Guesclin, who fled his position at Villalpando to be at the king's side in Medina del Campo.
Bertrand du Guesclin's death and of Olivier du Guesclin's flight from Villalpando created a confusing military situation for the Trastámarans at Benavente. They had to wonder whether the defensive line that Bertrand du Guesclin had constructed was being abandoned and, if so, what they were to do with the Lancastrian army outside. To make matters worse, they had nearly eaten through their stores as the siege entered its third month. Osorio, attempting to hold the line, ordered strict rationing of what food remained. It created a perfect environment for the Lancastrians to exploit. In early April, a Castilian knight in Gaunt's retinue made contact with a man from the town's garrison. Hungry and demoralized, he was easily talked into a bribe.
On 10 April, two dozen Lancastrian knights quietly made their way to the main gate of Benavente shortly before daybreak. Their man on the inside had ensured that it was poorly secured so that it could be quickly battered down. The Trastámaran garrison was exhausted and caught off guard. A second attack launched at another gate was made to confuse the defenders as Gaunt ordered his main army forward through the main gate. The Lancastrians poured in and sacked the city.
The fall of Benavente and the horrors visited upon its population for resisting shocked the inhabitants of the surrounding area. The Lancastrians adopted a carrot and stick approach to nearby towns, inviting them to submit peacefully under the same gracious terms that Gaunt had extended to Galician towns or face the consequences, as Benavente had. Valderas, one of the softer targets in the region, promptly surrendered. Villalobos, another nearby walled town, sent an emissary to negotiate terms.
In mid May, after having vacillated for more than a month since the death of Bertrand du Guesclin, Juan sent a small embassy to begin talks with his Lancastrian rival. Juan had initially come under the influence of his younger, more hawkish councilors. The
juanistas pushed Juan to attack Gaunt's army outside Benavente, but the king abandoned such plans after the town fell. Olivier du Guesclin advocated a continuation of the Fabian strategy, but had far less sway over the king than his brother had. In the end, the
enriqueños convinced the king to explore a diplomatic resolution. Two of the most prominent
enriqueños, Pedro Fernández de Velasco, lord of Medina de Pomar and the king's senior waiter, and Alfonso Barasaque, bishop of Salamanca, were dispatched to Benavente in hopes of bringing Gaunt to the negotiating table.
Gaunt warmly welcomed the Trastámaran ambassadors. He heard their public protestations that he had no claim to the throne of Castile and that their master, Juan, was the rightful king, but their theatrics could not mask the weakness of their position. Behind closed doors, a proposal to buy out Gaunt and Constanza's claims was laid out. Juan was prepared to offer 200,000
doblas (£40,000) and arrange a double marriage between his and Gaunt's children to bring peace to Castile. It was not a particularly impressive opening bid in Gaunt's eyes, but he did not reject it outright. He set Sir Thomas Percy to the task of exploring just how much more the Trastámaran delegation was prepared to offer if pushed. Percy's talks revealed that Juan was willing to pay much more for Gaunt's withdrawal from Castile, but events soon turned even more in Gaunt's favor and the Lancastrians pursued negotiations no further.
Siege of León
On 19 June, Alfonso Enríquez, count of Gijón and Noreña, declared his support for the Lancastrian cause. It was a dramatic move that sent shockwaves across Castile. Alfonso was one of the kingdom's greatest lords and he effectively brought all of Asturias over to Gaunt. Moreover, Alfonso was Juan's bastard half-brother, which was an embarrassing blow to the Trastámaran king.
Alfonso was Enrique II's eldest son and was a favorite of his father's, despite his illegitimacy—or perhaps because of it, given Enrique's own bastard origins. Enrique granted Alfonso several lordships in Asturias, great sums of treasure, and the rank of count. Despite this, Alfonso publicly defied his father on several occasions, but was always forgiven and often rewarded for such behavior. Juan's succession threatened Alfonso. The nobility had grown overly powerful during Enrique's reign and Juan declared he would rein in their abuses of the lower classes. Alfonso, who had effectively set up a protection racket to enrich himself at the expense of monasteries like the one at Cornellana, stood to lose a small fortune if Juan's reforms went through. In 1381, he
plotted to rebel against his brother with the support of the Portuguese, but was soon discovered and forced to submit to Juan. He nursed a grudge in the years that followed and had been secretly negotiating with Gaunt for weeks. Alfonso finally joined the Lancastrian cause when Gaunt promised to bestow the count with full palatinate powers in Asturias.
In July, Gaunt moved north to besiege the city of León, which cut Asturias off from Lancastrian-controlled Benavente. He was joined there by Álvaro Pires de Castro, count of Viana, who commanded the long-promised Portuguese army, arriving some three months behind schedule. Gaunt's nephew, Richard of Bordeaux, came with it as a figurehead commander. Portuguese reinforcements swelled Gaunt's ranks to more than 10,000 men.
León was fantastically well-defended. Its original Roman walls still stood and had been enlarged at least twice over the centuries, the local garrison had received hundreds of reinforcements, and stores of grains, wine, and salted meat had been brought in. Juan García Manrique, archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, led the city's defense. Obedient to the pope in Avignon, Manrique had been shut out of his archiepiscopal see since Gaunt's conquest of Galicia. Manrique's position added a religious dimension to the siege that stirred the crusading element of Gaunt's army.
The Anglo-Portuguese army encircled León, but its size was as much a problem for the besiegers as for the besieged. Supply lines south to Benavente and on to Portugal were open to attack and insufficient to meet the needs of such a large force regardless. Supply lines north to Asturias brought wagonloads of cheese, cider and salted fish, but it was still not enough. By late August, the army had exhausted all food within foraging range. Order in the Portuguese army broke down as hunger set in and Castro meted out harsh punishments to keep his men in line. Then, in September, dysentery and typhus ripped through the camp. Disease, food shortage, and the summer heat, which fell especially hard on the Englishmen unused to the climate, combined to lay waste to Gaunt's army.
Elsewhere, on 22 October, King Fernando of Portugal finally succumbed to his long illness and died in Lisbon. His infant son was named King Afonso V of Portugal, but it was soon revealed that Queen Leonor had been having an affair with Gaunt's former retainer, Juan Fernández de Andeiro, and the queen's detractors declared Afonso to be a bastard born of adultery. Fernando's half-brother, João de Castro, sailed to Lisbon to claim the crown for himself. Despite never actually landing in the capital, Castro's actions sparked a popular revolt that swiftly spread from Lisbon to other major cities in Portugal.
At León, the English were astonished by the sudden collapse of Queen Leonor's regency government. The accusations of infidelity seemed credible, as Fernando had not appeared healthy enough to father a child at the Ponte do Mouro conference. Fernando had recognized his daughter, Beatriz, as heir to the throne before Afonso's birth. Beatriz could have been considered the
de jure queen of Portugal, but the lack of precedent for a queen regnant gave her half-uncle, João de Castro, an equally credible claim.
The
burgeoning crisis split the Anglo-Portuguese alliance. Gaunt's nephew, Richard of Bordeaux, was betrothed to Beatriz. Their betrothal had been a key part of securing the alliance in the first place. Álvaro Pires de Castro, the commander of the Portuguese army at León, and João de Avis, who had become one of Gaunt's top advisors over the course of the León campaign, were both supporters of João de Castro, though. These two men were João de Castro's uncle and bastard half-brother, respectively.
On 19 November, Álvaro Pires de Castro detached the Portuguese army from the siege of León and moved south to support João de Castro's cause. Avis resigned his place on Gaunt's council to join his countrymen in support of his half-brother. Before he left, though, Avis offered Gaunt a remarkably sober reading of the situation: There was no support for the Lancastrian party outside of Asturias and Galicia. Gaunt had been in León for most of the year, was low on funds, had lost more than a fifth of his army to disease, and all he had to show for it was the three towns under his control. Juan would not give battle and Gaunt could not conquer all of Castile town by town. It was better, Avis said, to seek an honorable peace through negotiation than to let the Lancastrian cause wither and die. Gaunt abandoned the siege the next day and returned to Benavente.
The Lancastrian army fell into disarray in the final weeks of 1383. More than 1,200 Englishmen had been lost to disease at León, including Sir Richard Burley, who was one of Gaunt's longest-serving retainers and closest friends. At least 1,200 more were too ill to serve. Gaunt dismissed the sick and wounded so that they could recover in England. Gaunt's son-in-law, Sir Thomas Morieux, was among those unfit for service, but he would not survive the journey home. A thousand more made their way to the coasts and sailed for home, their contracts having expired and the prospect of sacking a wealthy city like León having vanished.
Just 2,500 fighting men were left by the new year. They took over Roales, an unwalled village across the river from Benavente. From there, they swarmed the countryside raiding and foraging for food. Protections that Gaunt had extended to the Castilian people were ignored, with the army's command structure hollowed out by deaths, and too few captains remaining to impose order.
Campaign in Asturias
On 25 February 1384, Juan convened a war council at Salamanca. It was more than a typical meeting of the king's advisors and government ministers, as it also drew several magnates, the masters of the kingdom's chivalric orders and the captains of the principal towns and fortresses along the border with Galicia and Portugal. It was the greatest assembly of martial talent in the whole of Juan's reign. The council declared that the Fabian strategy had been a staggeringly expensive failure and overwhelmingly recommended that the king launch an offensive in the spring. More than a year of intense lobbying by the Castilian ambassador to France had finally impressed the severity of the situation in Iberia upon the French, who agreed to send 4,000 men-at-arms to support such a campaign. Juan issued orders for the mustering of an army.
Gaunt welcomed the news that the Trastámarans were preparing to take the offensive, hoping that he could finally draw Juan into battle and bring a decisive end to the campaign. Gaunt was not blind to the sad state of the Lancastrian army, but like most men of his generation, he believed wholeheartedly in the superiority of English arms and was certain that he would prevail even against long odds.
Juan had far less faith in himself. On 22 April, he received word that 1,200 French men-at-arms were approaching the Aragonese passes, barely a quarter of the 4,000 that he had been promised, as the French had decided that rescuing
Anjou's Crusade was a higher priority. The news gave him pause. Juan had already assembled 3,000 of his own men at Valladolid, with 1,500 more waiting at León. This ensured that he would have around a two-to-one advantage over Gaunt with or without French support, but such numbers had failed at
Estella. Juan began to lose his nerve. Then, on 26 April, Gaunt and Constanza's son, John of Lancaster, died in Ourense. He was not yet two years old. The boy's death broke Gaunt's spirit.
Fearing battle and sensing that Gaunt would be open to negotiations after young John's death, Juan secretly dispatched a pair of ambassadors to Ourense in late April. They were Fernando de Illescas, who was Juan's confessor, and Álvaro Martínez de Villareal, a doctor of canon and civil laws whose expertise made him a crucial figure to resolving both the dynastic and religious disputes that drove the conflict. Entrusting such a sensitive mission to a pair of low-ranking figures, including one who had a strong personal connection to the king, suggests that Juan was acting of his own accord and likely without the advice of his council.
Pedro López de Ayala, Juan's ambassador to France, whose chronicle is the chief source of the events that followed, wrote that Juan's soul was troubled in spring 1384. The king had favored a diplomatic solution from early on, but had allowed himself to be talked into other courses of action as a result of his failures at the Battle of Estella and in the early stages of the Third Fernandine War. Castile had paid a heavy price for this, in both blood and treasure. Juan was a severely religious man and he blamed himself for the destruction that had been visited upon his kingdom, believing he should have overruled his advisors and pursued negotiations earlier. He feared that God would judge him harshly if he allowed the chance for peace, which he believed John of Lancaster's death presented, to pass.
Juan's new peace policy did not extend to Alfonso Enríquez, count of Gijón and Noreña, though. Alfonso was the only major figure in Castile to have supported Gaunt's cause, which for Juan was both a personal betrayal, given that Alfonso was his illegitimate half-brother, as well as a sin against God. Alfonso had been caught plotting a rebellion against Juan in 1381, but he was pardoned in exchange for swearing an oath of allegiance on holy relics. Alfonso had broken this oath by joining Gaunt, which Juan refused to forgive.
Juan led the Castilian army out of Valladolid in early May. He moved to León and joined forces with the men gathered there before marching north into Asturias. Alfonso withdrew to Gijon as Juan's army approached, abandoning several towns and fortresses. Gijon was small, but incredibly well-positioned. It sat perched upon a hill, surrounded by thick walls, and could be resupplied by sea. The king arrived there on 26 June with roughly 4,500 men. Teams of carpenters set to work building siege towers and trebuchets while more than 70 wagons of large guns were brought in by oxen. An intense bombardment followed, but had little effect on the town's walls. The gunstones that cleared the walls, though, brought down whole buildings. Gijon was slowly reduced to rubble. Juan's health, often poor even in the best of times, crumbled under the stress. The king grew too weak to ride a horse or walk, but refused to call off the attack or negotiate terms with Alfonso. The only mercy he showed to Gijon was allowing Isabel de Portugal, who was Alfonso's wife and thus the king's sister-in-law, to buy safe conduct for herself and her children with the forfeiture of all her lands in Castile.
On 17 July, messengers arrived at the Trastámaran king's camp with a copy of the Lancastrian settlement. It was the third and final draft to emerge from talks between the two sides. It offered Gaunt an enormous cash settlement for abandoning his claim to the throne and ending his crusade. Juan's son and heir was to wed Gaunt and Constanza's daughter to seal the deal. Juan swore an oath to abide by the terms of the text. Sir John Trailley acted as the Lancastrian witness. Gaunt had sworn the same oath eight days earlier before the Trastámaran delegation. The text was to be formally sealed as a treaty at a later date.
Notably absent from the agreement were provisions for Gaunt's allies, which left Alfonso to his own devices at Gijon. The count conceded that his position was unsustainable when he was informed of the settlement. He surrendered on 18 July and suffered badly for betraying his brother. Juan confiscated Alfonso's lands, revoked his titles, took his treasure of 500,000
maravedis (£2,200), and imprisoned Alfonso without the comforts that were typically afforded to members of the high nobility. The king considered it a mercy that Alfonso was not executed for treason.
Aftermath
In late July, Gaunt moved from Ourense to Porto, where he stayed as a guest of João de Castro, who by this time had been crowned King João of Portugal. He began trading letters with Juan while in Portugal. As they did, the two former rivals found that they shared a devotion to the Virgin Mary and their letters became less formal over time. They continued to write even after Gaunt sailed to Bayonne to see to the formalization of the treaty that would end the war.
As Gaunt moved to Porto and then Bayonne, Constanza traveled freely through her homeland for the first time in decades. In late summer, she went to Seville to oversee her father's reburial and met her cousin, Juan, in the fall. She was accompanied on her journeys by her daughter, Catherine of Lancaster, who Constanza was extremely reluctant to leave behind in Castile. Constanza had been just 12 years old in 1366, when she fled into exile with her father after he was first deposed. She knew what the life of young princesses was like at a foreign court. It was confusing and lonely, and Catherine, who was herself 12 years old in 1384, would not have a sister with her, as Constanza had as a young girl in Gascony.
First Treaty of Bayonne
The financial provisions of the agreement between Juan and Gaunt were remarkably generous, considering how weak Gaunt's position had become before its negotiation. Juan agreed to purchase Gaunt and Constanza's claims for the tremendous sum of 500,000
doblas (£100,000) and granted them lands in Castile that were valued at 33,333
doblas (10,000 marks or £6,667)
per annum. On top of this, their daugther, Catherine of Lancaster was granted large estates to maintain her rank, as she was to remain in Castile as part of her arranged marriage to Juan's eldest son and heir, Enrique of Castile. Enrique was made the first prince of Asturias so that Catherine could use the title princess of Asturias until she became queen consort.
The Navarrese, like Alfonso, had been excluded from the agreement, but Gaunt had ensured the Castilians who had gone into exile in England were accommodated. Juan extended pardons to all who had served at Gaunt's Castilian court in exile and promised to restore their property or compensate them for their losses. Many of them would continue to serve Gaunt, administering the new Lancastrian estates in Castile. All of Gaunt's Galician supporters were included as well, as Juan extended a general pardon to the province's population for supporting the Lancastrian cause.
Two of the major issues that drove the conflict were left unresolved. Firstly, there was no religious settlement of which to speak. In the text of the agreement, Gaunt and Juan promised to work together "for the unity of the Holy Mother Church" and committed to organizing a summit between Gaunt, Juan, and the Christian kings of Iberia to discuss the schism in the spring. Secondly, no mention was made of Juan's alliance with the young King Charles VI of France, though it was clear by late 1384 that France and Castile were allies in name only, as Juan had received almost no support from the French in his wars with Gaunt, Navarre, and Portugal, and had been so weakened by these conflicts that he could offer France no real support against England.
On 26 October, the Treaty of Bayonne was sealed, formalizing Gaunt and Juan's agreement and bringing an end to Lancaster's Crusade.
Second Treaty of Bayonne
On 13 November, the
cortes of Castile assembled at the church of Santa María in Valladolid. The cost of peace required a
servicio (extraordinary tax) of 20 million
maravedis (£86,800). The shocked assembly reacted in a way that would have been familiar to Gaunt after years of working with parliament as lord regent, as accusations of government corruption and incompetence led to demands for an audit of royal finances, the imposition of new officers of state, and the transfer of tax collection from the crown to offices controlled by the
cortes itself. After five terrible years on the throne, Juan appeared to have little choice but to concede. Ultimately, though, he did not have the chance. On 16 December, King Juan of Castile died from a head injury.
Juan's death abruptly ended the business of the
cortes. Instead of going into mourning, though, many began to suspect foul play. Questions arose as to how the king fell from his horse and hit his head, as it was said that he did. Juan's sister, Leonor de Trastámara, took custody of the new boy King Enrique III of Castile, who was just five years old, and declared herself lady regent. Juan and Leonor's cousin, Pedro Enríquez, count of Trastámara, supported the move. The news that Leonor had attempted to take possession of Enrique several hours before the king's death led to charges of conspiracy and regicide. Pedro and Leonor fled Valladolid for Castle La Mota, one of Pedro's strongest fortresses, about 33 miles southwest of Valladolid. Enrique effectively became their hostage.
A crisis now confronted the
cortes. The king was dead and his young heir had been kidnapped by the king's murderers. Gaunt's presence in Bayonne made the situation all the more dangerous, as many feared that the duke would mount a new invasion through Navarre to have himself crowned. It was unclear who had the authority to negotiate with Gaunt, who would raise an army to free Enrique, and even who would lead a regency government even if Enrique were freed and Gaunt kept at bay. Castile seemed to be on the precipice of either civil war or Lancastrian conquest, leading the
cortes to make the most dramatic move possible. On 31 December, Bernardo de Bearne, count of Medinaceli, who was a powerful
enriqueño, was declared king by right of his wife, Isabel de la Cerda. This would lead to the Second Castilian Civil War in years to come.
Bernardo goosed the already-generous terms that Juan had offered Gaunt, enlarging the buyout of the Lancastrian claim to 600,000
doblas (£120,000) to quickly seal the peace with Catherine of Lancaster's marriage to Bernardo's son and heir, Gastón, in a new Treaty of Bayonne. The details of the agreement were otherwise identical. Eager to tie off any loose ends that could invite further English meddling in the kingdom, a second treaty was negotiated with Edmund of Langley, 1st duke of Aumale, to purchase the claims of Langley's wife and Constanza's younger sister, Isabel, for 100,000
doblas (£20,000) in 1386.
The Treaty of Bayonne drew some scorn from contemporaries. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham was particularly critical of its failure to bring Castile back to the Roman fold. This was not a widely held view, though, as Lancaster's Crusade succeeded in breaking the Franco-Castilian alliance. Bernardo would take a resolutely neutral position in the war between England and France, fearing that his involvement would invite the sort of destruction that the country had suffered during Juan's reign. Castile's exit from the war was a massive victory for the English.
Gaunt remained in Bayonne until spring 1385. He embarked for England only after he received the first third of his massive buyout. He landed at Plymouth on 19 May, nearly three years after setting sail. He returned without a crown, but with a fortune that made him wealthy on a European scale. He had also returned with a greatly enhanced reputation, as the conquest of Galicia brought him new respect as a commander and the marriages of his daughters made him the father of queens. Lastly, Gaunt returned with new affection for his wife, Constanza, though they would never be as close as Gaunt had been with his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster.
Gaunt soon came to advise his nephew,
King Edward V of England, who by this time had taken personal control of the government. Both Gaunt's royal aspirations and his regency in England had come to an end.
