An Aragonese Affair
Gaston Phoebus, count of Foix, was the single most powerful magnate in southern France. Sovereign Viscount of Bearn and ruler of extensive estates in the Languedoc, he had prevailed over his Armagnac rivals to secure backing from the absentee John Duke of Berry, nominal governor of Toulouse and Occitania. Sixty-three in 1394,[1] he was determined to seat his cousin and heir Matthew on the Aragonese throne. This succession crisis was arguably another front for the Armagnac-Foix feud, as John III of Armagnac himself claimed Aragon by the dubious right of purchasing Isabella of Majorca’s claims; Isabella had already sold her claims, such as they were, to Louis of Anjou, and as the dispossessed princess of a cadet kingdom her claim had never been especially strong. Matthew in contrast had a much firmer dynastic basis for claiming Aragon- his wife was Joanna of Aragon, the late John I’s eldest daughter. Gaston moreover was well known and respected on both sides of the Pyrenees. Critically for the Aragonese, he was not operating as an auxiliary of the Visconti; upon Matthew’s entry into Barcelona, he was greeted enthusiastically, and sworn to defend the crown from foreign aggressors- meaning, implicitly, the protection of Catalan interests in Italy.
Under the reign of the great Judicare Hugh III the Sardinians nearly annihilated Aragonese power on the island, reducing the Catalans to two lonely outposts- the port cities of Cagliari in the south and Alghero in the northwest. Aragonese power in Italy had frayed down to a taut thread. King James the Younger of Sicily died without issue in Palermo on 31 May 1392, prompting his father King Martin the Elder to proclaim his sole surviving son as King of Sicily. John had offered the eight-year-old Princess Margaret as a bride to the fifteen-year-old Louis II of Anjou, cementing an alliance against their mutual enemy the lord of Milan. Anjou maintained a continued presence in Naples until Joanna’s loyalists conquered the city in 1395, financed by regular shipments of gold and soldiers from France; the Anjou depended greatly on freedom of the seas, and thus especially the support and friendship of Aragon. The alliance between Aragon and Anjou was clearly aimed against both Naples and the Visconti; the match reflected a serious shift in the internal affairs of France, and a now obvious hostility to Milan, which until recently had been considered a potential ally. Gian Galeazzo's open adherence to Rome forced the French to confront the reality that Italy had slipped from their nerveless fingers.
Gian Galeazzo recognized the danger and the opportunity in the moment. He determined to pre-emptively remove Spain from the Italian balance of power and claim the throne of Sardinia for himself in a single audacious stroke. The Duke had the backing of Armagnac, the support of Genoa and Venice, and the blessing of Roman Pope Boniface as well as his son-in-law and nominal sovereign the Holy Roman Emperor. Gian Galeazzo was additionally in contact with rebellious barons on the island of Sicily itself, and plausibly expected a warm welcome. Typically a prudent and cautious man, the Duke allowed himself to be lured by the circumstances and the appeals of the Sardinians into thinking that a purely naval campaign could eliminate the Aragonese hold on the island and that Sicily would thereafter tumble into his lap like an overripe fruit. He was also determined to take a proactive stance against the dangerous combination of Aragon and Anjou and evict them both from the peninsula before they could marshal their strength against him.
Genoa took upon the burden of prosecuting the war, invading Sardinia on in conjunction with the forces of the Armagnac, who had entered the Duke’s service for precisely the cause of war against Catalonia; ostensibly a prelude to pursuing the Count's claim to Mallorca, the goal was seizing the Aragonese possessions of Alghero and Cagliari and subsequently pursuing a war against Catalan shipping in the Tyhrennian. Genoese privateers seized an Angevin treasure fleet on October 7, 1395, capturing more than forty thousand francs in gold along with many prisoners. Spanish Sardinia was thrown on its own meager resources, as the disorder of Sicily's government prevented an organized response to this naked act of aggression. Alghero fell to a rash French assault, and its Catalan population was massacred. Thereafter the Arboreans besieged Cagliari, intent on eliminating the final vestige of Aragonese control on their island.
Contemporaneous with Genoa’s strike on Sardinia, Venice, in conjunction with soldiers from Naples, attacked Sicily, seizing Messina on August 4, 1395. A new rebellion broke out in the southeast, proclaiming Azzone Visconti king of Sicily. Syracuse was besieged and blockaded, but held out for nine months before finally capitulating on January 15, 1396. For his part Azzone Visconti was determined to invade Provence and strike directly at the Angevin-Avignon possessions in the Rhone valley. He claimed that territory with Imperial blessing, and was able to amass an army of fifteen hundred men thanks to a combination of his own reputation and a series of papal indulgences and loans; this was augmented by a levy of four hundred soldiers from the Piedmontese lords, who were now committed members of the Alliance and hoped to gain land and plunder in the west. Critically, Azzone also took it upon himself to purchase bombards from Burgundy, recognizing the possibility of a siege.
The Count of Armagnac subsequently broke with the Latins and attacked the Balearics on his own initiative, capturing Ibiza on 1395 before besieging and capturing Palma on March 22, 1396. Thereafter the French lost all cohesion and began recklessly pillaging the island; this proved their undoing, as the Aragonese relief army arrived and decisively defeated them. Armagnac was slain along with most of his men, but the Genoese fleet- who were not aware of the Count's defeat- arrived with reinforcements, finding the Aragonese navy anchored outside Palma. Under the command of the fearsome admiral Antonio Grimaldi the Ligurians attacked and routed the Aragonese. The Catalans had more ships, but the Genoese had more men and many large cogs, which gave them a decisive height advantage in the grueling hand-to-hand combat. Grimaldi’s forces seized much of the Catalan fleet, killing six hundred of the Aragonese sailors and capturing a thousand more; fifteen Aragonese ships were captured as prizes of war, and more than a hundred razed, effectively destroying Aragon as a naval power for a generation. The loss of Aragon's fleet finally sealed the fate of Cagliari. As Grimaldi began pillaging the Catalan coast, Cagliari's garrison surrendered on June 22, 1396, given parole to depart back to Spain with their possessions, lives, and arms. A rash of defections in Sicily followed in the ensuing months, and by the end of the year Azzone Visconti had the nominal allegiance of nearly all the island, save only Malta in the south and Catania in the west, which still held defiantly for the King of Aragon.
Count John III’s demise effectively destroyed the Armagnac political fortunes. His brother, Bernard VII, succeeded to the throne and immediately sought the mediation of King Charles. In a rare moment of lucidity Charles ordered Gaston to cease his attacks on Comminges. Gaston, not quite prepared to break with the monarchy, agreed to submit to arbitration, but wrested a high price- he secured his cousin’s recognition as King of Aragon. Navarre and Portugal had already agreed to back his claims, for both kingdoms needed little encouragement to thumb Castille’s nose; but for France to extend such recognition was a colossal strategic blunder, as it reinforced the estrangement between France and Castille, her traditional ally in Iberia. Within two months of Charles’ decree, Castillan emissaries arrived in London, offering an anti-Foix alliance to the Lord Regent Henry of Lancaster. Henry, we are told, “practically fell out of his seat in delight” and readily acceded to the alliance, for he knew as well as his late father John of Gaunt that the Franco-Castillan alliance was the backbone of the French reconquest of Gascony, and the separate peace treaty and alliance, though it did not directly terminate the Franco-Castilian Alliance, signalled a growing reproachment between the great power of Iberia and the English monarchy. Indeed Henry, the Lord Regent, was Henry of Castille’s brother by marriage, as John of Gaunt had given Henry his daughter to seal the renunciation of his claims to that kingdom and a general peace. Both Portugal and Castille were now bound to the House of Lancaster by marriage; Spain was now lost to French influence and their position in Gascony upended completely.
Indeed, as the century closed, France found herself dangerously isolated and exposed. Castille, her longstanding ally, reiterated her newfound antipathy by formally disavowing Avignon. Not quite willing to embrace Rome, King Henry III of Castille followed Richard II of England’s example and proclaimed both Popes illegitimate; pending a general Council, he invested clerical authority in a general council of Castillan Bishops, which henceforth would govern and administrate the Catholic Church under Henry’s own auspices. Henry was an energetic and ambitious monarch, intent on clawing back lapsed royal power from the truculent Spanish nobility; he was preoccupied with lingering raids and skirmishes along the Portuguese border and unable to muster the resources to stake his claim to Aragon but determined to seize control over the Church and use its power to buttress his royal authority.
On September 16, 1396, Pope Clement of Avignon died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-four.[2] For eighteen years, France's stated policy was to enforce church unity through force of arms- an invasion of Italy to install Clement in Rome as the sole Pope; this was the
voie de fait, or path of force. Except for Louis of Orleans- now a prisoner in Pavia- the French court, dominated since 1392 by the Duke of Burgundy, approached an alternative consensus around a
voie de cession- mutual abdication of the two Popes allowing a third compromise candidate to be elevated by a general European council. In June 1395 the University of Paris, at the request of the French Royal Council, formally endorsed the
voie de cession. While Clement lived, fond memory of his patron Charles V prevented the court from acting decisively against Avignon. His death therefore precipitated a confrontation.
A hasty meeting of the royal council dispatched a letter to the Avignon conclave, attempting to prevent the election of Clement's successor, as it was generally thought that one pope would be more easily pressured to abdicate than two. The messenger arrived in Avignon on September 22, 1396, only to be ignored by the Conclave as it was sealing itself away; two days later they elevated Pedro de Luna as Pope Benedict XIII.
At the time of his election de Luna was an impressive figure. Relatively old at sixty-six, he was an accomplished canon lawyer, intelligent and energetic, and an experienced and savvy diplomat, having served much of his nineteen years as cardinal as a papal diplomat in Spain and France. Yet he was also arrogant, headstrong, and prickly, unlikely to yield to any man, even the king of France. Before the election every cardinal present had sworn an oath to work for the unity of the church, even to the point of abdication, but whether de Luna ever was sincere in his oath, it became clear that he was never going to willingly abdicate after donning the Papal tiara. On October 22, 1396, the Dukes of Berry, Burgundy, and Orleans arrived at Avignon with over 5,000 soldiers and hangers on. Five days later, on October 27, Pope Benedict revealed his own proposal for resolving the Schism. He proposed a general council- a
voie de convention- whereby he and Boniface would meet at a neutral location along with their cardinals and negotiate a resolution of the Schism.
After wasting several days vainly pressing Benedict for a
voie de cession, the Duke of Berry convened across the Rhone with the French Cardinals, browbeating them into pressing for Benedict's abdication; the assembly returned to Avignon, only to find Benedict as recalcitrant as ever. The Avignon Pope demurred, protesting that a lay government could not interfere in the affairs of clergy, and excoriating the high-handed attitude of the French clergy; he further demanded that the French take up arms against the Latins, who had just captured Tolone and were menacing Avignon. On October 25 the Cardinals came before the Pope and declared their support for the
voie de cession. A week later they threatened to formally advise the Pope's abdication, which would have activated the oath he had given prior to his election; Benedict rejoined that they had no authority to act without his approval and forbade them from further talks with the French nobles, confiscating the documents they had brought with them to petition the Holy See. On October 8 he piously declared that he would rather burn as a martyr than abdicate; the Duke of Berry replied candidly that the Lombards would grant his wish and France would not defend or mourn him.
While the French were bickering, Isabella of Milan arrived and greeted her brother Philip as an envoy for her husband. Her son was even now engaged in the siege of Marseilles, and in fact he had detached one hundred men from his army to accompany her as an honor guard; his army, within days of Avignon proper, gave her words the weight of many mailed fists. She offered to support Philip and pledge Italy to a
voie de cession- if her son’s claims were acknowledged, she vowed to immediately release Louis of Orleans and certain other high-ranking prisoners, such as Enguerrand de Coucy, into Duke Philip’s custody. Philip attempted to secure a cession of Joanna’s claim to Provence, to which Azzone famously replied that he would decide the matter with steel, not silver; by now contemptuous of the French, he wrote his father that with five thousand men “he should march from the Alps to the Atlantic and damn the English and the French both.”
The blockade of Marseilles finally broke Benedict’s nerve, causing him to demand on pain of excommunication, that Philip and Duke John of Berry march against the invaders. Instead, the Duke of Burgundy’s soldiers arrested Pope Benedict and he entered an alliance with his sister, pledging his three-year-old daughter for Azzone’s eldest son Carlo Galeazzo and vowing to give the couple Avignon as a wedding dowry. Philip knew more than any man that the whole might of France would be required to wage a war against the Italians, and that only the King could muster such an army; but Charles was not the man to lead France into a long and fruitless war on her southern frontier. Moreover, he had no interest in backing the pretenses of the Anjou’s sixteen-year-old pretender, grandiosely overinflated by the Avignon Papacy; he was far more concerned with winning Visconti support for a mutual abdication of both popes and a resolution to the Schism. Moreover, Azzone pledged to join the French in a new Crusade against the Turks, who had recently destroyed Bulgaria and were menacing Italian interests in the Aegean and Black Seas. Louis was dutifully released to his uncle’s custody on the following year, and the Italians took up the banner of the Cross alongside the house of Burgundy. The matter of Pope Boniface’s forced abdication was, for the moment, left unaddressed.
[1]I’ve given Gaston a bit of an extended lease on life. Historically he died in 1391.
[2]This is two years after his OTL death. I’ve pushed his death back somewhat spontaneously to synchronize the timeline somewhat, given what followed from his death historically.