Jump to content

John II of Portugal

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Joao II)

John II
Portrait of John II at the Navy Museum
King of Portugal
(more...)
Reign28 August 1481 – 25 October 1495
Acclamation31 August 1481,[1] Sintra
PredecessorAfonso V
SuccessorManuel I
Reign10 November 1477 – 14 November 1477[2]
Acclamation10 November 1477, Santarém[1]
PredecessorAfonso V
SuccessorAfonso V
Born3 May 1455[3][4]
Saint George's Castle, Portugal
Died25 October 1495(1495-10-25) (aged 40)
Alvor, Algarve
Burial
Monastery of Batalha
Spouse
​
(m. 1470)​
Issue
Detail
HouseAviz
FatherAfonso V of Portugal
MotherIsabella of Coimbra

John II (Portuguese: João II;[a] [ʒuˈɐ̃w]; 3 May 1455 – 25 October 1495),[4] called the Perfect Prince (Portuguese: o Príncipe Perfeito), was King of Portugal from 1481 until his death in 1495, and also for a brief time in 1477. He is known for re-establishing the power of the Portuguese monarchy, reinvigorating the Portuguese economy, and renewing his country's exploration of Africa and Asia.

Early life[edit]

Born in Lisbon on 3 May 1455, John was the second son of Afonso V of Portugal and Isabella of Coimbra.[4][b] At one month old, on 25 June 1455, he was declared legitimate heir to the crown and received an oath of allegiance from the three states.[3][4]

In 1468, Afonso V and Henry IV of Castile attempted to arrange a double marriage in which John would marry Henry's daughter, Joanna, and Afonso would marry Henry's niece and heir-presumptive, Isabella of Castile.[6][7] However, Isabella refused to consent to the arrangement.[8] Instead, John married Eleanor of Viseu, his first cousin and the eldest daughter of Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu,[9] on 22 January 1471.[4][10]

Early campaigns[edit]

John accompanied his father in the campaigns in northern Africa and was knighted after the victory in the Conquest of Arzila in August 1471.[4][11]

Participation in the War of Castilian Succession[edit]

Further information: War of the Castilian Succession and Battle of Toro

Following the death of Henry IV of Castile in December 1474 and the accession of his niece, Isabella, a faction of the nobility hostile to Isabella offered the Castilian crown to Afonso V, provided he wed Henry's daughter, Joanna.[12] John urged his father to marry Joanna and invade Castile, but leading nobles, namely the Marquis of Vila Viçosa, opposed this conviction. Afonso sent an envoy to assess support for Joanna's cause and after receiving "favorable accounts respecting the partisans of the Infanta", he ordered war preparations to be made for the following spring.[13]

On 12 May 1475, Afonso and John entered Castile with an army of 5,600 cavalry and 14,000 foot soldiers. Afonso V proceeded to Palencia to meet Joanna while John returned home to govern the kingdom.[14] On May 25, Joanna and Afonso were betrothed and proclaimed sovereigns of Castile.[15][c] In the same month, John's wife, Eleanor, gave birth to the couple's only child to survive infancy, Afonso.[17]

In late 1475, Afonso, with only a fragment of his army remaining,[18] wrote letters to John imploring him to provide reinforcements.[19] John raised an army and and left for Castile again in January 1476, appointing Eleanor regent of the kingdom.[20]

In March 1476, at Toro, Afonso V and John and some 8,000 men faced Castilian forces of similar size led by Isabella's husband, Ferdinand of Aragon, Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba.[21] King Afonso V was beaten by the left and center of King Ferdinand's army and fled from the battlefield. John defeated the Castilian right wing, recovered the lost Portuguese Royal standard, and held the field,[22] but overall the battle was indecisive.[23] Despite its uncertain[24][25] outcome, the Battle of Toro represented a great political victory[26][27][28][29] for Isabella and Ferdinand and Afonso's prospects for obtaining the Castilian crown were severely damaged. John promptly returned to Portugal to disband the remnants of his army,[30] arriving the first week of April.[31]

De facto rule[edit]

Months after the Battle of Toro, in August 1476, Afonso V travelled to France hoping to obtain the assistance of King Louis XI in his fight against Castile.[32] In September 1477, disheartened that his efforts to secure support had proved fruitless, Afonso abdicated the throne and embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.[33] He was eventually persuaded to return to Portugal, where he arrived in November 1477.[34] John had been proclaimed king days prior to Afonso's arrival, but relinquished his new title and insisted that his father reassume the crown.[35][36]

From 1477 to 1481, John and Afonso V were "practically corulers."[36] John was given total control of overseas policy and played a major role in negotiating the Treaty of Alcáçovas (1479) with Spain.

Consolidation of power[edit]

Miniature of King John II in the Livro dos Copos, a manuscript written between 1490 and 1498

After his official accession to the throne in 1481, John II took a series of measures to curtail the power of the Portuguese aristocracy and concentrate power in himself. As one example of the measures he took, he deprived the nobles of their right to administer justice on their estates.[37] Immediately, the nobles started to conspire. Letters of complaint and pleas to intervene were exchanged between the Duke of Braganza and Queen Isabella I of Castile.

King John took the precaution of renegotiating the "Tercerias de Moura" agreement to insure that his son Afonso was living safely back at court before he would move against Braganza, the most powerful noble in the realm (the original agreement called for Afonso to live in Moura, Portugal, with his intended Spanish bride, Isabella, Princess of Asturias, as children before their marriage).[38] In 1483, additional correspondence was intercepted by royal spies. The House of Braganza was outlawed, their lands confiscated and the duke executed in Évora. The Duke's widow, Isabella of Viseu, John's cousin and sister-in-law, fled with her children to Castile.[39]

In the following year, the Duke of Viseu, John's cousin and brother-in-law, was summoned to the palace and stabbed to death by the king himself for suspicion of a new conspiracy. Many other people were executed, murdered, or exiled to Castile, including the Bishop of Évora, who was poisoned in prison.[37] Following the crackdown, no one in the country dared to defy the king and John saw no further conspiracies during his reign. A great confiscation of estates followed and enriched the crown, which now became the dominant power of the realm.

Economy[edit]

Facing a bankrupt kingdom, John II showed the initiative to solve the situation by creating a regime in which a council of scholars took a vital role.[39] The king conducted a search of the population and selected members for the council on the basis of their abilities, talents and credentials (meritocracy). John's exploration policies (see below) also paid great dividends. Such was the profit coming from John II's investments in the overseas explorations and expansion that the Portuguese currency had become the soundest in Europe. The kingdom could finally collect taxes for its own use rather than to pay debts, mainly thanks to its main gold source at that time, the coast of Guinea.

Exploration[edit]

John II famously restored the policies of Atlantic exploration, reviving the work of his great-uncle, Henry the Navigator. The Portuguese explorations were his main priority in government, patronising both national and foreign men, such as João Afonso de Aveiro and Martin Behaim, to further his goals. Portuguese explorers pushed south along the known coast of Africa with the purpose of discovering the maritime route to India and breaking into the spice trade. During his reign, the following achievements were realised:

The true extent of Portuguese explorations has been the subject of academic debate. According to one theory, some navigations were kept secret for fear of competition by neighbouring Castile. The archives of this period were mainly destroyed in the fire after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, and what was not destroyed during the earthquake was either stolen or destroyed during the Peninsular War or otherwise lost.[41][42][43]

Conflict with Castile[edit]

Portrait of King John II at the Navy Museum

When Columbus returned from his first voyage early in 1493, he first stopped in Lisbon to claim his victory in front of King John II. King John II's only response to this was that under the Treaty of Alcáçovas previously signed with Spain, Columbus's discoveries lay within Portugal's sphere of influence. Before Columbus even reached Isabella I of Castile, John II had already sent a letter to them threatening to send a fleet to claim it for Portugal. Spain quickly hastened to the negotiating table, which took place in a small Spanish town named Tordesillas with a papal representative present to act as mediator. The result of this meeting would be the famous Treaty of Tordesillas, which sought to divide all newly discovered lands in the New World between Spain and Portugal.

Legacy[edit]

John II died at Alvor at age 40 without legitimate children. He was initially interred at the Silves Cathedral, but his remains were transferred to the Monastery of Batalha in 1499.[44][45] Despite his attempts to have his illegitimate son Jorge, Duke of Coimbra, succeed him, he was succeeded by his first cousin and brother in-law, Manuel I.

The nickname the Perfect Prince is a posthumous appellation that is intended to refer to Niccolò Machiavelli's work The Prince. John II is considered to have lived his life exactly according to the writer's idea of a perfect prince. Nevertheless, he was admired as one of the greatest European monarchs of his time. Isabella I of Castile usually referred to him as El Hombre (The Man).[46]

The Italian scholar Poliziano wrote a letter to John II that paid him a profound homage:

to render you thanks on behalf of all who belong to this century, which now favours of your quasi-divine merits, now boldly competing with ancient centuries and all Antiquity.

Indeed, Poliziano considered his achievements to be more meritorious than those of Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. He offered to write an epic work giving an account of John II accomplishments in navigation and conquests. The king replied in a positive manner in a letter of 23 October 1491, but delayed the commission.[47]

2,000 Jewish children up to the age of 8 years old were yanked from their families in Portugal by King John II in 1493 and exiled to the African island of São Tomé. A year after being deported to the islands, only 600 children had survived the unhealthy conditions and depredations of wild animals.[48][49]

In popular culture[edit]

Marriage and descendants[edit]

Name Birth Death Notes
By Leonor of Viseu (2 May 1458 – 17 November 1525; married in January 1471)
Infante Afonso 18 May 1475 13 July 1491 Prince of Portugal. Died in a horse riding accident. Because of the premature death of the prince, the throne was inherited by Manuel of Viseu, Duke of Beja, son of Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu, who reigned as Manuel I, 14th King of Portugal.
Stillborn 1483 1483 Stillborn son, born in 1483.
By Ana de Mendonça (c. 1460-?)
Jorge[50] 21 August 1481 22 July 1550 Natural son known as Jorge de Lancastre, Duke of Coimbra.

Ancestry[edit]

Notes[edit]

  1. ^ Rendered as Joam in Archaic Portuguese
  2. ^ The couple's first son, also named John,[5] died in 1451.
  3. ^ The formal marriage was delayed because Joanna was Afonso's niece and the two had not yet received a papal dispensation.[16]

References[edit]

Citations[edit]

  1. ^ a b Pereira & Rodrigues 1904, p. 1041.
  2. ^ Sabugosa 1921, p. 60.
  3. ^ a b McMurdo 1889a, p. 499.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Pereira & Rodrigues 1904, p. 1040.
  5. ^ McMurdo 1889a, p. 500.
  6. ^ Stuart 1991, p. 60.
  7. ^ Plunkett 1915, p. 70.
  8. ^ Plunkett 1915, p. 71.
  9. ^ McMurdo 1889a, p. 509.
  10. ^ Sabugosa 1921, p. 43.
  11. ^ McMurdo 1889a, pp. 505–506.
  12. ^ Marques 1976, p. 208.
  13. ^ McMurdo 1889a, pp. 509–510.
  14. ^ McMurdo 1889a, p. 510.
  15. ^ Stuart 1991, p. 136.
  16. ^ Stuart 1991, p. 137.
  17. ^ Sabugosa 1921, pp. 45–47.
  18. ^ Stuart 1991, p. 142.
  19. ^ Stuart 1991, p. 145.
  20. ^ McMurdo 1889a, p. 511.
  21. ^ Esparza, José J. (2013). ¡Santiago y cierra, España! (in Spanish). La Esfera de los Libros. It was 1 March 1476. Eight thousand men for each side, the chronicles tell. With Afonso of Portugal were his son João and the bishops of Evora and Toledo. With Fernando of Aragón, Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba, as well as the militias of Zamora, Ciudad Rodrigo and Valladolid. The battle was long, but not especially bloody: it is estimated that the casualties of each side did not reach a thousand.
  22. ^ Downey, Kirstin (2014). Isabella: the Warrior Queen. New York: Anchor Books. p. 145. The two sides finally and climactically clashed, in the major confrontation known as the Battle of Toro, on 1 March 1476. The Portuguese army, led by King Afonso, his twenty-one-year-old son Prince João, and the rebellious Archbishop Carrillo of Toledo opposed Ferdinand, the Duke of Alba, Cardinal Mendoza, and other Castilian nobles leading the Isabelline forces. Foggy and rainy, it was bloody chaos on the battlefield. (...) Hundreds of people – perhaps as many as one thousand – died that day. (...). Troops led by Prince João won in their part of the battle; some troops led by King Ferdinand won in another part. But the most telling fact was that King Afonso had fled the battlefield with his troops in disarray; the Castilians seized his battle flag, the royal standard of Portugal, despite the valiant efforts of a Portuguese soldier, Duarte de Almeida, to retain it. (...). The Portuguese, however, later managed to recover the banner. The battle ended in an inconclusive outcome, but Isabella employed a masterstroke of political theater by recasting events as a stupendous victory for Castile. Each side had won some skirmishes and lost others, but Ferdinand was presented in Castile as the winner and Afonso as a craven failure. (...)..
  23. ^ Bury, John B (1959). The Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 8. Macmillan. p. 523. After nine months, occupied with frontier raids and fruitless negotiations, the Castilian and Portuguese armies met at Toro ... and fought an indecisive battle, for while Afonso was beaten and fled, his son John destroyed the forces opposed to him.
  24. ^ Dumont, Jean (1993). La "imcomparable" Isabel la Catolica [The incomparable Isabel the Catholic] (Spanish ed.). Madrid: Encuentro Ediciones. p. 49. ...But in the left [Portuguese] Wing, in front of the Asturians and Galician, the reinforcement army of the Prince heir of Portugal, well provided with artillery, could leave the battlefield with its head high. The battle resulted this way, inconclusive. But its global result stays after that decided by the withdrawal of the Portuguese King, the surrender... of the Zamora's fortress on 19 March, and the multiple adhesions of the nobles to the young princes.
  25. ^ Desormeaux, Joseph-Louis (1758). Abrégé chronologique de l'histoire d'Espagne. Vol. III. Paris: Duchesne. p. 25. ... The result of the battle was very uncertain; Ferdinand defeated the enemy's right wing led by Afonso, but the Prince had the same advantage over the Castilians.
  26. ^ ↓ Spanish academic António M. Serrano: " From all of this it is deductible that the battle [of Toro] was inconclusive, but Isabella and Ferdinand made it fly with wings of victory. (...) Actually, since this battle transformed in victory; since 1 March 1476, Isabella and Ferdinand started to rule in the Spain's throne. (...) The inconclusive wings of the battle became the secure and powerful wings of San Juan's eagle [the commemorative temple of the Battle of Toro] ." in San Juan de los Reyes y la batalla de Toro, revista Toletum Archived 12 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine, segunda época, 1979 (9), pp. 55–70 Archived 29 January 2016 at the Wayback Machine. Real Academia de Bellas Artes y Ciencias Históricas de Toledo, Toledo. ISSN: 0210-6310 Archived 30 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine
  27. ^ ↓ A. Ballesteros Beretta: "His moment is the inconclusive Battle of Toro.(...) both sides attributed themselves the victory.... The letters written by the King [Ferdinand] to the main cities... are a model of skill. (...) what a powerful description of the battle! The nebulous transforms into light, the doubtful acquires the profile of a certain triumph. The politic [Ferdinand] achieved the fruits of a discussed victory." In Fernando el Católico, el mejor rey de España, Ejército revue, nr 16, p. 56, May 1941.
  28. ^ ↓ Vicente Álvarez Palenzuela- La guerra civil Castellana y el enfrentamiento con Portugal (1475–1479): "That is the battle of Toro. The Portuguese army had not been exactly defeated, however, the sensation was that D. Juana's cause had completely sunk. It made sense that for the Castilians Toro was considered as the divine retribution, the compensation desired by God to compensate the terrible disaster of Aljubarrota, still alive in the Castilian memory".
  29. ^ ↓ Spanish academic Rafael Dominguez Casas: "...San Juan de los Reyes resulted from the royal will to build a monastery to commemorate the victory in a battle with an uncertain outcome but decisive, the one fought in Toro in 1476, which consolidated the union of the two most important Peninsular Kingdoms." In San Juan de los reyes: espacio funerário y aposento régio in Boletín del Seminário de Estúdios de Arte y Arqueologia, number 56, p. 364, 1990.
  30. ^ Stuart 1991, p. 147.
  31. ^ Sabugosa 1921, p. 58.
  32. ^ McMurdo 1889a, p. 516.
  33. ^ McMurdo 1889a, pp. 520–521.
  34. ^ McMurdo 1889a, p. 522.
  35. ^ McMurdo 1889a, p. 523.
  36. ^ a b Marques 1976, p. 209.
  37. ^ a b "Prestage, Edgar. "Portugal." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 12. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 30 Jul. 2014". Newadvent.org. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  38. ^ A History of Portugal, p. 213, CUP Archives. 19 January 1947. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  39. ^ a b Busk, M. M. (1833). Busk, M.M., The History of Spain and Portugal from B.C. 1000 to A.D. 1814, p. 80, Baldwin and Cradock, 1833. Retrieved 26 August 2014.
  40. ^ Disney, A.R. (2009) A History of Portugal and the Portugal Empire, Volume 2: The Portuguese Empire: 38–39; Cambridge University Press: New York
  41. ^ Charles E. Nowell (1936). "The Discovery of Brazil: Accidental or Intentional?". The Hispanic American Historical Review. 16 (3): 311–338. doi:10.2307/2507557. JSTOR 2507557.
  42. ^ J. Baltalha-Reis (1897). "The Supposed Discovery of South America before 1488, and Critical Methods of the Historians of Geographical Discovery". The Geographical Journal. 9 (2): 185–210. doi:10.2307/1773506. JSTOR 1773506.
  43. ^ Ilaria Luzzana Caraci (1988). Columbus and the Portuguese Voyages in the Columbian Sources. UC Biblioteca Geral 1. Retrieved 17 November 2010.
  44. ^ "King John II (1455 - 1495)". Convento D. Cristo. Retrieved 23 June 2024.
  45. ^ McMurdo 1889b, p. 50.
  46. ^ McKendrick, Melveena (2000). Playing the king: Lope de Vega and the limits of conformity. Tamesis. p. 55. ISBN 9781855660694. His cousin, Isabella of Castille, herself no weakling, admiringly dubbed him 'el Hombre', for all the world like some early spaghetti-western hero.
  47. ^ Manuel Bernardes Branco (1879). Portugal e os Estrangeiros. Lisboa: Livraria de A.M.Pereira. pp. 415–417. (Translation of the latin by Teófilo Braga) "render-vos graças em nome de todos quantos pertencemos a este século, o qual agora, por favor dos vossos méritos quasi-divinos, ousa já denodadamente competir com os vetustos séculos e com toda a antiguidade."
  48. ^ Soyer, Francois (2009). "King Joao II of Portugal "O Principe Perfeito" and the Jews (1481-1495)". Sefarad. doi:10.3989/sefarad.2009.v69.i1.480. ISSN 1988-320X.
  49. ^ "How Spain and Portugal Expelled Their Jews". My Jewish Learning. Retrieved 26 May 2024.
  50. ^ Livermore 1976, p. 132.
  51. ^ a b Afonso V, King of Portugal at the Encyclopædia Britannica
  52. ^ Pedro, 1o duque de Coimbra at the Encyclopædia Britannica
  53. ^ a b c Ryder, Alan (2007). The Wreck of Catalonia: Civil War in the Fifteenth Century. Oxford University Press. p. 152. ISBN 978-0-19-920736-7.
  54. ^ a b c d Stephens, Henry Morse (1903). The story of Portugal. G.P. Putnam's Sons. pp. 125, 139. ISBN 9780722224731. Retrieved 11 July 2018.
  55. ^ a b "Leonora of Aragon (1405–1445)". Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Gale Research. Retrieved 11 July 2018.

Sources[edit]


External links[edit]

John II of Portugal
Cadet branch of the House of Burgundy
Born: 3 March 1455 Died: 25 October 1495
Regnal titles
Preceded by King of Portugal
1477 		Succeeded by
King of Portugal
1481–1495 		Succeeded by
Portuguese royalty
Preceded by Prince of Portugal
1455–1477 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Prince of Portugal
1477–1481
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_II_of_Portugal&oldid=1230690172"