Few cases are as indicative of the sometimes difficult role of the non-firstborn sons of a medieval king as that of Henry the Senator, Infante of Castile, son of Ferdinand III the Saint and of Beatriz de Suabia and younger brother of Alfonso X el Sabio.
Born in 1230, his father Ferdinand III soon distinguished himself in military service in one of the most active reigns of the Reconquest in which Castile conquered, among others, cities as significant as Córdoba and Seville. The infant Enrique demonstrated from a very young age his military virtues and revealed, also from a very young age, his differences with his older brother and heir to the throne, the future Alfonso X.
The friction between the two brothers was contained while their father lived, but broke out when Fernando III died in 1252. The mutual grievances (those of Henry because Alfonso did not respect the agreed transfer of land by his father and those of Alfonso for fear of a conspiracy by his brother to take over the kingdom of León) culminated in an armed confrontation between the forces of Enrique and those of Alfonso led by Nuño De Lara from which the infant did not come out well stopped.
In 1256 Henry took the path of exile and after passing through Aragon (where his plan to marry a daughter of King Jaime I did not come to fruition) through France (accompanying his father's widow Juana de Ponthieu, with whom some rumors claimed he had a love relationship) and through England (where his half-sister Eleanor had married the heir to the throne, the future Edward I) ended up in Tunisia as a mercenary at the service of Caliph al-Mustansir.
In Tunisia, Henry lived up to his warrior fame of him and fought successfully against the rebels that were not lacking in the country. Not for that reason he forgot what was happening in Europe, always with the intention of obtaining by arms and / or diplomacy the throne that the cradle denied him; continued to hold out hopes of making a marriage commitment to Aragon, he began to take a keen interest in the conflict between the powerful houses of Anjou and Staufen over the kingdom of Sicily (possibly he had met Charles of Anjou during his stay in France and for part of his mother himself had blood of the Staufen lineage) and dedicated part of the fortune he amassed for his services to the caliph in trying to thwart his brother Alfonso's efforts to seize the title of Holy Roman Emperor, favoring his rival, the English Richard of Cornwall.
Henry's stay in Tunisia ended abruptly when, probably due to the distrust and envy that the military success of an infidel in his land aroused among the country's great leaders, he was accused of of plotting against al-Mustansir. His departure from Tunisia was accompanied by a legendary episode of dubious veracity but that soon spread throughout the known world, cementing the fame of the Castilian infant:his confrontation to prove his innocence and save his life with two African lions, from which Enrique left graceful killing one of them with his sword and thereby causing the other to turn around and give up fighting with the Castilian.
Be that as it may, Henry's days in Tunis were over and in 1266 he entered fully into the conflict, which we have already discussed, over the kingdom of Sicily. He probably hoped to obtain by marriage or by agreement with the victor, a crown like that of Sardinia for himself. Enrique maneuvered with both sides:his brother Fadrique (who had joined him in Tunis because he had also had his differences with Alfonso X) joined Manfredo Staufen with an important Castilian and Tunisian force, while Enrique himself granted a large loan of 60,000 gold doubloons to Charles of Anjou, in exchange for his promise to help him achieve the long-awaited throne,
On February 25, 1266, the forces of Manfred and Carlos met at the battle of Benevento, with victory for the French, who took the throne of Sicily. Once he achieved his objective, Carlos de Anjou refused to grant any privilege to Enrique de Castilla, as well as to return the amount that he had lent him. The Castilian infant, determined to take revenge on the one who had gone from being his great friend to becoming his deadly enemy. He traveled to Italy, where he became deeply involved in the very complex political situation facing the Guelphs (in support of the Pope with the accession of France) and Ghibellines (supporters of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Staufen family).
Having won the confidence of Pope Clement IV, Henry managed to get Pope Clement IV to confer on him the honorary position of Senator of Rome (referring to the old ruling class of the Roman Empire, but in the 13th century it was a position held by a single person and implied significant military power in central Italy). Having achieved this appointment, Henry revealed his true intentions:to confront his enemy Charles of Anjou and support the new candidate of the Staufen family for the throne of Sicily (a young man named Conradin, grandson of Emperor Frederick II). /p>
The confrontation between the forces of Conrado Staufen and Enrique of Castile on the one hand and those of Carlos de Anjou on the other took place in Tagliacozzo on August 23, 1268. The troops of the Castilian infante managed to break the enemy line and kill a man dressed in the arms of Carlos de Anjou, who turned out not to be the king of Sicily. With victory seemingly assured, the Castilians pursued the fleeing enemy, while Conradin's imperials began plundering the fallen on the battlefield. It was then that Charles of Anjou, with a force of about a thousand men that he had kept hidden and without participating in the battle, fell on the Staufen and was victorious. When Enrique realized it and wanted to react it was too late. Conradin captured and his army defeated, the Castilian tried to flee with a small group of faithful until, exhausted and wounded, they took refuge in a monastery where they were captured by the Anjou army.
The leading nobles of the defeated side (including Conradin and Henry) were sentenced to death. After executing the Staufen and the rest of the captives, Charles of Anjou commuted Henry's sentence (apparently in exchange for a large sum of money) to life imprisonment. Thus began a captivity of twenty-two years for the Castilian infante, from 1268 to 1290, five years after the death of Charles of Anjou, the year in which he was released.
Once free, and after passing through Tunisia, Enrique returned to Castile, where the situation was very complex, as explained in the blog entry dedicated to the succession of Alfonso X The son of Alfonso Sancho IV reigned in Castile and León who, together with his wife María de Molina, had to contain the attempts of his nephews, the infantes De la Cerda, to seize the throne (with Aragonese and French support). The elderly Henry first supported his nephew Sancho and, after the latter's death, his son and successor Fernando IV, becoming directly involved in the complex Castilian political situation until his death in 1303. When Enrique died, Fernando IV and María De Molina They faced some difficult years... but that's another story.
For those who want to learn more about the fascinating life of the infant Enrique de Castilla, I recommend the novel Enrique de Castilla, by Margaret Torres. Although it is a work of fiction, the extensive bibliographical documentation and the multiple historical notes that accompany it make it practically a fictionalized essay.