You have to stop cracking me up like this or I'm gonna send you my hospital bill for my broken ribs.
The Grand Duchy of the West - A Valois-Burgundian TL
- Thread starter BlueFlowwer
- Start date
I'm not making it easy for either of them at this point. But Richard isn't in any danger of being locked up by his own son (or father for that matter), as Charles seems to be heading towards given that his daughter in law is gonna start to spread rumors about him being insane and bad for France...
Y’all don’t have free healthcare in the land of lakes and surströmming?
So we rename him to Charles the Imprisoned? Since he got imprisoned twice?
I'm already dealing with a possible eye infection. And surströmming can bite my ass.
The Captive King - A renaissance Novel written by Philippa Gregory. It got horrible reviews due to it being "sexist in dealing with the female characters, particularly in turning Anne of France into a snide harpy and Isabella of Portugal into a cheating parody of her real self, while Charles is portrayed as just a victim of his own son's cruelty. The future king, Louis XII is naturally shown to be a hapless puppet of his Spanish wife, Isabel, shown here as a fanatical and greedy tyrant that has no concern of anything other than power."
Mrs Gregory defended the writing decisions by saying " It was a choice by me to make those people act like that, after all it is a novel and it made good drama. "
Can you imagine how hard Gregory would screw up alternative history stories?
I refuse to watch the Spanish Princess or whatever the hell it was called, because Catherine of Aragon is my baby girl and I don't want to see her get ravaged by Gregory's malicious incompetence. The White Queen was bad as well, but Aunerin Barnard was it's saving grace for that show.
The series that made me HATE Henry VI for years before I found out he was just a pious baby?
Oh that.
What happened to Isabella of Portugal though I'm curious, also we should place some order of the Golden Fleece stuff as well heh
Last edited:
Yes, that shit.
She married Charles IX in 1501 ish and they had a very cold marriage. She had four children, Charlotte, Louis and Jeanne and Jean. After her husband came back from captivity the relationship got even colder and Isabella left court to live in a palace in somewhere I can't remember right now, far away from her husband and children. Jeanne and Jean were mostly raised by Anne of France and after her death, Isabel of Castile, the current dauphine.
In the Château de Vincennes near Paris yes. The solitary queen in the high tower, alone with her music and prayers while the world pass her by. Not the grandest ending for the only daughter of King John II of Portugal, but I wanted it that way.
Thank whatever diety you pray to that you have missed that shit. Even if you remove the incest, witchcraft, evil bitches, sexism and generally despicable characters, her writing is so far below crap and I would rather give up tea for the rest of my life than read another one of her so called "novels" ever again. *hurls*
Last edited:
As she watched the sunset, she looked towards the great city. She remembers her life as the Queen of France and the horrors she was subjected to taking that crown. She reads her diary remembering how she half wanted to be queen but now she sees the wisdom of that one side of her who begged to remain in Portugal and to live a life of leisure and one without responsibility. The coldest of marriages befalled upon her, she only wanted a marriage out of love not out of politics. Perhaps she could have turned her arranged marriage into a true one but alas, she was robbed of that opportunity when her father in law was slain in battle and her husband imprisoned. She was inconsolable, she wished back then she was like her aunt-in-law and became a better queen, regent, or mother but again she could not. When her husband came back, he was a changed man and one Isabella could never love. She turned away from the view to the city, she believed she deserved this for her lack of strength and perseverance. As the music played, she prayed, she prayed and asked for forgiveness, forgiveness for her failures, forgiveness for her children. The only thing the solitary queen had was regret.
Last edited:
Chapter 49 - Spain and the Holy Roman Empire 1523 to 1525
Chapter 49 – Spain and the Holy Roman Empire 1523 to 1525
Princess Elizabeth of York had a tumultuous journey over the Bay of Biscay as many did in those times. Her entourage spent many hours praying in their rooms below dock, while Elizabeth tried to create calm and led the ladies in prayer. Her uncle, Lionel was a rock of stability during the travel, as he claimed that the Lord would surely not let them sink on the way to their glorious destiny that awaited them both. The english fleet was able to land at last after five weeks at sea in the port city of Santander in the region of Asturias on the 15th of June, as the sailors nearly collapsed of joy and the princess and her ladies wept from relief as the shore came into view. Lionel embraced his shaken niece to console her, as the worst of her voyage was finally at its end. The welcoming delegation was the mayor of the city, the bishop of Oviedo, Diego de Muros as well as Gaston of Foix and his wife, Juana Folch de Cardona. The Viscount of Narbonne had been sent as a representative of the crown to greet the new bride and to escort her to Tordesillas, where the court had taken up residence in preparations for the marriage. King Juan had spent considerable time and sums to renovate and expand the palace and it had become a favourite residence of him and Catherine.
The Spain Elizabeth came to was one preparing for war against the Barbary pirates and the Ottomans and her marriage was another link of the many alliances King Juan was reconnecting in many courts in Europe. The Hapsburg Emperor Frederick IV, the King of Portugal and the King of Naples was the key players while Spain lead the way. Juan’s daughter was wedded to Frederick’s son, while his son in law ruled the neighbouring kingdom. So, to secure Naples, Juan offered his granddaughter Infanta Ana to the Neapolitan heir, which was accepted. France was somewhat more reluctant to join the fight, but some lords and knights came anyway. The duchy of Lorraine was prepared to aid the glorious cause and Duke Charles, a man who delighted in war had personally offered to join the campaigns in the Holy Roman Empire, as their land-based troops would do the most there. Philibert of Savoy had also pledged whatever resources the duchy could offer. Brabant opted to support the efforts as well and sent money and ships down to Spain and soldiers to Austria.
Juan had pressured the Papacy as well to support the coming war and after some hard negotiations (more characterised as bullying by the Spanish) the pope had given in and readied the papal armies, as well as granting Juan the right to claim a fourth of the church’s income in Castile as well as all papal taxes for three years. This was an enormous win on the behalf on the Spanish king and the sums entering the war chests in the next few years was astronomical in their amounts. Some in the papacy feared that the pope had yielded too much authority to Castile and that it would weaken the pope’s standing in Christendom, especially as the reformation spread. The pope however was firm in his decision, stating that the kings no doubt needed the resources more and that no enterprise launched in the name of heaven was more important for the papacy.
Elizabeth wrote to her mother after her marriage, that the occasion had been more a promise of the Spanish nobility to the crown in declaring war against the ottomans than a wedding for her. While her boisterous uncle seemed all set to personally go and slay the Sultan himself, Elizabeth had to find her feet in court. Thankfully her Castilian mother had prepared her well for the role and one of her new ladies remarked that “she seems as Spanish as any Infanta born to the monarchs” and her knowledge of Spanish history and customs impressed many. Juan seemed to like Elizabeth as well, but as he was 14 to her 18, he did not seem to hold any romantic affection at this point. Both bride and groom went through with the wedding in Tordesillas and Juan consummated the union as any dutiful infante, much to the king’s pride. During her first months in Spain, Elizabeth became a close confidant of Princess Blanche as she was only one year younger than her step-mother. Blanche had been given the responsibility of organising her household as well and appointed Maria Pacheco as her chief lady in waiting. Elizabeth also befriended the daughters of Ferdinand the Younger, Catalina and Maria and their Mendoza cousins, Mencia and Maria who had been placed in the custody of Blanche as their father was dying. This had been another point of contention for Ferdinand the Younger, who was kin to the girls and had viewed them as his wards. No doubt he wished for Mencia to wed his own son and thus give him a heiress for a bride, but the late Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar y Mendoza had been a close confidant of Prince Juan and thus the girls had ended up as his wife’s wards. This act had turned Ferdinand’s already icy relationship to his brother even colder and he withdrew further away to the court after the marriage. King Juan ordered him to go to Granada in order to make sure it was secure as the planned crusade against the ottomans was in preparation. While Ferdinand slunk away to sulk in Granada, the court moved from Tordesillas to Toledo, one of Juan’s favourite residences and the city of his coronation nearly twenty years ago. The city welcomed their king with great joy, boasting the coat of arms he had granted them in 1505 upon his crowning. The two crowned kings displayed on the Toledo arms was supposedly of Alfonso VI, whom had taken the city from the Moors and Ferdinand III of Castile, the Saint King of Spain, both crucial monarchs for the Reconquista. Juan had ordered the construction of a new royal residence in the city as the old Galiana palace was deemed both too old and small. The city had prospered during the king’s reign. The metal working industry was thriving and since all knew of the coming wars, the manufacturing of swords, knives and armour had gone into overdrive in the past years. Other commercial enterprises also flourishing such as silk weaving, soap, flour milling and that of glass and ceramics during the 16th century. The court would remain in Toledo for the rest of 1523 and Juan busied himself with securing his allies and overseeing the preparations for the coming fight. It was at Christmas that the king finally called for war against the Ottomans, as the new Alcazar was packed to the brim with the grandees of Castile, Aragon and Navarre who all pledged their swords to the king’s cause. In January the king left with his armies to the south-east of Castile for the coastal cities of Valencia, Cartagena and Almeria where the fighting would start. Queen Catherine had been entrusted with the government as Juan wished to have his attention on the war and she was also to keep Infante Juan with her. Both the king and the prince would leave for the fighting and neither would risk his safety at this point, despite his ferocious protests at being left behind. Ferdinand the Elder left with his brother as well. Infante Santiago came with his father, while his second son Infante Alano remained with Infante Juan as he was a year younger than him. Ferdinand the Younger was ordered to remain in Granada and keep the region secure and the coasts ready for war. Princess Blanche also remained with the queen as she was pregnant once more and so did Elizabeth of York, and Carlota, Duchess of Cádiz. Maria, Duchess of Granada had suffered from increasingly frail health since a few years back and had mostly retired from court to live in the palace of Isabel I in the complex of the Royal Monastery of Saint Mary of Guadalupe.
The first part of the four years’ war against the Ottomans was mostly a joint task by King Juan III of Spain and Frederick IV, Holy Roman Emperor. The double kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary was a tempting target for the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman and Frederick had since long been readying for war. This was not the easiest of tasks, as the Hungarian magnates tended to be unruly, something that had given Emperor Maximilian decades of hardships before his death in 1516. But no one magnate was more tenacious than the Hapsburgs themselves. In 1520 Frederick had managed to get the nobility in line, much to the help of his brother-in-law. Stephen VII Báthory might have caused the imperial family a empire sized embarrassment when he eloped in secret with the Maximilian’s youngest daughter in 1500, but his support for Frederick had proven to be invaluable over the years. Not only had the Báthory family become a devoted supporter of the monarch, but he had also helped in wrangling other magnates over to his side, such as the Zapolya family. The peacetime between the Hungarian kingdom and the ottoman sultanate was over by 1524 and warring had begun in the small territories near the border castles, something Frederick would not abide by at all. His alliance with Spain, as Infanta Eleanor had wedded his heir Maximilian, the King of the Romans now came into its full effect. As the Ottomans did not only threaten to invade Hungary, but also Austria, especially the imperial city of Vienna. Frederick coordinated the defence of the imperial lands by placing Austrian troops as garrisons in the fortresses amongst others, strengthened national administration and ensured that all the border fortresses was updated and reinforced. The emperor won great acclaim in 1521 when he successfully defended Belgrade and its ancient fortress from the Turks. Stephen Báthory fought a campaign in Sabac in at the end of the year, and while he managed to keep the enemy from taking it, he took enormous losses for it. In the spring of 1524, the Ottomans came again.
The battle of Petrovaradin took place in late March. The mighty fortress of Petrovaradin that had been built by the celts, the Romans, Ostrogoths and Lombards had been a cornerstone of the defence by Hungary, fortified and expanded by Maximilian and Frederick from the 1498 and onwards. As it laid at the banks of the Danube River its position was excellent. The river was viewed as an important transport route for the Ottoman army to advance up to Hungary and Frederick arrived there weeks before the Turks did. Empress Anne had been left behind in Vienna to hold the city, while Archduke Frederick gathered additional forces in Croatia, Slovenia and Austria to reinforce the troops leaving with the emperor. The King of the Romans was already in Germany to secure aid from the German princes on his father’s behalf, and Stephen Báthory had been tasked with the defence of the city of Buda in the king’s absence. Additional support came from Brabant, Lorraine and Poland, all imperial allies. Petrovaradin was the staging ground for the clash between the Imperial coalition forces led by Emperor Frederick, and his commanders such as Count George Zápolya de Szepes, Radič Božić, the Despot of Serbia and Pál Tomori, archbishop of Kalocsa as well as an assortment of other imperial war captains, against the sultanate forces commanded by Gazi Husrev-beg, a governor of Ottoman Bosnia and the military leader Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey. The Ottoman army was composed of 45-70,000 men and over hundred guns, while the Christians had 60,000 men and 90 guns, while the additional forces in Germany was gathered as well.
The fighting in the Mediterranean Sea had divided the Ottomans attention as the navies clashed against each other’s in the barbary coast, especially near Tunis and Algiers, two cities that was very strong piracy fortresses. Algiers were ruled by Barbarossa, an Ottoman corsair and the brother of the late Oruc Reis, who had died in conflict with the Spanish years before. Barbarossa and King Juan loathed each other intently and the latter had put a hefty price on the former’s head. Barbarossa had allied with Sayyida al Hurra, Gouverneur of Tétouan in the Northen Morrocco, a place that had become rebuilt by the exiled Andalusians after 1492.
For the first year the Spanish mainly fought around the strait of Gibraltar, the Alboran Sea and the Balearic Sea, as their troops managed to take Oran in the summer of 1524. They also captured several galleys and sank a few. In autumn Spanish and Neapolitan troops began the conquest of other cities such as Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers and Béjaïa along the barbary coast. The military campaigns were overseen by Pedro Navarro, the Count of Oliveto and the Infante Santiago. Navarro was a trusted general and engineer from Navarre who most likely had come to Spain after the marriage of Catherine and Juan in 1484 and had been under the command of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba after that. The Spanish also took back the fortress of Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera near Badis of the coast of Morroco that they had lost in 1522. The first capture of the fortress of the little island in 1510 had brought some conflict with Portugal, but in 1524 those problems had been ironed out.
Fortress of Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera
The Spanish won a great victory outside of the city Tlemcen in the winter of 1524. The city was known as The Pearl of Maghreb, and its chief defender was Oruç Reis, the brother of Barbarossa. The hard fighting cost many lives for both sides, but the arrival of the Knights Hospitallers turned the tide against the corsairs. In 1522 the Ottomans had successfully driven the knight order away from Rhodos and they held a grudge against the corsair brothers as well, as they had attacked many of their ships. After 1522 the Order had found a new protector in King Juan who had offered them shelter in the Spanish realms of Sicily and Sardinia. The Grand Master of the Order, Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, who had commanded the order against the Ottomans during the siege and negotiated their surrender had arrived in the royal court to seek the aid of the monarchs. Philippe accepted Lionel of England into his order on the king’s request, as he was present at the marriage between Infante Juan and Elizabeth of York. Despite being a foreigner, Philippe immediately saw that the “Prince of England was every bit a crusader as any of mine own good brothers” and Lionel took the oath to become a member of Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem before the court, while his niece watched him proudly.
Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
Despite his public declaration regarding the knight order, King Juan’s reasons for taking the them under his protection were not completely altruistic. The Knights Hospitallers owning the crown of Spain for their livelihood was a decision influenced by many factors: religion, power, influence amongst others.
Of the three largest crusader orders created during the 12th century, only two remained. The Knights Templars had been eradicated in 1312 by King Philip IV of France, while the Teutonic Order had bound itself to Germany and the Hapsburgs, especially the Holy Roman Emperors. Frederick IV had gathered many knights in the wars against the Ottomans from 1520 and onwards. The prestige of being a protector of the Knights Hospitallers was an immense one for the Spanish king. Not only were they a symbolic of the endurance of Christian faith, but they added resources to the crown, and they tied into the past of Castile and Aragon, as knights had fought during the Reconquista in the 13th century. Many nobles were looking towards the Indies at this time and in 1520 the king had to balance the interest of the crown in the New World without losing their goals in the Old World. The Knights Hospitallers were the perfect bridge between the conservative parts of Spain and those seeking new changes. Their aid gave additional virtue to the campaigns without being a drain on the treasury and re-energised the Aragonese lords as well, especially as the Ottomans threatened the Balearic Islands, Sicily and Sardinia. The Spanish influence in the order could also weaken their allegiance to the papacy and shift it to the crown. It is believed that Juan entered into a deal with the Grand Master Philippe at this time as well. If the order fought with the Spanish against the Ottomans, they would get the Island of Malta as their new headquarter. Malta was part of the possession of the Crown of Aragon and Juan intended to make it a bulwark in the Mediterranean for his kingdom. The Knights’s arrival in Tlemcen caused the defeat of Oruç Reis in December of 1524. This brought on great celebration for the christian forces and the city itself fell in January to Infante Santiago, who claimed the Mechouar Palace for Spain. The Sultan of Tlemcen, Abu Hammu III found himself and his family under arrest by Spanish forces and they were exiled from their own palace and taken to Andalusia under an armed escort. The sultan died in the city of Seville under house arrest a few years later, while his children were raised in Castile under the watchful eyes of the crown. This ended the Zayyanid dynasty that had begun its reign of the Sultanate of Tlemcen in 1236.
The Ottomans also suffered great losses in near Hungary as the Imperial-German forces defeated the Turkish army in Petrovaradin. Gazi Husrev-beg, the Ottoman gouvernour of Serbia died in the warfare as well. A victorious Frederick IV returned to the city of Buda in triumph in early winter, after months of campaigning. His brother-in-law, Charles came back with him as well. The Duke of Lorraine had been a great fighter in the wars and had won several victories during the campaigns. The imperial forces had after the victory began to press further into Serbia to retake lands near the Hungarian border, something that had been meet with moderate success. On the other hand, they had taken an enormous amount of spoils from the battlefields, especially many of the guns the Ottomans had brought with them.
For both the Emperor and the King of Spain, the year of 1524 had gone extremely well.
Author's Note: So here we finally have the long awaited clash against the Ottomans by Spain and the HRE. And the Knights Hospitalliers are here as well!
Princess Elizabeth of York had a tumultuous journey over the Bay of Biscay as many did in those times. Her entourage spent many hours praying in their rooms below dock, while Elizabeth tried to create calm and led the ladies in prayer. Her uncle, Lionel was a rock of stability during the travel, as he claimed that the Lord would surely not let them sink on the way to their glorious destiny that awaited them both. The english fleet was able to land at last after five weeks at sea in the port city of Santander in the region of Asturias on the 15th of June, as the sailors nearly collapsed of joy and the princess and her ladies wept from relief as the shore came into view. Lionel embraced his shaken niece to console her, as the worst of her voyage was finally at its end. The welcoming delegation was the mayor of the city, the bishop of Oviedo, Diego de Muros as well as Gaston of Foix and his wife, Juana Folch de Cardona. The Viscount of Narbonne had been sent as a representative of the crown to greet the new bride and to escort her to Tordesillas, where the court had taken up residence in preparations for the marriage. King Juan had spent considerable time and sums to renovate and expand the palace and it had become a favourite residence of him and Catherine.
The Spain Elizabeth came to was one preparing for war against the Barbary pirates and the Ottomans and her marriage was another link of the many alliances King Juan was reconnecting in many courts in Europe. The Hapsburg Emperor Frederick IV, the King of Portugal and the King of Naples was the key players while Spain lead the way. Juan’s daughter was wedded to Frederick’s son, while his son in law ruled the neighbouring kingdom. So, to secure Naples, Juan offered his granddaughter Infanta Ana to the Neapolitan heir, which was accepted. France was somewhat more reluctant to join the fight, but some lords and knights came anyway. The duchy of Lorraine was prepared to aid the glorious cause and Duke Charles, a man who delighted in war had personally offered to join the campaigns in the Holy Roman Empire, as their land-based troops would do the most there. Philibert of Savoy had also pledged whatever resources the duchy could offer. Brabant opted to support the efforts as well and sent money and ships down to Spain and soldiers to Austria.
Juan had pressured the Papacy as well to support the coming war and after some hard negotiations (more characterised as bullying by the Spanish) the pope had given in and readied the papal armies, as well as granting Juan the right to claim a fourth of the church’s income in Castile as well as all papal taxes for three years. This was an enormous win on the behalf on the Spanish king and the sums entering the war chests in the next few years was astronomical in their amounts. Some in the papacy feared that the pope had yielded too much authority to Castile and that it would weaken the pope’s standing in Christendom, especially as the reformation spread. The pope however was firm in his decision, stating that the kings no doubt needed the resources more and that no enterprise launched in the name of heaven was more important for the papacy.
Elizabeth wrote to her mother after her marriage, that the occasion had been more a promise of the Spanish nobility to the crown in declaring war against the ottomans than a wedding for her. While her boisterous uncle seemed all set to personally go and slay the Sultan himself, Elizabeth had to find her feet in court. Thankfully her Castilian mother had prepared her well for the role and one of her new ladies remarked that “she seems as Spanish as any Infanta born to the monarchs” and her knowledge of Spanish history and customs impressed many. Juan seemed to like Elizabeth as well, but as he was 14 to her 18, he did not seem to hold any romantic affection at this point. Both bride and groom went through with the wedding in Tordesillas and Juan consummated the union as any dutiful infante, much to the king’s pride. During her first months in Spain, Elizabeth became a close confidant of Princess Blanche as she was only one year younger than her step-mother. Blanche had been given the responsibility of organising her household as well and appointed Maria Pacheco as her chief lady in waiting. Elizabeth also befriended the daughters of Ferdinand the Younger, Catalina and Maria and their Mendoza cousins, Mencia and Maria who had been placed in the custody of Blanche as their father was dying. This had been another point of contention for Ferdinand the Younger, who was kin to the girls and had viewed them as his wards. No doubt he wished for Mencia to wed his own son and thus give him a heiress for a bride, but the late Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar y Mendoza had been a close confidant of Prince Juan and thus the girls had ended up as his wife’s wards. This act had turned Ferdinand’s already icy relationship to his brother even colder and he withdrew further away to the court after the marriage. King Juan ordered him to go to Granada in order to make sure it was secure as the planned crusade against the ottomans was in preparation. While Ferdinand slunk away to sulk in Granada, the court moved from Tordesillas to Toledo, one of Juan’s favourite residences and the city of his coronation nearly twenty years ago. The city welcomed their king with great joy, boasting the coat of arms he had granted them in 1505 upon his crowning. The two crowned kings displayed on the Toledo arms was supposedly of Alfonso VI, whom had taken the city from the Moors and Ferdinand III of Castile, the Saint King of Spain, both crucial monarchs for the Reconquista. Juan had ordered the construction of a new royal residence in the city as the old Galiana palace was deemed both too old and small. The city had prospered during the king’s reign. The metal working industry was thriving and since all knew of the coming wars, the manufacturing of swords, knives and armour had gone into overdrive in the past years. Other commercial enterprises also flourishing such as silk weaving, soap, flour milling and that of glass and ceramics during the 16th century. The court would remain in Toledo for the rest of 1523 and Juan busied himself with securing his allies and overseeing the preparations for the coming fight. It was at Christmas that the king finally called for war against the Ottomans, as the new Alcazar was packed to the brim with the grandees of Castile, Aragon and Navarre who all pledged their swords to the king’s cause. In January the king left with his armies to the south-east of Castile for the coastal cities of Valencia, Cartagena and Almeria where the fighting would start. Queen Catherine had been entrusted with the government as Juan wished to have his attention on the war and she was also to keep Infante Juan with her. Both the king and the prince would leave for the fighting and neither would risk his safety at this point, despite his ferocious protests at being left behind. Ferdinand the Elder left with his brother as well. Infante Santiago came with his father, while his second son Infante Alano remained with Infante Juan as he was a year younger than him. Ferdinand the Younger was ordered to remain in Granada and keep the region secure and the coasts ready for war. Princess Blanche also remained with the queen as she was pregnant once more and so did Elizabeth of York, and Carlota, Duchess of Cádiz. Maria, Duchess of Granada had suffered from increasingly frail health since a few years back and had mostly retired from court to live in the palace of Isabel I in the complex of the Royal Monastery of Saint Mary of Guadalupe.
The first part of the four years’ war against the Ottomans was mostly a joint task by King Juan III of Spain and Frederick IV, Holy Roman Emperor. The double kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary was a tempting target for the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman and Frederick had since long been readying for war. This was not the easiest of tasks, as the Hungarian magnates tended to be unruly, something that had given Emperor Maximilian decades of hardships before his death in 1516. But no one magnate was more tenacious than the Hapsburgs themselves. In 1520 Frederick had managed to get the nobility in line, much to the help of his brother-in-law. Stephen VII Báthory might have caused the imperial family a empire sized embarrassment when he eloped in secret with the Maximilian’s youngest daughter in 1500, but his support for Frederick had proven to be invaluable over the years. Not only had the Báthory family become a devoted supporter of the monarch, but he had also helped in wrangling other magnates over to his side, such as the Zapolya family. The peacetime between the Hungarian kingdom and the ottoman sultanate was over by 1524 and warring had begun in the small territories near the border castles, something Frederick would not abide by at all. His alliance with Spain, as Infanta Eleanor had wedded his heir Maximilian, the King of the Romans now came into its full effect. As the Ottomans did not only threaten to invade Hungary, but also Austria, especially the imperial city of Vienna. Frederick coordinated the defence of the imperial lands by placing Austrian troops as garrisons in the fortresses amongst others, strengthened national administration and ensured that all the border fortresses was updated and reinforced. The emperor won great acclaim in 1521 when he successfully defended Belgrade and its ancient fortress from the Turks. Stephen Báthory fought a campaign in Sabac in at the end of the year, and while he managed to keep the enemy from taking it, he took enormous losses for it. In the spring of 1524, the Ottomans came again.
The battle of Petrovaradin took place in late March. The mighty fortress of Petrovaradin that had been built by the celts, the Romans, Ostrogoths and Lombards had been a cornerstone of the defence by Hungary, fortified and expanded by Maximilian and Frederick from the 1498 and onwards. As it laid at the banks of the Danube River its position was excellent. The river was viewed as an important transport route for the Ottoman army to advance up to Hungary and Frederick arrived there weeks before the Turks did. Empress Anne had been left behind in Vienna to hold the city, while Archduke Frederick gathered additional forces in Croatia, Slovenia and Austria to reinforce the troops leaving with the emperor. The King of the Romans was already in Germany to secure aid from the German princes on his father’s behalf, and Stephen Báthory had been tasked with the defence of the city of Buda in the king’s absence. Additional support came from Brabant, Lorraine and Poland, all imperial allies. Petrovaradin was the staging ground for the clash between the Imperial coalition forces led by Emperor Frederick, and his commanders such as Count George Zápolya de Szepes, Radič Božić, the Despot of Serbia and Pál Tomori, archbishop of Kalocsa as well as an assortment of other imperial war captains, against the sultanate forces commanded by Gazi Husrev-beg, a governor of Ottoman Bosnia and the military leader Malkoçoğlu Bali Bey. The Ottoman army was composed of 45-70,000 men and over hundred guns, while the Christians had 60,000 men and 90 guns, while the additional forces in Germany was gathered as well.
The fighting in the Mediterranean Sea had divided the Ottomans attention as the navies clashed against each other’s in the barbary coast, especially near Tunis and Algiers, two cities that was very strong piracy fortresses. Algiers were ruled by Barbarossa, an Ottoman corsair and the brother of the late Oruc Reis, who had died in conflict with the Spanish years before. Barbarossa and King Juan loathed each other intently and the latter had put a hefty price on the former’s head. Barbarossa had allied with Sayyida al Hurra, Gouverneur of Tétouan in the Northen Morrocco, a place that had become rebuilt by the exiled Andalusians after 1492.
For the first year the Spanish mainly fought around the strait of Gibraltar, the Alboran Sea and the Balearic Sea, as their troops managed to take Oran in the summer of 1524. They also captured several galleys and sank a few. In autumn Spanish and Neapolitan troops began the conquest of other cities such as Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers and Béjaïa along the barbary coast. The military campaigns were overseen by Pedro Navarro, the Count of Oliveto and the Infante Santiago. Navarro was a trusted general and engineer from Navarre who most likely had come to Spain after the marriage of Catherine and Juan in 1484 and had been under the command of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba after that. The Spanish also took back the fortress of Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera near Badis of the coast of Morroco that they had lost in 1522. The first capture of the fortress of the little island in 1510 had brought some conflict with Portugal, but in 1524 those problems had been ironed out.
Fortress of Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera
The Spanish won a great victory outside of the city Tlemcen in the winter of 1524. The city was known as The Pearl of Maghreb, and its chief defender was Oruç Reis, the brother of Barbarossa. The hard fighting cost many lives for both sides, but the arrival of the Knights Hospitallers turned the tide against the corsairs. In 1522 the Ottomans had successfully driven the knight order away from Rhodos and they held a grudge against the corsair brothers as well, as they had attacked many of their ships. After 1522 the Order had found a new protector in King Juan who had offered them shelter in the Spanish realms of Sicily and Sardinia. The Grand Master of the Order, Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, who had commanded the order against the Ottomans during the siege and negotiated their surrender had arrived in the royal court to seek the aid of the monarchs. Philippe accepted Lionel of England into his order on the king’s request, as he was present at the marriage between Infante Juan and Elizabeth of York. Despite being a foreigner, Philippe immediately saw that the “Prince of England was every bit a crusader as any of mine own good brothers” and Lionel took the oath to become a member of Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem before the court, while his niece watched him proudly.
Philippe de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam
Despite his public declaration regarding the knight order, King Juan’s reasons for taking the them under his protection were not completely altruistic. The Knights Hospitallers owning the crown of Spain for their livelihood was a decision influenced by many factors: religion, power, influence amongst others.
Of the three largest crusader orders created during the 12th century, only two remained. The Knights Templars had been eradicated in 1312 by King Philip IV of France, while the Teutonic Order had bound itself to Germany and the Hapsburgs, especially the Holy Roman Emperors. Frederick IV had gathered many knights in the wars against the Ottomans from 1520 and onwards. The prestige of being a protector of the Knights Hospitallers was an immense one for the Spanish king. Not only were they a symbolic of the endurance of Christian faith, but they added resources to the crown, and they tied into the past of Castile and Aragon, as knights had fought during the Reconquista in the 13th century. Many nobles were looking towards the Indies at this time and in 1520 the king had to balance the interest of the crown in the New World without losing their goals in the Old World. The Knights Hospitallers were the perfect bridge between the conservative parts of Spain and those seeking new changes. Their aid gave additional virtue to the campaigns without being a drain on the treasury and re-energised the Aragonese lords as well, especially as the Ottomans threatened the Balearic Islands, Sicily and Sardinia. The Spanish influence in the order could also weaken their allegiance to the papacy and shift it to the crown. It is believed that Juan entered into a deal with the Grand Master Philippe at this time as well. If the order fought with the Spanish against the Ottomans, they would get the Island of Malta as their new headquarter. Malta was part of the possession of the Crown of Aragon and Juan intended to make it a bulwark in the Mediterranean for his kingdom. The Knights’s arrival in Tlemcen caused the defeat of Oruç Reis in December of 1524. This brought on great celebration for the christian forces and the city itself fell in January to Infante Santiago, who claimed the Mechouar Palace for Spain. The Sultan of Tlemcen, Abu Hammu III found himself and his family under arrest by Spanish forces and they were exiled from their own palace and taken to Andalusia under an armed escort. The sultan died in the city of Seville under house arrest a few years later, while his children were raised in Castile under the watchful eyes of the crown. This ended the Zayyanid dynasty that had begun its reign of the Sultanate of Tlemcen in 1236.
The Ottomans also suffered great losses in near Hungary as the Imperial-German forces defeated the Turkish army in Petrovaradin. Gazi Husrev-beg, the Ottoman gouvernour of Serbia died in the warfare as well. A victorious Frederick IV returned to the city of Buda in triumph in early winter, after months of campaigning. His brother-in-law, Charles came back with him as well. The Duke of Lorraine had been a great fighter in the wars and had won several victories during the campaigns. The imperial forces had after the victory began to press further into Serbia to retake lands near the Hungarian border, something that had been meet with moderate success. On the other hand, they had taken an enormous amount of spoils from the battlefields, especially many of the guns the Ottomans had brought with them.
For both the Emperor and the King of Spain, the year of 1524 had gone extremely well.
Author's Note: So here we finally have the long awaited clash against the Ottomans by Spain and the HRE. And the Knights Hospitalliers are here as well!
Last edited:
They sure did!
Lionel fit right in the order, and I wanted to include them in this story, as they had a score to settle with the Ottomans since they got kicked out of Rhodes a few years ago.
They are facing a more robust opposition in this story for sure.