Spain: the final frontier

JimboIX said:

The Civil war seems inevitable, especially with the Marshal now having a wife of royal birth.

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with the king now approaching the legal age to rule, who knows which faction he will favor? I have some inside information about his future wife

JimboIX: well, the old marshal is dead, who knows how good the present one is...

Llywelyn: the resolution is the standard one, and that is the max. zoom. I also usually play on the intermediate level.

RGB: i wouldn't go that far. The Arabs are out of Iberia for good, and the enemies are now Leon and Aragon. My biggest fear is that they will ally.

Ex-diocese bishop Enrique Ruiz, since Felipe decided to keep his civil title as the count of Cadiz, became the new commander of the army. Four months later, however, in August 1205, Count Felipe willed his domain to the crown and retired to a monastery, gaining the fame of Castile’s most undecided man: from steward to army commander to count to monk. With the rank of marshal came also the hand of Mary de Borgona. Previously married to marshal Recaredo, Mary accepted, on the condition that Enrique adopt Stephen de Quintana, her son by her first husband.

In late December the same year, peace was again concluded with the Almohads, though all knew it would not last for long. The year 1206 brought another Spanish war. This time it was Aragon that demanded the crown of Navarra. Aragon’s military might was unsurpassed among the Iberians, and Navarra, once the most powerful state in Christian Spain, was now reduced to a small fief of the king.

As more and more men of the clergy fled Italy, in fear of the Muslims and the plague they brought, some found refuge at the court of the king of Castile. One of them, Hermegildo de Siones, was named the new diocese bishop.

In 1209, the king, now fourteen years old, made his first political decision. Although not legally entitled to rule, his decision could not be contested, since he had the support of the army and the church. Berenguela, chancellor Pancheco’s wife (and the king’s sister), had her title of Spy mistress taken away, in another attempt to limit her family’s power. The new courtier in charge of domestic affairs was her own sister, Teresa, the marshal’s wife.

The Pancheco family now desired revenge. The opportunity presented itself when a crusade was called to liberate Rome, under control of the Abbasids. The chancellor knew the Castilian army, although quite large and very well trained, was no match for the hordes of Arabs now rampaging through Italy, in what seemed to be the second great expansion of Islam. It would be a great chance for the marshal to lose prestige in failing to fulfill the crusade goals, and there was even the possibility for him to die in combat. The crusade was called on August 9th, but in the middle of preparations for war, Pancheco died three weeks later.

The king, now eager to assert his position of unquestioned leader of Castile, called off the war preparations, and ordered the troops to demobilize. He sought a balance between the factions, and the chancellor’s death now made it possible. He gave the vacant chancellor title to Pancheco’s wife, Berenguela, the ex-Spy Mistress, mother of four, one of which the count of Castelobranco.

Berenguela’s first move was to give her son, the count, another title, of count of Coimbra, and according to the laws of the country, the count claimed the title of duke. The Panchecos were now hereditary dukes of Coimbra. The balance was once again threatened. A month later, however, the independent count of Niebla, in southern Spain, pledged his allegiance to king Osorio. The count being a well-known supporter of Castile’s military faction, balance seemed again restored.


A great feast accompanied the king’s coming of age, in the summer of 1209. Of all the possible brides, he chose the daughter of Aymeric de Lara, Geneviva, both because of her large dowry and the influence of her family. The de Laras were now in position to become more powerful than the Panchecos or the army. Geneviva became steward in March 1210, when the king’s sister Mary died. Now a widower, marshal Enrique Ruiz married Teresa de Borgona, his sister-in-law, the Spy Mistress.

With the birth of a son to the royal couple, the succession proved not to be an issue, as it was with the late king. The prince was named Manuel, and was given the honorary title of prince of Castile. In an attempt to please all factions, the disputed lands of Evora were organized in a bishopric, under the rule of diocese bishop Hermegildo.

The year 1211 marked the arrival of the bubonic plague in Spain, first manifested in Sevilla, from which it will expand throughout the Muslim parts of Castile, being considered a plague from God to the infidels. Cordoba was stricken after Seville, and then Cadiz. Toledo was still safe, and the royal court was celebrating the birth of a daughter to king Osorio. She would be named Eva.

The clergy saw the rapid advance of the bubonic plague as a sign the king needed to go on Crusade. In September 1212, war was declared on the sheikhdom of Salerno. The king himself would lead his army into battle, to conquer the city from where the final attack on Rome will be launched. When the army disembarked in Italy, they found Salerno under control of the duke of Catalonia. The king issued a formal declaration of war against the Kingdom of Abbasids on March 30th of 1213.

The campaign in Italy was quick, as the Arab regiments were decimated from the plague. Napoli was taken in May, and by April the mighty fortress of Rome was put to siege. The number of troops was not sufficient for a successful siege of the city, so the marshal was called from Spain with extra troops. Enrique has arrived bringing sad news: Geneviva de Lara had died in labor. Wedding arrangements were hastily made for the king’s marriage to Antonia de la Cueva, the sister of the duke of Salamanca. Through this move, it was hoped that the Duchy of Salamanca, currently under Leonese rule, would pass to the heir of the Borgona family. But for that to happen, Antonia’s older sister needed to be eliminated. An attempt to assassinate her failed, and in what could have been a response, the prince of Castile Manuel has been murdered.

1214 was the year the crusade goals were fulfilled. Rome was taken in February, and the king of the Abbasids was glad to pay 75 gold ducats for peace. With the treasury in shambles and the heir to the throne murdered, things were once again starting to get difficult for Castile. To remedy the depleted treasury, Urraca was appointed steward. To fix the heir problem would prove more difficult.

Shuma: the lack of an heir might not be that much of a problem. after all, the king is only 19 years old.

RGB: yup, i think king Osorio learned his lesson and will refrain fom using assassinations in the future. or will he?

Confronted with the unstoppable spread of the Bubonic Plague, the Moors of Cadiz turned in great numbers to the Catholic Church. The arrival of the plague in Spain would prove to be of great help to the Christianization efforts. However, the disease started advancing to the traditionally Catholic regions of the north as well. The first signs of plague afflictions were reported in Cuenca as early as May 1215. A second wave of the terrible plague arrived again with Arab soldiers from Italy, the army of the sheikhdom of Bari, which was at war with the Kingdom of Navarra. Faced with another infidel army on the border, the Castilian troops mobilized, as the Arabs conquered Rioja and wiped the Christian kingdom of Navarre off the face of the Earth.




The king hesitated to declare war, as contact with the enemy troops would almost surely bring a new spread of the plague to rich Burgos. The disease spreads to Burgos anyway, so there is no excuse now for avoiding the war. The declaration was issued on September 17th, 1216. To express agreement with the king’s initiative, who decided to lead the army personally, the General Estates voted a new tax, and money filled the royal coffers. The army the king lead to Rioja counted more than four thousand men, and the fortress fell after two months of siege, the garrison being decimated by both plague and a shortage of food.

Meanwhile, in Italy, an army equal in size to the Castilian one at Rioja laid siege to the mighty city of Rome. The local guards were caught by surprise, since the news of the declaration of war had not arrived from Spain yet. The city however was well supplied and it would take a long siege before it could fall. But reinforcements from Spain were slow in crossing the Mediterranean. It was up to the young Pedro Pancheco, in Napoli for studies, to take control of the local garrison and lead this two thousand strong force against the infidels outside Rome.




His army was smaller than the enemy’s, but when arrived behind the enemy’s lines, the Roman garrison exited the fortress and the Castilians, now outnumbering the Arabs 2 to 1, won an easy victory. The king’s messenger, traveling a week ahead of the army, transmitted the king’s orders to Pancheco: wait for the king to arrive, reorganize the army, and leave for Bari. But young Pancheco, eager to conquer himself a title, ignored the king’s direct orders and proceeded to follow the defeated remnants of the Arab army.

Pancheco’s army catches up with the emir of Apulia on enemy territory, where an ambush had been set up. The Castilians were nearly annihilated, were it not for the arrival of the Royal Army on the battlefield, army that had been on forced march from Napoli the past week. The tired, but more skilled Spanish soldiers won, and the army started a siege of Apulia, led by the king himself. After four months, the emir surrendered, but only to the young Pancheco. In doing this, his vassals, the sheikhs of Bari and Capua, swore loyalty to Pancheco as well. The king, noticing the precarious state of his troops, decided not to contest this decisions, and gave Apulia to Pedro Pancheco as a personal demesne, and while Pedro had a count title, the other two sheikhs were his vassals.




With peace reinstated, the army returned to Iberia. The king did not approve of this situation, of Muslim rulers inside his kingdom, and decided to end it as soon as the plague would cease at home. Iberia was entirely afflicted by the plague by the time the Holy Roman Emperor declared a personal crusade against the sheikhdom of Capua. The king could not defend an infidel in a crusade, so a part of the Castilian kingdom had to be lost without a fight. The only happy event of the year 1218 was the birth of a son to king Osorio. He would be named Francisco and receive the by now traditional title of prince of Castile.

The power of the de Lara family was growing. Bernardo de Lara, the duke of Asturias, gave his daughter, Aurembaix, as wife to the king of Leon. The duke’s influence on king Sancho grew to the point where the king of Leon was convinced to grant the title of countess of Placentia to his wife. The growing influence of the de Lara family was seen with worried eyes by both king Osorio and the Pancheco family.




Enrique, the third Pancheco brother, led a Christianization mission to Cordoba, burning down all the mosques in the province and threatening with death or prison anyone reluctant to convert. The success of his actions was total, and the king was forced to grant him the title of Diocese Bishop. The Pancheco family had members in almost all the important positions throughout the kingdom: Berenguela de Borgona, the king’s sister, was the head of the family and also the Chancellor. The eldest son, Sancho, was duke of Coimbra, Pedro was now count of Apulia, and Enrique was Dicese Bishop. The youngest brother, Alfonso, was still a minor. There was nobody to oppose them now, since Marshal Enrique Ruiz was severely wounded and started even to show signs of the plague.

The following year saw the relations between the de Laras and the Panchecos growing ever closer. A joint contribution from the two families’ coffers convinced the magistrate of Toscana to accept Castilian suzerainty. In 1220, secret negotiations between the Church and chancellor Berenguela led to Rome being ceded to the Papal State, against the king’s will. King Osorio was not at all weak, but when faced with the great power of the Pancheco family, his will alone was not enough to crush the state within the state.

Marshal Enrique Ruiz died in March 1222, and it was a great opportunity for the youngest Pancheco to get a court position as well. The king appointed him as Marshal, but the troops proclaimed their own general, Stephen de Quintana, stepson of Marshal Ruiz, and natural son of the old marshal Recaredo “El Cid” de Quintana, the Marshal of the Reconquista. The Pancheco and de Lara combined personal armies were still not enough to challenge his position, so the Stephen was confirmed as Marshal. The power of the army was still great in Castile, and again the only obstacle between the Panchecos and absolute power.

The following year, on August 7th 1223, steward Urraca de Borgona died. The king was adamant about not giving this important title to a Pancheco, and backed up by young marshal Stephen, granted the stewardship to his other sister, Teresa, who was until that moment Spy Mistress. The vacant position of Spy Master, however was taken by… Alfonso Pancheco! To bring the two most powerful families of Castile even closer together, Pedro Pancheco the count of Apulia, chose his wife from the de Lara family.

Under pressure from his advisors, the king demoted the consul of Toscana to the lower rank of magistrate of Livorno. The king’s most powerful vassals now were the duke of Asturias – a de Lara, and the duke of Coimbra – a Pancheco.

Internationally, a major success for Castile was achieved when the king of France and Osorio de Borgona signed an alliance treaty on October 2nd 1224. But internally, the kingdom was crumbling. Sensing the growing pressure from the Panchecos and the de Laras, the king took three very rich provinces from the royal demesne – Cadiz, Seville and Algeciras – to create the Duchy of Sevilla, title which was granted to the king’s son, Francisco de Borgona.




Taking advantage of the current state of affairs, count Pancheco of Apulia declared independence. Marshal Quintana, stationed with the army in Napoli, marches to defeat the rebellious count. After a quick battle against the counts of Apulia and Bari, the rebel armies were utterly crushed, and the king was once again in control of Apulia. Stephen de Quintana refused the king’s proposal to take the title of count, claiming he could help the kingdom more as marshal.




The first days of 1227 were filled with unexpected events. Apparently, for reasons that escape historians, the king granted the richest city of the realm, Burgos, to duke Bernardo de Lara of Asturias. It was rumored that Burgos was the price paid by the Panchecos to be sure of de Lara support in the following civil war, that everybody saw as just around the corner. During the same ceremony, the counties of Porto and Soria were given to the Duke of Coimbra, Sancho Pancheco. With the county of Soria came also the title of Duke of Castile, which until now was given exclusively to the heir to the throne. It made everyone believe that the king accepted his position as royal pawn and accepted the de facto rule of the Pancheco family. Pedro Pancheco, the former count of Apulia, was still in exile from Castile, and he would never return again.

A month later, in February, Marshal Quintana also took the titles of Apulia and Napoli, but still claimed to be a loyal vassal to the king. With the largest army in Spanish Italy, the ex-Marshal’s position could hardly be contested by anyone. In a last attempt to restore the power of the royal family, the king granted the titles of count and duke of Cordoba to his bastard fourteen-year-old son Juan de Borgona. A fact worth noticing, the lands granted to the Borgona family were all in the south, rich provinces surrounded by the fiefs of the old generals of the Castilian Reconquista. The kingdom was in chaos more than ever before.




On May 3rd, 1227 the king was forced to institute elective law, which would give the Panchecos a legal claim at the title. Discontent grew among all the king’s loyal vassals, and there was somebody to take advantage of the situation. The king of Aragon, believing that count Quintana was now fallen from Osorio’s graces, declared war on the county of Bari. As liege of the count of Bari, count Quintana of Apulia declared war on Aragon, and king Osorio decided to stand by his vassal. However, war would prove to be more difficult than anticipated.

The plague hit the Castilian provinces far worse than the Catalan ones and the Castilian army was virtually decimated. The only victories were in Italy, thanks to Stephen de Quintana’s military genius. In Iberia, Aragon was sieging Toledo when king Osorio offered peace, in the form of compensations. Castile lost a thousand gold ducats, and the royal treasury was once again empty. To seal the fate for king Osorio, the day after the peace was signed, duke Sancho Pancheco was given the fief of Valladolid and the title of duke of Toledo, therefore making him protector of the crown (since the royal demesne consisted now only in a small fief in the duchy of Toledo).




On April 3rd 1229, an alliance was signed with the Holy Roman Emperor. While of no significant value, this document is remembered as the last political action of king Osorio. He was found dead in his chambers two days later, a month before his 36th birthday. Due to the new elective law instated two years before, the crown passed to the most powerful vassal, Sancho Pancheco, the Duke of Coimbra, Castile and Toledo, protector of the crown.

RGB: some? i think ALL of them

Jestor: i think you may be onto something... the de Laras are certainly becoming stronger.

N.Bonaparte: i will continue as Pacheco, the king, to tell the history of Castile, instead of the de Borgona family.


thanks for reading and commenting.
Next update in a few minutes.

Sancho was the first to write his last name as Pacheco. In fact, the Panchecos were small nobles at the Castillian court of the de Borgona family. By changing the name in official acts to Pacheco, the king claimed descendance from Don Diego López Pacheco, who was also known as “el Grande”, a former duke of Portugal. To maintain an appearance of legitimacy, he continued king Osorio’s international politics, renewing the alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor. The former Castilian archbishop, Hermegildo de Siones, was elected Pope by the roman Curia, and he appointed king Sancho as papal controller.



Internally, things were far more complicated. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Sancho was behind king Osorio’s death, and even members of his own family decided to leave his court, and sought refuge in the duchy of Sevilla. King Pacheco found himself alone against both noble families of Castile, much like the previous king, except that he was now practically between the possible enemies: the duke of Asturias to the North and the duke of Seville to the South. To make matters even worse, Bernardo de Lara and Francisco de Borgona even signed a formal alliance.

The local nobles needed to be kept from conspiring, and there was just the way to keep them busy. Taking advantage of his papal controller position, Sancho used his influence to persuade the Pope into declaring a crusade to liberate Jerusalem. Although he never went on campaign to Palestine, king Pacheco received the honorary title of leader of the crusade. Just three months after his rise to the throne, he had to face his first test: the emir of Medina, self-declared protector of the Muslim Holy Cities, proclaimed a Jihad against the count of Napoli, de Quintana, a vassal of Castile. Before the royal army could be sent to southern Italy, the able count crushingly defeated the Arabs and conquered the city of Foggia. This new acquisition to his lands entitled him to take the title of Duke of Apulia.

Although a victory for Christendom, this meant Sancho Pacheco now faced three powerful dukes, all three with ambitions to become kings: the de Laras in Navarre, de Quintana in Naples and the Borgonas in Castile itself.

By august 1230, in a vain attempt to secure the loyalty of his vassals, the dukes’ required contribution to the royal treasury was lowered. The duchies prospered, while the kingdom was lacking much needed money for the after-plague reconstruction. In a war, there was no way the king could rely on his vassals’ armies for help, so he sought to expand his fiefdom by other means. The nearby duchy of Salamanca proved the most tempting target. The duke of Salamanca, of the powerful de la Cueva family, had only one heir. Needless to say, that made him a very targeted man by all the assassins in Spain. Unfortunately for king Sancho, the ones he sent were caught. In addition to that, his father granted him the county of Zamora, making him even more difficult to assassinate.

However, Pacheco used his control of the Holy See to obtain an excommunication for the young de la Cueva, meaning that he could not inherit. It was a bold, but uninspired move by king Pacheco, since the next in line for the title of Salamanca was none other than duke Francisco de Borgona, as his mother was the duke of Salamanca’s sister, from what we remember was king Osorio’s failed attempt to inherit the duchy.

Internationally, things also took a turn for the worse. The Kingdom of Germany was ripped apart by civil war, with discontent vassals declaring war on the emperor from Sardinia to Mecklemburg. One of Sanco Pacheco’s few diplomatic victories was secured when he obtained the marriage between his first born son, Jose, and Sancha de la Cueva, the duke of Salamanca’s daughter. In spite of this, the heir to the throne was still the duke of Seville, and a failed assassination attempt made the king realize his unstable position. Salic primogeniture was reinstated as Castile’s inheritance law.

In December 1231, a son was born to Jose and Sancha, named Raimundo, and so a Pacheco was heir to the duke of Salamanca. Jose was named spy master, in an attempt t stop the increasingly numerous assassination attempts on the king. The new marshal was a noble of obscure birth, Diego de Borgonha, favored by the king because of his skill in jousting tournaments, and in spite of a possible family tie between him and the former royal dynasty of Castile. In 1233, the death of Pope Hermegildo brought the election of a new Pope and automatically the appointment of a new controller to the Papacy. He would be king Pere of Aragon.

Liberated from obligations to the church, king Pacheco now claimed the territory of the bishopric of Alcacer do Sal. The bishop, now broken away from the kingdom of France, was foolish enough to refuse vassalization, so a formal declaration of war was issued on June 26th, 1234.




Duke Quintana and the de Laras loudly protested to the war, and in an attempt to please at least one of them, the king granted the duchy of Toledo to Guarnito de Lara, the count of Narbonne and Molina. In September, the bishopric of Alcacer do Sal was formally annexed into Castile.

The de Laras were somehow appeased; duke de Quintana was de facto independent in southern Italy; the de Borgona brothers, the dukes of Seville and of Cordoba married two Catalan sisters of the famous Urgell family. The kingdom is on the very brink of disintegration. If the Borgonas decide to pledge allegiance to Aragon, it could be the trigger to other events, such as Apulia declaring independence and the de Laras claiming the crown of Navarre. What will king Pacheco do?

Although faced with a complicated situation at home, king Pacheco would prove to be a good ruler for Castile, offering the stability the kingdom was so desperately in need for. To do this, he managed to please all his vassals by granting them various gifts, in the form of both money and sometimes even fiefs. However, he most effective means of keeping his dukes concentrated elsewhere was war. On July 8th, 1235, Castile declared war on the emirate of El-Arish, one of the few remnants of the Arab conquest of Southern Italy under the Ayyubid dynasty.




The duke of Apulia, Stephen de Quintana, was the one in charge of fulfilling the goals of the war, namely the annexation of the emirate. As usual in any case of war, the royal army was however sent from Iberia under the command of marshal Diego. The royal army was not going to Italy to fight, but to prevent the duke from proclaiming independence. During the same attempt to improve his position, the king sought to promote members of his own close family in the key positions in court. A normal consequence was the designation of his wife, Isabel, as steward, following the death of old Miguel Pires.

The quick Italian campaign against the defenseless emir was successfully ended by adding the provinces of Cosenza and Reggio to duke Stephen’s domain, before the arrival of the royal army. Marshal Diego arrived only in time to see duke Quintana receive the title of duke of Calabria from the archbishop of Naples. Prepared for such a turn of events, king Pacheco instructed the marshal to take command of the joint armies and march on the sheikhdom of Taranto, in the spring of 1436. The reason behind this decision was simple: in the new war, it would be still the duke’s troops to do the fighting, while the royal army would be prepared to act should the duke attempt to claim the crown of Napoli for himself.




The campaign was over very quickly, and by July the same year, the Duchy of Apulia and Calabria gained another province. The duke asked to demobilize the armies, and his wish was granted, although a state of war still existed between the kingdom of Castile and the emirate of El-Arish, now reduced to the small area around the castle of Farama in Sinai. It was not a matter of concern for the Castilian king, he chose to resolve the problem in new way: instead of wasting his money and troops on continuing the war in faraway lands, he promised the Arabian province to whoever would conquer it. The lords rushed to gain prestige in this small makeshift crusade. The duke of Seville declared his intention to embark in this adventure, followed by his ally Ramiro de Lara, duke of Asturias. An innocuous decision at the time, but as history showed us, this would deprive Castile of some of its best veteran soldiers of the Reconquista in the times of trouble that were to come.




In February 1437, the king of Leon decided to take advantage of the fact that the Castilian armies were on board ships heading for the Holy Land, and declared war. Messages of the greatest mobilization of troops the kingdom has ever seen were sent through Castilian Spain and Italy. King Pacheco chose marshal Diego’s ambitious plan over the advice of the chancellor, who suggested a defensive approach. The King himself took command of the Eastern army, the regiments of Porto, Coimbra and Castelobranco, where his most loyal soldiers came from (since the time he was duke of Coimbra). The chancellor would be in charge of defending the Royal court in Toledo, commanding the local regiments of Toledo and Cuenca. The marshal, leading troops from Valladolid and Soria, would attack the enemy capital of Leon, while the king’s army would attack from the east. The Italian army, led by duke Quintana, would rally around Toledo; composed of both Tuscan and Apulian soldiers, this army would be the largest, at around ten thousand soldiers.




The first battle occurred in May 1237, when the Eastern army, six thousand men strong, faced the marshal of Leon’s five thousand soldiers in Leonese territory, near the castle of El Bierzo. At the same time, the count of Viscaya would lead his men along the northern coast of Iberia to the enemy castle of Oviedo. This was where the absence of de Lara’s armies was felt the most. The battle of El Bierzo was won, but at the price of nine hundred men. The enemy’s troop count, however, was almost halved. A wandering arrow killed marshal Diego during the siege of Leon, but fortunately command of the troops was taken by duke Garnito de Lara from Toledo, who also brought his host to the battle. As Leon’s troops were heading back north to break the siege of Leon, where their king was trapped by de Lara’s army, the chancellor moved on the offensive, taking by storm the enemy castle of Plasencia and heading to Badajoz further south.

At this time came the declaration of war from the republic of Friesland. The arrival of duke Quintana from Italy caught the Dutch just as they were mobilizing their army in Castellon, and the republic hastily offered a tribute to king Pacheco, only to be allowed to keep their castle in Spain. Pacheco agreed. The battles in Leon and El Bierzo saw both sides winning and losing, as the war was slowly heading towards a stalemate. As winter came, the Castilian armies were still camped outside the enemy fortresses. This could be either very good or very bad for king Pacheco: if the enemy decided to move, he would find his armies trapped and encircled by the castle defenders and the relieving troops; on the other hand, if the enemy would camp for the winter and engage only in skirmishes, there was a good chance of taking the fortified towns, as food supplies were certainly almost finished for the besieged, and the winter was a particularly harsh one.

Luckily the Leonese armies camped for the winter, and peace negotiations started. All the concessions king Borgona was willing to make were yielding his claims to a few counties in Castile. King Sancho Pacheco demanded the rich province of Badajoz as compensation. And so the war, though static, dragged on. In January, emissaries from the duke of Seville brought news of the fall of El Arish and the return of the soldiers to Spain. By March the castle of El Bierzo fell, but de Lara’s army outside Leon was pushed back. The Eastern army headed to resume the interrupted siege of Leon, before the defenders could receive supplies. By July Oviedo fell to the count of Viscaya, and with the arrival of the soldiers from the Holy Land, the war slowly but surely turned to Pacheco’s advantage. In July the large walls of Leon crumbled and peace was made. Badajoz would be ceded to the kingdom of Castile.

next update will explain the Salamanca issue:

RGB said:

Interesting. So Castille had the energy to crusade and stave off Leon simultaneously.

Maybe having several powerful dukes is a good thing, who knows.

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Well, the crusade was against a two-province emirate, not much of a challenge. At first i hoped the war with Leon would end in a White Peace, but as the dukes' regiments became available, i realized i could get the manpower to pull off a minor victory.

And having powerful dukes is no good thing, i smell a rebellion in the not-so-distant future.