Fodoron said:New leader for Castile:
The Unconquered Knight, A Chronicle of the Deeds of Don Pero Niño, Count of Buelna
Medieval military historians have been well-served by Boydell and Brewer's decision to republish as part of its First Personal Singular Series a paperback version of The Unconquered Knight, A Chronicle of the Deeds of Don Pero Nino, Count of Buelna. This English translation of an important mid-fifteenth century Castilian chronicle was the work of Joan Evans and was first printed by Rutledge in 1928. Usually referred to in Spanish as El Victorial, this work treats the life of a late medieval warrior whose chivalric deeds place him in the tradition of William Marshal.
Born around 1378, Pero Niño was raised in the royal household where his mother served as nursemaid to the crown prince, the future King Enrique III (1390-1406). The two boys, who were roughly the same age, became fast friends. It was during Enrique's reign that Pero Niño came of age and it is from this period that most of his chronicle dates, including its most vivid military passages. Taking up arms around the age of fifteen, the young nobleman had his first taste of battle fighting rebels against the crown, then served under Constable Rui Lopez Davalos in a war with Portugal, one of several such conflicts with the neighboring kingdom that broke out during the closing decades of the century. During these campaigns, Niño first demonstrated skill with a crossbow that became one of his hallmarks.
In 1404, with nearly a decade of campaigning already under his belt and having passed his twenty-fifth birthday, he was appointed to his first independent command, a squadron of Castilian galleys sailing the western Mediterranean in pursuit of the many corsairs who operated out of bases in Italy, Sicily, and southern France. During this same period, he raided Moslem principalities in North Africa that regularly sent their corsairs against Christendom.
In 1405, in accordance with Castile's treaty obligations to France, he was dispatched north in command of three galleys to aid the French during their latest round of hostilities with England. For the next two years, he fought the English, operating off Gascony, Brittany, and north through what the chronicle calls the Flanders Channel. On one occasion, he raided along the south coast of England, from Cornwall to Plymouth; on another, he recruited and led a successful amphibious expedition against the channel island of Jersey. When not at sea, Niño solidified his reputation as one of the great jousters of the era and contracted a liaison with a highborn French noblewoman, widow of the recently deceased admiral of France.
Throughout these years at sea, Niño frequently exhibited the rashness that would become another of his hallmarks; as a result, he incurred numerous wounds, including one from an arrow wound that nearly cost him his leg.
Summoned back to Castile in 1406, Niño received a hero's welcome at court, including a knighthood conferred by the king and an eventual appointment as commander of the royal bodyguard. Rather than accept an ambassadorship that would have returned him to France, he participated in the latest campaign against Moorish Granada, directed by the king's younger brother, Prince Fernando de Antequera, later King Fernando of Aragon. Shortly after Enrique's death, Niño contracted a secret marriage to Doña Beatriz, a member of the royal family. When the match became known, it encountered considerable opposition from Niño's recent commander, Prince Fernando, now serving as co-regent. There followed some months of exile, during which the nobleman sought sanctuary across the Pyrenees in southern France; a situation that endured until 1409, when he obtained a pardon from the prince-regent and the latter's approval of his marriage. For several more decades, Niño served the monarchy in the person of King Juan II (1406-1454), father of Isabel la Catolica, who conferred upon him the title Count of Buelna in 1431.
Pero Niño
id = 029800 (CAS)
startdate: 1403 was on command of the Castilian navy.
deathdate: 1453 (death at Valladolid)
rank = 3
movement = 5
fire = 2
shock = 4
siege = 0
remark = "The unconquered knight. Defeated the Portuguese, the Barbary pirates, and the English."
Comments: Defeated the Portuguese at the siege of Gijon, and the Barbary coast pirates and English on several ocassions. He sacked Avignon, Tunnis, Plymouth and Portland, and entered the Thames. He was never defeated on land or sea. Made Count of Buelna in 1431. Do not mistake with his descendant Pero Alonso Niño, who travelled on Columbus’s first voyage and was owner of “La Niña”.
Code:historicalleader = { category = admiral id = { type = 6 id = 029800 } name = "Pero Niño" startdate = { year = 1403 } deathdate = { year = 1453 } rank = 3 movement = 5 fire = 2 shock = 4 siege = 0 remark = "The unconquered knight. Defeated the Portuguese, the Barbary pirates, and the English" }
Looks good to me, although that death date seems a bit long. Was he in active command into his seventies?
. I just put the death date because I lack a trusted out of commission date. You would be surprised how many leaders go that way in AGCEEP.
