Aragon proclaims Ferdinand its king, ten weeks after nine judges chose him

SARAGOSSA, Aragon, September 3, 1412 AD — Ferdinand of Castile was recognised King of Aragon today by all the orders of the kingdom, and proclaimed here with the usual ceremonies.

His eldest son, Don Alphonse, was at the same time declared his successor and given from today the title Prince of Girona.

The kingdom has had no king for two years and three months. King Martin of Aragon died at Valdonzella on May 31, 1410 AD and left no heir, and a war of succession followed among the men who claimed the crown.

The quarrel had already cost a life. In 1411 AD the Archbishop of Saragossa was murdered by Antonius de Luna, a supporter of the Count de Urgell, because the archbishop had said that as long as he lived he would oppose the count’s claim to the throne. The count raised an army, and Ferdinand levied troops of his own and entered Aragon.

Instead of fighting it out, the three realms agreed to be judged. The parliaments of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia — the Cortes — named nine judges in February of this year, three from each realm, to decide the succession at the castle of Caspe on the Ebro. The nine declared Ferdinand elected on June 24, and on June 29 the Bishop of Huesca said Mass at Caspe and Saint Vincent Ferrer, one of the nine, preached and published the verdict to the people.

Ferdinand had waited at Cuenca while the nine deliberated. When the judgment was published the judges sent ambassadors to him in the name of the whole kingdom, inviting him to come and take possession of the throne, and he travelled here in haste.

He is regent of Castile for his nephew John II, a child, and governs there only in the boy’s name. The Castilian nobles offered him the crown of Castile and he refused it, because his nephew was the lawful king. In Aragon that refusal was cited as evidence of the kind of king he would make. Two years ago he learned what the dying King Martin wanted. He came to Saragossa from Antequera, where he had beaten the Moorish king of Granada, and put out a proclamation there: as Martin’s nearest relative, he would accept the succession when the time came.

St. Vincent Ferrer, the friar who preached the verdict at Caspe, was born at Valencia on January 23, 1350 AD. He is sixty-two, and a Dominican. He spent years at the papal court at Avignon. Christendom has been divided between rival claimants to the papacy since 1378 AD, and Aragon follows Avignon, whose claimant is Benedict XIII — Pedro de Luna, an Aragonese. St. Vincent Ferrer was his Master of the Sacred Palace and his Grand Penitentiary. Benedict XIII offered him bishoprics and a cardinal’s hat, and he refused them all. He left the papal court after he saw Our Lord standing between St. Dominic and St. Francis and was commissioned to go about preaching penance, and he has done nothing else since.

He has worked almost without a break south of the Pyrenees since 1408 AD. He preaches three hours each morning and moves on, staying a single day in an ordinary town. His audiences run to three thousand and ten thousand people, and contemporaries put the crowds at fifty and seventy thousand.

At Caspe he wrote his verdict out and signed it. “I, Brother Vincent Ferrer of the Order of Preachers, Master of Theology, one of the Judges chosen by the Parliaments, affirm and decide to the best of my ability, that the Parliaments mentioned, the Subjects and Vassals of the Crown of Aragon, owe allegiance to the Illustrious and Puissant Lord, Ferdinand, Infante of Castile… And I declare before God and my own conscience that all should regard the said Ferdinand as their true King and Lord,” St. Vincent Ferrer wrote.

He was not at court for any part of what followed. King Ferdinand called the nobility of the kingdom to Saragossa to take their oath of fidelity, and St. Vincent Ferrer did not come. No one could accuse him of seeking a favour, for his order or for his own advancement. The king could not press a reward on him, and named him his confessor and his preacher to make his gratitude public.

St. Vincent Ferrer has left the castle of Caspe for Alcañiz, where he is preaching as before. Jews are coming to him there in crowds, and one of the most learned rabbis among them has been baptised as Jerome of Santa Fe.

The Count de Urgell has not accepted the judgment. He swore vengeance on the judges of Caspe, and on St. Vincent Ferrer above all. This year, on a rising ground between Caspe and Peñalba, the count and his followers waited on the road for the friar as he travelled toward Valencia. According to longstanding Catholic tradition the count rushed at him shouting abuse, and St. Vincent Ferrer answered him quietly: “It is you who are the wretch, for on such a day, in such a place, and at such an hour you murdered your brother!” The count fled, and the friar went on his way unhurt.

The count has now sworn fidelity to the new king. He swore it meaning to break it as soon as he can support his claim by force of arms.