History
After the death of King Peter of Castile in 1369, the kingdom was drawn yet deeper in a civil war, disputes and long rivalled between English claimant, John, Duke of Lancaster, and two successive Trastamare claimants, Kings Henry II of Castile and his son John I of Castile. After two decades of conflicts of varying intensity, the parties arrived at compromise through means of marriage: the future Henry III of Castile (1379–1406) was married to Catherine of Lancaster in 1388. A part of the pact ("Accord of Bayonne") was to elevate the young couple to a title, Prince and Princess of Asturias, which was modelled after that of Prince of Wales in English kingdom. The title was to belong to the official successor of the Castilian throne. Thus the first Prince and Princess of Asturias were the young Henry of Castile and Catherine of Lancaster.
In the first years the title was not only honorary, as it included the ownership of the territory of Asturias; the Prince ruled the Principality in representation of the King and was able to appoint judges, mayors, etc. This was changed by the Catholic Monarchs, who limited the scope of the title making it merely honorary; this decision was upheld by the members of the House of Habsburg and the House of Bourbon until the present day.
Read more about this topic: Prince Of Asturias
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)