Fernando Sánchez de Tovar
Fernando Sánchez de Tovar or Fernán Sánchez de Tovar , 1st Lord of Belves († 1384 near Lisbon , Portugal ) was an important Castilian soldier and admiral during the Middle Ages. But you don't know when he was born and you don't know anything about his childhood.
Soldier of Castile
Fernando Sánchez de Tovar began his career during the reign of Peter I of Castile . At the beginning of the First Castilian Civil War he was Adelantado Mayor . In 1359 he gained his first experience at sea as captain of a galley during the parallel war of the two Peter .
In 1366, during the First Castilian Civil War, he betrayed the king and gave the city of Calahorra to his half-brother and enemy, Henry II of Trastámara . For this, Peter I killed his brother Juan Sánchez de Tovar. A year later he fought on the side of Henry II during the Battle of Nájera . When Heinrich II lost in battle, he fled with him to Aragon. After the death of Peter I in the Battle of Montiel and the accession of Henry II to the throne, Fernando Sanchez de Tovar continued to enjoy the trust of Henry II and was therefore appointed Guarda Mayor and Lord of Gelves.
admiral
The Treaty of Toledo of November 20, 1368, which Henry II had signed with Charles V of France, obliged Henry towards Charles V in his fight against England ( Hundred Years War ) to support him with the help of his mighty fleet as thanks for the help France in its victory over Peter I and as revenge for the help of England against the vanquished. The French resumed hostilities with England the following year and then, according to the treaty, asked the Castilians to cooperate in the coming clashes. The Castilians fulfilled their obligations and put the English on the defensive with victories like at La Rochelle (1372) and thus also gained the dominance at sea that the English had previously. Sánchez de Tovar was involved in the battle and, as the leader of a fleet, he later helped in the conquest of Brest in 1373 .
In 1374 he was appointed to succeed Ambrosio Boccanegra as Commander-in-Chief of the Castilian Fleet (Admiral of Castile) because of his achievements . He became the 20th admiral of Castile. Because of the hostile policies of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster , who was also entitled to the Castilian throne, the new King Henry II of Castile decided to escalate the war. As a consequence, Sánchez de Tovar led the Castilian fleet together with the French, led by Jean de Vienne , to England from 1374 and plundered the Isle of Wight , the English ports of Rye , Rottingdean, Lewes , Folkestone and Plymouth in the south of the country , Portsmouth and Hastings . In 1380 he finally attacked the fleet on the Thames and destroyed all ports there up to Gravesend , the most important port city of England at the time, which is 20 miles east of London , cementing Castile's supremacy at sea.
In 1381 Fernando Sánchez de Tovar returned to the Iberian Peninsula to fight against Portugal, which, under the leadership of Ferdinand I , had joined England as in two previous wars he led. During the resulting Third Ferdinandic War , Sánchez de Tovar again showed his great abilities as a naval commander and defeated a Portuguese fleet in the sea battle off the island of Saltes . This victory made the supremacy of Castile at sea irrevocable from then on until further notice. In addition, this victory and Tovar's siege and attack on the sea of Lisbon in the spring of 1382, along with the excesses of the English allies in Portugal, forced the King of Portugal to make peace with Castile the next year, and it also resulted in John I of Castile , Son and successor of Henry II, appointed him Lord of Belves. In 1382 he returned to France and joined Charles VI's army during the siege of Brugge led by the rebel Philip van Artevelde . But he came back to Castile later.
Ferdinand I of Portugal died in 1383 without an heir and John I of Castile claimed the throne of Portugal for himself because he was married to the king's only daughter, Beatrix of Portugal . However, the master of the Order of Avis , Ferdinand's half-brother, John of Avis , also claimed the throne and Castile then declared war on him, which led to the 1383-1385 crisis . In this new campaign, Sánchez de Tovar led the Castilian fleet again against the Portuguese and took part in the siege of Lisbon , in which he died in 1384 because of the plague in his flagship, the San Juan de Arenas. His body was then taken to Seville and buried in the San Clemente chapel of Santa Maria Cathedral. Because of the plague, the siege failed and that also contributed to the defeat of Castile in the war. His successor in the Castilian fleet was his son Juan Fernández de Tovar .
See also
bibliography
- Fernández Duro, Cesáreo. La Marina de Castilla. Madrid (1995) ISBN 978-84-86228-04-0 (Spanish)
- Díaz González, Francisco Javier; Calderón Ortega, José Manuel (2001). "Los almirantes del" Siglo de Oro "from the marina castellana medieval". En la España medieval (Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid) (24): pp. 311-364. ISSN 0214-3038. (Spanish)
Individual evidence
- ↑ González y Ortega p. 343
- ↑ III. LOS ALMIRANTES DE CASTILLA, SIGNIFICADOS PERSONALES DE SU ÉPOCA, SIGLOS XIII-XV S.12-13 Los almirantes de Castilla: Descripción Historica Institucional —SIGLOS XIII XVI - Retrieved August 25, 2018. (Spanish) .
- ↑ La batalla que a los humilló ingleses y puso el Canal de la Mancha bajo control castellano Belt . Retrieved May 30, 2018 (Spanish) .
- ↑ González y Ortega p. 346
- ↑ González y Ortega p. 348
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Tovar, Fernando Sánchez de |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Castilian sailor and admiral |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 14th Century |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1384 |
| Place of death | near Lisbon , Portugal |