James II (Urgell)

Jacob II the Unfortunate ( Catalan Jaume el Dissortat ; * 1380 in Balaguer ; † June 1, 1433 in Xàtiva ) was a Count of Urgell from the House of Barcelona and in 1410/12 a pretender to the throne of the Aragonese crown .

The coffin of Jacob II of Urgell in the castle of Xàtiva.

Jacob was a son of Count Peter von Urgell († 1408) and his second wife Margarete von Montferrat. He was married to his cousin Doña Isabel, a daughter of King Peter IV of Aragon , since 1407 . Your children were:

• Isabel d'Urgell (* 1409, † 1443); ∞ with Pedro de Portugal , Duque de Coimbra, son of King John I of Portugal .
• Juana d'Urgell (* 1415, † 1446); 1. ∞ with Johann I , Count of Foix ; 2. ∞ with Juan Ramon Folch de Cardona, 4. Comte de Cardona.
• Leonor d'Urgell; ∞ with Raimondo Orsini, Conte de Nola.

When King Martin I of Aragón died in 1410 without children of his own, Jacob became the next agnatic relative and thus senior of the House of Barcelona, ​​one of the most promising candidates for the succession in the kingdom. His greatest competitor was the Castilian Infante Fernando el de Antequera , who was a first cousin of the late king on his mother's side. While Jacob could count on the support of the Catalan estates, Fernando enjoyed the support of the estates of Aragon and Valencia , as well as that of the recognized Pope Benedict XIII. who was a native of Aragon. Jakob had received an offer from Fernando to buy his candidacy, which Jakob refused under the influence of his mother. In the decisive vote on June 24, 1412 in Caspe , only two of the nine possible votes from Catalonia fell to Jacob, while the other seven voted for Fernando, who was thus recognized as Ferdinand I.

Jakob was not ready to accept this election and recruited a mercenary army with whom he wanted to fight Ferdinand for the crown. But after he failed in the siege of Lleida and fled to Balaguer , he was captured here by the superior Ferdinand on October 31, 1413. His possessions were confiscated and he had to spend the rest of his life in various castles in captivity.

literature

• Àngels Masià de Ros: El Dissortat Comte d'Urgell. Barcelona, ​​1960.
• Lluis Domenech i Montaner: La iniquitat de Casp i la fi del comtat d'Urgel. Estudi Historico Politic, Barcelona, ​​1938.

source

• Luís Vela Gormedino: Crónica incompleta del reinado de Fernando I de Aragón. Zaragoza, 1985, §24-25, pp. 42-43.

Web link

• COMTES de URGELL 1328-1433 at Foundation for Medieval Genealogy.ac

predecessor	Office	successor
Peter	Earl of Urgell 1408-1413	Crown of Aragon