HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Spain and Portugal: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 223

failings. An affable man who did not arouse
the opposition that Olivares had provoked
among the magnates, Haro made no real
attempts to pursue his predecessor's reform
program. In foreign affairs he pressed ahead
with the imperial program that had already
begun to unravel and continued to struggle
against France, even after the end of the
Thirty Years' War in 1648 removed many of
the issues that had drawn the two powers
into confrontation. Despite one reverse
after another Haro and his master raised
new forces, with the privado even taking
personal command in the field. By 1659
there was clearly no hope of victory, and
Haro performed his last service by arrang-
ing a dignified peace conference. There was
no escaping the fact, however, that in the
Peace of the Pyrenees Spain had given up
its claim to be master of Europe.
When Haro died in 1661 his son launched
an abortive revolt against Philip IV, demand-
ing that he be accorded the same power
and respect that his father had enjoyed. The
king did not punish him for this piece of
folly, evidently out of affection he still held
for his late minister. Yet the era of the
privado as the true ruler of Spain, like the
era of Spain as the true ruler of Europe, was
undoubtedly over.

pation in various battles Henry developed
into a weak, indecisive prince whose essen-
tially quiet, kindly disposition proved ill
suited to the rough politics of his realm. The
disrespect that many of his subjects came to
feel for him was intensified by his wife's
successful petition for an annulment of
their marriage on the ground of noncon-
summation. Henry married a second time
but remained childless for several years,
and when his consort gave birth to a daugh-
ter, rumor held that the infant, Juana, was
actually the child of a courtier named Bel-
trán de la Cueva. Although Henry recog-
nized Juana as his daughter, she was
popularly given the derisive nickname La
Beltraneja (Beltran's kid).
From the time when Henry IV ascended
the throne (1454) the question of succes-
sion lay at the heart of all Castilian political
activity. The old king had complicated mat-
ters by producing two children from a later
marriage. Alfonso and the future I SABELLA I
of Castile, Henry's young half brother and
half sister, were inevitably supported by
cliques within the nobility and clergy. Hen-
ry's reign became a series of defeats and
humiliations. The most notable of these
(1465) involved a ritual of deposition, when
an effigy of the king was set up on a public
platform, denounced for his shortcomings,
stripped of the royal regalia, and kicked to
the ground while Prince Alfonso was pro-
claimed sovereign.
The hapless Henry continued to play one
faction against the other and ultimately
renounced Juana's right to succession on
the condition that she marry Alfonso.
Before this solution could be seriously con-
sidered Alfonso died, and Isabella became
the de facto heiress, a position reinforced by
her marriage to F ERDINAND V of Aragon

Henry IV (Enrique IV) (1425-1474)
king of Castile
Son of John II of C ASTILE , he joined in wide-
spread opposition to the dictatorship exer-
cised by his father's henchman, the
notorious Álvaro de Luna. However, Henry
soon changed sides in the conflict, begin-
ning a pattern of vacillation that would
characterize his behavior in Castile's ongo-
ing civil strife. Despite his youthful partici-