latristereina:Know that on this day our Lord has given you the whole of Castile.- Fernando to Isabel

latristereina:Know that on this day our Lord has given you the whole of Castile.- Fernando to Isabel in Manuel Fernández Álvarez, Isabel la CatólicaOn March 1 Afonso raised camp, before dawn, and before the day was out the only pitched battle of the war was fought, the last major contest in Castile to be decided by light cavalry and the individual valor of nobles and kings. Late that afternoon, overtaken by Fernando’s forces at a place known as Peleagonzalo outside Toro, Afonso drew up his squadrons in battle formation. Although the Portuguese were superior in numbers, and although the Castilians were tired and strung out along the route, their artillery absent and the hour late, Fernando, as he afterward told it, chose to join battle, for he was confident in the right “that I and the most serene Queen, my beloved wife, have to these realms, and in the mercy of Our Lord and of his blessed mother, and in the help of the apostle Saint James—Santiago—patron and caudillo of the Spains.”Castilian pride and the habit of centuries did the rest, overcoming the calculated reticence of some of the nobles, but only some. Nonetheless, the cardinal in full armor, stung by Portuguese taunts and mindful of the death on a Portuguese battlefield of the great-uncle whose name he bore, raised the battle cry. The Castilians attacked furiously. Pedro González de Mendoza led his cavalry at a gallop against the foe and fought on undeterred, even after his coat of mail was pierced by a barbed spearhead. Rain and darkness ended the contest three hours later, without a clear-cut victory but leaving Castile in control of the field. Yet, with nightfall, the Castilian soldiers hunted spoils, not the enemy, and the remains of Afonso’s army reached Toro over the old Roman bridge. Afonso was thought dead, until the next day, when he was found to have fled to the safely of the nearby castle of Castronuño, having left command of the army to Prince Joāo. Fernando later remarked to Isabel that “if it had not been for the chick, the old cock would have been caught.” No matter, Castilians afterward referred to that battle near Toro as divine retribution for defeat suffered in their last contest with the Portuguese, at Aljubarrota in 1385, and as a sign of heaven’s favor returned to their land.Isabel, at Tordesillas, received the news from Fernando, who sent it off even before he regrouped the pillagers. She had had no word since the battle had begun and, as Palencia puts it, “to describe the joy of the Queen would be impossible.”- Peggy K. Liss, Isabel the Queen: Life and Times -- source link

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