The
Council of Castile , known earlier as the
Royal Council , was a ruling body and key part of the domestic government of the
Crown of CastileThe Crown of Castile, as a historic entity, is usually considered to have begun in 1230 with the third and almost definitive union of the monarchies of kingdoms Castile and Toledo in one hand, and the kingdoms of Leon and Galicia in other hand, and with the union of their parliaments a few decades...
, second only to the monarch himself. It was established under
Queen IsabellaIsabella I was Queen of Castile and León. She and her husband, Ferdinand II of Aragon, laid the foundation for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor....
in 1480 as the chief body dealing with administrative and judicial matters of the realm. With the ascension of
King Charles ICharles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I of Spain, of the Spanish realms from 1516 until his abdication in 1556...
of House Habsburg to the throne, the Royal Council at some point became known as the Council of Castile. This was because Charles was King of many dominions other than Castile, while the Council retained the same area of responsibility of Castile.
During periods of no monarch, an absent monarch, or an incompetent monarch, the Royal Council would rule as a
regency councilA regent, from the Latin regens "reigning", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Thus, the common use is for an acting deputy governor....
in their place.
Origin
The earliest form of the Royal Council was created at the end of the fourteenth century in 1385 by
King JohnJohn I was the king of Castile, was the son of Henry II and of his wife Juana Manuel of Castile, daughter of Juan Manuel, Duke of Penafiel, head of a younger branch of the royal house of Castile.His first marriage, with Eleanor of Aragon on June 18, 1375, produced most of his issue, including the...
after the disaster at the
Battle of AljubarrotaThe Battle of Aljubarrota took place on 14 August 1385, between the forces commanded by King John I of Portugal and his general Nuno Álvares Pereira, and the army of King John I of Castile. The place was São Jorge, between the towns of Leiria and Alcobaça in central Portugal...
. It consisted of 12 members, four from each of the clergy, the cities, and the nobility. In 1442 the nobility increased its influence on the Council, adding many nobles as titular members of the Council. Sixty became the new number of members.
This Council was rather ineffective, and
King FerdinandFerdinand the Catholic was King of Aragon , Sicily , Naples , Valencia, Sardinia, and Navarre, Count of Barcelona, de jure uxoris King of Castile and then Regent of that country also from 1508 to his death, in the name of his mentally unstable daughter Joanna the...
and Queen Isabella sought to change it in their drive to centralize the country and bring it more firmly in line with national interests rather than the nobles. In 1480, they passed the Act of Resumption at the Cortes of
ToledoToledo is a municipality located in central Spain, 70 km south of Madrid. It is the capital of the province of Toledo and of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha...
. This act would allow Ferdinand and Isabella to directly appoint bureaucrats, rather than letting the independent and erratic nobles rule. The Royal Council would control both a royal army and manage tax disputes, which would place nobles more securely under the control of the Crown.
The new composition of the reformed Council was a president, a treasurer, a church prelate, three
caballeros (often minor nobility), and between eight and ten
letrados (lawyers). Among its chief duties were:
- Advise the Crown on matters of appointments, both military and Court.
- Supervise works and projects of the (Castilian) government.
- Offer consideration of and judgment to the Crown's regarding the conferring of pensions, emoluments, and sundry favors.
- Serve as the Supreme Court of Justice of the Kingdom of Castile.
- For each member of the Council to sign all legal documents that in anyway effected the working of the Kingdom (of Castile), even down to the most detailed, day-to-day governmental decisions.
In order to prevent it from falling under control of the great Houses, as had happened with the original royal council, non-appointed nobles were allowed to attend Council meetings but were given no vote. The result of this meant that the Council, and its
bureaucracyBureaucracy is the collective organizational structure, procedures, protocols, and set of regulations in place to manage activity, usually in large organizations and government...
, was composed chiefly of "new men", i.e. minor nobility, townsmen/citizens, civilian magistrates, and so on.
After Queen Isabella's death in 1504, the Royal Council began to grow corrupt and influenced by the nobility once more.
King Philip IPhilip I , known as the Handsome or the Fair, was the son of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor...
was an ineffective ruler who only reigned two years; after him, the government theoretically fell to Ferdinand and Isabella's daughter, Joanna the Mad, and her six-year-old son
Charles of GhentCharles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I of Spain, of the Spanish realms from 1516 until his abdication in 1556...
. Joanna was, however, incompetent, and Charles too young. Archbishop Cisneros ruled a brief time as regent, but was undercut by noble schemes and spent much of his time simply trying to hold together the national government. Cisneros was then replaced by King
Ferdinand of AragonFerdinand the Catholic was King of Aragon , Sicily , Naples , Valencia, Sardinia, and Navarre, Count of Barcelona, de jure uxoris King of Castile and then Regent of that country also from 1508 to his death, in the name of his mentally unstable daughter Joanna the...
, whose claim to rule Castile with his wife's death was rather weak, but no plausible other choice existed. Ferdinand was often an absent ruler of Castile, living in
AragonThe Crown of Aragon was a permanent union of multiple titles and states in the hands of the King of Aragon.At the height of its power by the 14th and 15th centuries, the Crown of Aragon was a thalassocracy controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain, Southwestern France, as well as...
, and the Royal Council managed his affairs. During this period, it became yet more corrupt and ineffectual. Nobles illegally expanded their domains by force, sending soldiers to "claim" land that was owned by the royal government or free peasants. The Council, corrupt and bribed, usually ignored these incidents, allowing nobles to freely enrich themselves at the cost of justice and the national government.
Under Charles of Habsburg: Revolt and Reform
After Ferdinand's death in 1516, Cisneros served as regent again for a brief time more, and then
Charles ICharles V was ruler of the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and, as Charles I of Spain, of the Spanish realms from 1516 until his abdication in 1556...
was crowned king now that he was of age. However, the young king was at the time almost completely controlled by Flemish advisors such as
William de Croÿ, sieur de ChièvresWilliam II de Croÿ, Lord of Chièvres , later Duke of Sora and Arce, Baron of Roccaguglielma William II de Croÿ, Lord of Chièvres (1458 – May 28, 1521) (also known as: Guillaume II de Croÿ, sieur de Chièvres in French; Guillermo II de Croÿ, señor de Chièvres, Xevres or Xebres in Spanish;...
, and he did not undertake any efforts to change the Council at first. Additionally, Charles' new government levied high taxes and demands on Castile, with its ambitions over all Europe; Charles was the King and Emperor of one of the hugest realms in European history. The Bishop of Badajoz, Ruiz de la Mota, was an influential member of the Royal Council and declared to the Cortes of
CorunnaCorunna is the traditional English name of the city A Coruña in Spain and the surrounding province A Coruña .Corunna is also the name of a number of places in North America:*Corunna, Ontario, Canada...
that Castile was to be the empire's "treasury and sword."
When Charles left Spain in 1520, the Revolt of the Comuneros broke out against royal government. Much of their complaints were against the Council—representatives of Valladolid's radical parishes were unanimous in a statement blaming the Council's "bad government" for the kingdom's troubles. The Royal Council would lead the royalist forces against the rebels in Charles' absence. Charles left as regent the Dutch Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht, by most accounts a decent ruler saddled with a difficult situation. Much of the Royal Council agitated for vigorous punishment against the rebels, such as its hated president, Antonio de Rojas. These early reprisals would backfire, and intensified the revolt's spread.
Eventually, the rebels were defeated, but Charles (who had also matured and distanced himself from his earlier advisers) realized that the Council direly needed reform. Charles embarked upon a vigorous program to change the nature of the Council, dismissing the unpopular Antonio de Rojas and replacing him with Juan de Tavera, the
Archbishop of SantiagoArchbishop of Santiago may refer to:*Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain.*Archbishop of Santiago...
. He also added three new councilors, Juan Manuel, Pedro de Medina, and Martín Vázquez, and generally sought to replace nobles with gentry and educated lawyers. More importantly, Charles changed the Council's functions. The Royal Council would no longer deal with the vast majority of civil law disputes and cases, allowing them to focus on administration instead. Judicial complaints and appeals would now be dealt with by a new and expanded judiciary, the
audienciaThe Ryal Audiencia and Chancillería was a court that functioned as an appellate court in Spain and its empire. The name of the institution has been sometimes translated as Royal Audience...
s. With the reputation of the Council restored, the quality of its appointees rose.
At some point in this time period, the Royal Council became known as the Council of Castile, to reflect that the Council's power extended only over Castile and not the whole empire. With the growth of Spain's overseas conquests, and the prodding of Charles' grand-counselor and close friend Mercurino Guttinara, the Council of Castile expanded and split. Between the years 1522-1524 the Council of Castile reorganized the government of
NavarreThe Kingdom of Navarre , originally the Kingdom of Pamplona, was a European kingdom which occupied lands on either side of the Pyrenees alongside the Atlantic Ocean....
, dismissing its viceroy the
Duke of NájeraThe House of Lara or Casa de Lara are a noble family, known from the medieval Kingdom of Castile.Two of its branches, those from the Duke of Nájera and from the Marquis of Aguilar de Campoo were considered Grandees of Spain...
. A Council of Finance (
Hacienda) was created, and on August 1 the Council for the Indies was split from the Council of Castile. Thirty years later, in 1555, the Council of Italy was formed, yet another offspring of the Council of Castile. Guttinara also saw the establishment of the
Consejo de la Cámara de Castilla, an inner circle of the Council of Constile. The
Consejo was composed of three or four trusted members of the Council who had power to deal with unpopular or secret issues.
Post Charles I: Prominence, then decline
The Royal Council came to prominence again during the reign of
King Charles IICharles II , was the last Habsburg King of Spain and the ruler of nearly all of Italy , the Spanish territories in the Southern Low Countries, and Spain's overseas Empire, stretching from Mexico to the Philippines...
from 1661–1709, as Charles II was mentally incompetent. After the War of Spanish Succession and
Nueva Planta decreesThe Nueva Planta decrees were a number of decrees signed between 1707 and 1716 by Philip V—the first Bourbon king of Spain—during and shortly after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession which he won....
, Spain centralized itself further. Castile's government became dominant not just over Castile, but the former
Crown of AragonThe Crown of Aragon was a permanent union of multiple titles and states in the hands of the King of Aragon.At the height of its power by the 14th and 15th centuries, the Crown of Aragon was a thalassocracy controlling a large portion of the present-day eastern Spain, Southwestern France, as well as...
as well. The enlightened despotisms of
Charles IIICharles III was the King of Spain and the Spanish Indies from 1759 to his death in 1788.Eldest son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife, Princess Elisabeth of Parma, he became the Duke of Parma and Piacenza under the name of Charles I ; later on in 1734 while Duke of Parma he conquered...
and
Charles IVCharles IV was King of Spain from 14 December 1788 until his abdication on 19 March 1808.-Early life:...
also saw a prominent role for the Council of Castile. Spain's kings of the 19th century were considerably less effective, and the 19th century also saw various revolutions such as the
Trienio Liberal and the
First Spanish RepublicThe First Spanish Republic was the political regime that existed in Spain between the parliamentary proclamation on 11 February 1873 and 29 December 1874 when General Martínez Campos's pronouncement marked the beginning of the Bourbon Restoration in Spain...
which broke the power of the Council.