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| ENRIQUE
IV King Enrique IV the Impotent (1425 - 74). King of Castilla & León (1454 -74), son of Juan II and Maria of Aragón. Repudiated Blanca of Navarra and married Juana of Portugal (1455), who gave him a daughter later nicknamed the Beltraneja because of being assumed to be the daughter of the nobleman Beltrán de la Cueva. Abetted by his favourite, Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, Enrique, as Prince, took an active part in the political life of Castilla during the final part of his father's reign and collaborated in the fall of Álvaro of Luna. When he took the throne, his first years were encouraging. He resumed the crusade against the Islam of Granada by means of a campaign of attrition and, in parallel, put an end to the old dispute with the infantes of Aragón. In opposition to the plans of the Aragón infante Juan, who became King in 1458, Enrique IV supported the Prince of Viana and invaded Navarra (1461). Pressured by the nobility, he acknowledged his brother Alfonso as heir. When Alfonso died (1468), the pretenders' aspirations of Juana and Princess Isabel led to the civil war. |
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