Diplomacy in the Fifteenth-Century Monarchical State: A Baronial Pursuit? (Portugal, 1416-1449)

Abstract

In 1438 Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, was second-in-line to the Portuguese throne. The death of his elder brother Duarte had left the royal seat vacant and Pedro, a middle-aged, powerful magnate was elected as regent for Duarte’s son Afonso, the boy of six to whom the crown fell. First as the coregent and then single-handedly, Pedro governed over Portugal and its elites during a decade marked in turn by contentment and upheaval, as much as by courtly struggles between aristocratic factions. In 1449, amidst accusations of lese-majesty and of favouring his own, Pedro would meet a bitter end in the field of battle, at the hands of his young nephew, King Afonso V, seemingly manipulated by an influential clique of enemies to the regent. This paper will examine Pedro of Coimbra and some of the men surrounding him during his political career (c. 1416 to 1449), in particular those employed as «diplomats» in foreign service. It will trace three different stages in Pedro’s trajectory — as a prince in the making, as the king’s counsellor, and finally as regent of the Portuguese kingdom — in order to question the extent to which a leading magnate of the fifteenth century was able to project his political influence in tandem with, or in reaction to, royal power. Ultimately, the paper highlights the co-existence, and indeed the overlap, between royal and non-royal diplomatic ambitions and the strains and challenges that it caused in the politics and diplomacy of Portugal in this period.