Pedro III of Castille (Chaos)

Pedro III of the Castillian dynasty was born in 1400 as the son of Pedro II and his wife. After the early death of his father, he became king of Castille at the age of 18 years.

Because of a decision of his father, his country was involved in the when he became king. But in 1424, the Cortes, the Castillian estates, protest the high costs and low results of the war. King Pedro is sorry about it, but had to leave the war,.

Fact was, he had better things to do, i.e. interfering in the, where the sons of unpopular king Pedro II fought against each other after his death. At the end, Pedro became the new king of Portugal, and the two sons became princes of North and South Portugal respectively. By using this division, Castillian kings could keep Portugal under control, although they had to respect special Portuguese rights.

To get rid of the mighty nobles in Castille, Pedro III told them in 1430 to go on a crusade to, which was subjugated during the next 20 years. The king didn't witness the end of conquest anymore; but when he died, the nobles had invested so much already that they didn't want to give it up to challange his successor.

In 1435, he died and was succeeded by his young son Pedro. Although his reign was relatively short, he had strengthened both his country and the royal position very much,