Battle
Spain had conquered Iberian Navarre in 1512, including the capital Pamplona. Former King Henry II of Navarre obtained the support of King Francis I of France to recover his Kingdom. In 1520, the Crown of Castile seemed weakened by the internal Revolt of the Comuneros, and the Navarrese and French deciced to take advantage of this weakness. However, the reconquest began only in May 1521, when most of the Comuneros had already been neutralised.
As prepared, a general uprising took place throughout Navarre, including in the city of Pamplona. At the same time, French troops commanded by André de Foix Lord of Lesparre, made up of 12,000 infantry with heavy artillery, crossed the Pyrenees. They easily took Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port on 15 May, then Roncesvalles and Burguete.
When the population of Pamplona rose up, the Viceroy of Navarre, Antonio Manrique de Lara, 2nd Duke of Nájera fled the city on 17 May for Alfaro, La Rioja, being assaulted on the way and robbed. The few Castilian soldiers who remained, entrenched themselves in the fortress of Pamplona. When the French arrived on 20 May, they bombarded the fortress for six hours, after which it surrendered.
Among the Spanish occupants was the Basque captain Íñigo López de Loyola (who later took the religious name of Ignatius), who was wounded at both legs during the bombardment. Among the attackers were Francis Xavier's two brothers, Miguel and Juan, who would remain in charge of the city.
The recovery of the Kingdom had not been very bloody. There were further clashes with some 1,000 Basques on Mount Zengarrén, which left some 17 dead and then another 4 dead in Yesa. Nor was there any subsequent retaliation against collaborators with the Spanish.
The Reconquista or the reconquest of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian kingdoms waged against the Muslim kingdoms following the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula by the Umayyad Caliphate, culminating in the reign of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. The beginning of the Reconquista is traditionally dated to the Battle of Covadonga, in which an Asturian army achieved the first Christian victory over the forces of the Umayyad Caliphate since the beginning of the military invasion. The Reconquista ended in 1492 with the fall of the Nasrid kingdom of Granada to the Catholic Monarchs.
Navarre, officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. The capital city is Pamplona. The present-day province makes up the majority of the territory of the medieval Kingdom of Navarre, a long-standing Pyrenean kingdom that occupied lands on both sides of the western Pyrenees, with its northernmost part, Lower Navarre, located in the southwest corner of France.
Pamplona, historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain.
Henry II, nicknamed Sangüesino because he was born in Sangüesa, was the King of Navarre from 1517. The kingdom had been reduced to a small territory north of the Pyrenees mountains by the Spanish conquest of 1512. Henry succeeded his mother, Queen Catherine, upon her death. His father was her husband and co-ruler, King John III, who died in 1516.
Lower Navarre is a traditional region of the present-day French département of Pyrénées-Atlantiques. It corresponds to the northernmost region of the Kingdom of Navarre during the Middle Ages. After the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre (1512–24), this merindad was restored to the rule of the native king, Henry II. Its capitals were Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and Saint-Palais. In the extreme north there was the little sovereign Principality of Bidache, with an area of 1,284 km2 (496 sq mi) and a decreasing population of 44,450, 25,356.
The Kingdom of Navarre, originally the Kingdom of Pamplona occupied lands on both sides of the western Pyrenees, with its northernmost areas originally reaching the Atlantic Ocean, between present-day Spain and France.
Fuero, Fur, Foro or Foru is a Spanish legal term and concept. The word comes from Latin forum, an open space used as a market, tribunal and meeting place. The same Latin root is the origin of the French terms for and foire, and the Portuguese terms foro and foral; all of these words have related, but somewhat different meanings.
John III was King of Navarre from 1484 until his death in 1516 as the husband and co-ruler of Queen Catherine.
The Revolt of the Comuneros was an uprising by citizens of Castile against the rule of Charles I and his administration between 1520 and 1521. At its height, the rebels controlled the heart of Castile, ruling the cities of Valladolid, Tordesillas, and Toledo.
Catherine was Queen of Navarre from 1483 until 1517. She was also Duchess of Gandia, Montblanc, and Peñafiel, Countess of Foix, Bigorre, and Ribagorza, and Viscountess of Béarn.
The Battle of Noáin or the Battle of Esquiroz, fought on 30 June 1521 was the only open field battle in the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre. It was a decisive victory for the Spanish against the Franco-Navarrese army.
The Spanish conquest of the Iberian part of Navarre was initiated by Ferdinand II of Aragon and completed by his grandson and successor Charles V in a series of military campaigns lasting from 1512 to 1524. Ferdinand was both the king of Aragon and regent of Castile in 1512. When Pope Julius II declared a Holy League against France in late 1511, Navarre attempted to remain neutral. Ferdinand used this as an excuse to attack Navarre, conquering it while its potential protector, France, was beset by England, Venice, and Ferdinand's own Italian armies.
André de Foix, Lord of Lesparre, (1490–1547) was a French General.
Antonio Manrique de Lara, 2nd Duke of Nájera was a Spanish noble and military leader, and Viceroy of Navarre between 1516 and 1521.
The coat of arms of Navarre is the heraldic emblem which for centuries has been used in Navarre. It was adopted as one of the official symbols of the Chartered Community of Navarre and is regulated by Foral Law 24/2003. It is commonly used by Navarrese municipalities in their own arms.
Amaiur-Maya is a village in the municipality of Baztan in the autonomous region of Navarre in Spain. It is situated in the Pyrenees mountain range close to the border with France.
The siege of Fuenterrabía took place in 1523-24 by a Spanish army, after a Franco-Navarrese army had taken it in 1521 in a new incursion to reconquer the Kingdom of Navarre, which had been occupied since 1512 by troops from the unified Crown of Castile and Crown of Aragon.
The history of Pamplona as a city goes back to the 1st millennium B.C. when a settlement of Vascones named Iruña existed. However, traces of human occupation of the area date back 75,000 years. In the Roman era, the Vascones settlement was converted into a Roman city by General Pompey, who began by setting up a military camp there in 74 B.C., which he named Pompelo.
Jaime Vélaz de Medrano y Echauz was a high ranking noble from the House of Medrano, a Knight of Navarre, royal guard of the king, captain of the kings standing army, alcaide and mayor of Amaiur-Maya and one of the leading defenders of the Independent Navarrese crown against the Spanish conquest of Iberian Navarre. Jaime Vélaz de Medrano is believed to have served as the alcaide of Maya Castle from 2 October 1521, to 19 July 1522.
