97 - Concerning the treaty King Fernando made with the Duke of Anjou to wage war on Aragon

Summary

We have found no evidence that Gonçalo Vasques de Azevedo or Lourenço Eanes Fogaça, who had been dispatched to Castile to negotiate the matters concerning Aragon, as you have heard, arranged anything in relation thereto that pleased King Fernando. Rather, it seems to us to have been the opposite. For as soon as these betrothal agreements which we have described were completed, feeling strongly about the gold that the King of Aragon had taken from him and recalling his unsuitable behaviour in that incident, very much the opposite to what he had expected, and wishing to put all to rights, King Fernando made a treaty of friendship with Prince Louis, Duke of Anjou, the son of the King of France, in which they would both be of one accord in waging war against the King of Aragon.

Thus it was that the duke sent him his ambassadors, namely Robert de Noyers, Bachelor of Law, and Yves de Gernal, of his council. They arrived where the king then was at Tentúgal in April and agreed to many things, although they left aside certain points that could not be decided before the duke knew about them first. The king prepared to send his ambassadors to France with the duke's envoys, sending there Lourenço Eanes Fogaça, his chancellor of the great seal, and João Gonçalves of his Royal Council, who was his secretary.

The following June, in palace buildings near Paris belonging to the King of France, they signed their alliance as follows: the duke would wage war against the King of Aragon by land and sea; the land war would be at the duke's expense; and in the war waged at sea King Fernando would contribute one third of the foists as long as they amounted to no more than the cost of fifteen galleys. Depending on the expenses they each accrued, they would be provided with a share of the goods and lands taken from the kingdom of Aragon, setting apart the captains’ portion, however, as is their military custom. All the cities, castles and fortified places taken in the kingdom of Mallorca, the islands of Minorca and Ibiza, the county of Roussillon and the surrounding lands would be handed over to the duke.