high title, and found the senatorship poor compensation. As a result, when his cousin Conradin invaded Italy in 1268, Henry changed sides and joined him. He was one of Conradin's generals at the Battle of Tagliacozzo; he was in command of a host of three hundred Spanish knights sent by his brother Afonso X of Castille. He won the first encounter against the French, but was defeated by a surprise attack of a hidden reinforcement of one thousand French knights under Charles of Anjou. After the loss of the battle, he fled to the Convent of San Salvatore, Monte Cassino, where he was captured by the Angevins. Imprisonment According to Ferdinand Gregorovius he spent the next twenty-three years in captivity—in the castle of Canosa from 1268 to 1277, and in Castel del Monte from 1277 to 1291. In 1272, his half-sister Eleanor and her husband King Edward I of England came to Sicily on return from the Crusades. Eleanor's attempts to get him released from prison were unsuccessful, but she kept in touch with him until her own death. On 8 March 1286, Pope Honorius IV absolved him from the excommunication he had incurred when he had ravaged the city of Rome with Conradin, and committed insults and harm to Cardinal Giordano Orsini (the future Pope Nicholas III), his nephew Matteo Rosso Orsini, and Giordano Savelli. His absolution was conditional upon sacramental confession and restitution for all the damages done to interested parties, or, if he had insufficient means, a solemn promise to make full restitution when he was able. Both Eleanor and Charles were dead before Henry was finally released in 1291. He returned to Castile in 1298, where he was appointed regent for his grandnephew, King Ferdinand IV. He married Juana Núñez de Lara, but had no known legitimate children before his death in 1304. Traditions According to tradition he had a son out of wedlock with a lady called Mayor Rodríguez Pecha, daughter of the lord (Alcaide) of the castle of Zamora. This son was called Enrique Enriquez de Sevilla, who became Justicia Mayor or Chief Judge of Castile under King Alfonso XI. A recent study attributes the cavalry novel "Amadis de Gaula" to Henry of Castile. References Sources Further reading Ballesteros Beretta, Antonio. Sevilla en el siglo XIII Parsons, John Carmi. Eleanor of Castile: Queen and Society in Thirteenth Century England Santiago Sevilla Setecientos años buscando