On June 30, 1521, the upper plateau between Noáin and Skíroz resembled a chessboard, where the Tajonar saw gently placed one of its hands on the ground. On the one hand, the Navarre and French troops, led by Mr de Asparrots. In the other, with the Spanish imperial army, the Count of Haro, the Duke of Nájera and the condestable of Castilla to the head, accompanied by numerous Basques. In one, thousands of pawns, horses and parades, in another, much more. The blind humareda of the canyons, the stripe of the cavalry charges and the blood of the infantry grains filled the field that afternoon. At dusk, the defeat of the former was evident, which forever conditioned the future of the kingdom of Navarre.

This year, 500 years have passed since the battle of Noáin, the only and most important battle, according to most historians, in the conquest of Navarre, antecedent of the European tactical wars that entered modernity. To remind you, one more year, several agents have organized a march from the monument created by Joxe Ulibarrena in Getz – it is already three decades since they began to perform an act full of symbolism – this year more especially and one more day, as the Spanish ultraderechysts also called for "to move away from its provocation". Ephemeris cannot be ruled out. That Noain's battle was the last opportunity (before) that Henry II had to recover the Navarre kingdom of the south of the Pyrenees, probably the beginning of an end, and its social and political consequences have lasted a long time.

But in addition to remembering the fifth centenary, this year significant new steps have been taken to know, tell and recognize what has happened. Instead of just remembering resistance and defeat, before this battle we wanted to bring to the present the “popular uprising” that took place in Navarre in May 1521. In addition, historical research has brought to light new data that question the story that has been made so far.

May 1521: When Navarre rose again

When the Duke of Alba invaded Navarre in 1512, Juan de Albret and Catalina de Foix crossed the Pyrenees to take refuge in the northern Vizcondado of the latter's dominions in Bearne. But from the beginning they showed their firm intention to return to Nafarroa Garaia. Nine years later this possibility arose, when Castile had to withdraw from its small Pyrenean kingdom by the revolt of the villagers.

During all these years there were dozens of clashes, disputes and persecutions in Navarre, and serious attempts to recover that part of the kingdom, such as the attempt by the marshal of Navarre Pedro II through Roncal in 1516, who discovered his last destiny in exile until his faithful death to the kingdom.

In 1521 the Navarros kings had died and his successor, the young Henry II of Sanchéz, maintained a close relationship with King Francis of France I.arekin, who would be his brother-in-law. France was determined to settle once and for all the imperial differences with Spain, but to believe that Navarre was nothing more than a token in the table game between the two powers, would be to have a limited view of the geopolitical complex of the beginning of the sixteenth century.

In Upper Navarre, the political and social environment has remained red alive. Exhausted by the occupation of the Spaniards and repression for years, their citizens and their tribes – as much as they will be Agaramontar- saw with good eyes the return of Henry II.aren, his legitimate king. Thus, in mid-May of that same year, before the legitimate troops, led by Mr. de Asparrots, passed the Five Montes de Auñamendi – after the takeover of San Juan de Pie de Puerto – many Navarre villages rose up in arms under the motto "Henri Henri! ". - Flush.

The viceroy of Navarre escaped from Pamplona and the Spanish garrison abandoned there was fortified in the castle, presided over by Captain Ignacio de Loyola, from where they bombed the population, but in the end they had to give in to the attack of the Non-Citizens. A few days later the same happened in Estella, and in a month all of Navarre was released.

Nafarroa Berriz Altxa claims that in May Navarre rebelled “for its sovereignty”. emerging political movements. In addition to recalling the uprising and paying tribute to the rebels, the aim of the initiative is to assert the need to “recover that sovereignty” at present: “The echo of this cry of freedom remains a secular echo and, today, remains with us,” they stressed in the public reading of the manifesto held in April. Since then, various acts and mobilizations have been carried out – the latest, the massive demonstration of 19 June in Iruñea – in favour of a “red and impoverished” Navarre.

500 years of historiographic silence

Virtually nothing has been written about that popular uprising over the past 500 years. But the story that has come to us from the Battle of Noain, a month later, has hardly changed at that time, and the history books have been limited to repeating what the Spanish chroniclers have said: that the Spanish army faced the invasion of the “French”. French historiography, of course, shattered failure, and the Navarros chroniclers immediately stood in favour of the winners.

How is it possible that that day that changed the course of the history of Navarre has been so quiet until 30 years ago? This cannot be understood without the persecution and political and cultural dependence it has endured over the centuries. Little by little, however, we are increasingly familiar with the lights and shadows behind the Noain massacre, and the latest data from the archives “help us to separate wheat from the traditional stories of straw,” according to Atarrabia historian Peio Monteano.

Monteano has studied the battle of Noain the most. Noain 1521 is the result of his mouse work in the Archivo Real y General de Navarra, of which he is a technician, in the archive of Simancas and in the National Library of Paris. The end of the principle (Noain 1521. The end of the beginning). His work has brought the most news and information in recent times and, as the historian has written, we are now in a position to “begin a further account of the Battle of Noain”.

Another story by Noáin

General André de Foix, Mr. de Asparrots de Occitania, crossed the Ebro River and settled at the gates of Logroño in early June 1521, accompanied by thousands of gascones, navarros, bearneses and gendarmes, French gentlemen armoured. Driven out of Navarre by Spanish troops, he tried to siege and seize the city of the kingdom of Castile, chasing the trail of the victory of that campaign. But it was in vain. A few days later he had to go back with his gacha head to Viana.

The problems for the general had only just begun, after which the lack of supplies and desertion aggravated the situation. Thus, gradually he had to go back, while the defeat of the community revolution allowed the Spaniards to direct their gigantic armies towards Navarre. The Spanish chronicles say that in the face of this great army Asparrots rushed and returned in haste along the road that had come: “Where the French had dinner, the Spaniards had breakfast the next day.”

But, according to Monteano, the movements were much more paused and strategic (here you have a chronological tour) to gain supply time. The Asparrots left in Viana for almost a week, and then slowly headed towards the Ribera to protect the road between Pamplona and Tudela, where the occupants had destroyed most of the fortifications of the territory in previous years. The Spaniards did not cross the Ebro until four days later, when the Occitan general departed.

However, three weeks later, with a rapid maneuver, the Spaniards crossed the Sierra of Forgiveness, which was almost clear, and caught the Asparrots in the surprise. How did they do that? It seems that he was led by Frances Beaumont, who knew the area well, accompanied by the marquis of False, Alonso Carrillo, of Peralta. Behind the agrammon family Peralta has always been the shadow of the lack of loyalty and “opportunism”, as Monteano says in the book. The Duke of Nájera and his companions had learned from the first moment of the movements of Asparrotseke thanks to a “spy” that, according to the historian, could be the son of the Marquis of Falsés who passed the information to his father, since he allegedly fought against the legitimists.

However, in the midst of the turmoil, the circumstances among the relatives were not such, that you were blue and I was red, as in a game. When the Spaniards began this second conquest, some beaumonteses continued in their favor – with the Count of Lerín at the head – but others of the same stretch embraced the cause of the Navarre king. There we have the family of the Orkoien who led the militia of Pamplona or Captain Joanikot Arberoa who defended the castle of Donibane Garazi. We can also see the agramontes together with the Spaniards in the business of war against the villagers, now defending Navarre from the Spanish invasion. Attitudes and behaviors are difficult to understand at times in the time machine.

Did 5,000 Navarros die?

The head of the French and Navarre troops, when caught, prepared as soon as possible a battleground in the Noáin plain, despite the fact that the Spaniards were almost three times more numerous. But what could I do? The gas mercenaries deserted from Logroño for Pamplona and the German soldiers landsknecht, promised by the king of France, and the bearneses that Henry II was gathering in Salbaterra did not arrive. In the face of this, Asparrots decided to "nafar" his army, which is in a delicate situation.

The Navarros had already demonstrated their ability to fight when, a few days earlier, in Arakil and in Estella, the invaders were rejected. Now, through the so-called “one house, one man,” they wanted to recruit 4,000 of them. The involvement of the Navarros captains was total and they were joined by many militias of towns, but many others were still on their way – the fact that it was time to harvest it did not facilitate recruitment – and it seems that in the end only half arrived.

Thus, according to the data provided by Monteano, on that hot afternoon of 30 June there were 2,000 gentlemen and 12,500 Spanish pedestrians - about a third of them from Bizkaia and Gipuzkoa - and 1,200 gentlemen and 5,500 pedestrians, in front of the French and Navarre troops, accompanied by artillery pieces. As a result of the first load of gendarmes, legitimists began to win the battle, but the enemies were much more numerous and were gradually subjected. The infantry, the spades, the firearms… used the same technology that in the sixteenth century gave rise to the military hegemony of the Spanish empire, both for the conquest of Navarre and for the destruction of the Aztecs in America.

The most well-known historical chronicles speak of the death of some 5,000 Navarros and French in Noáin, a fact that Monteano has no doubt that this is a fact. Analyzing the context of the sources of information of the time, he believes that the deceased would probably not reach a thousand. However, it is clear that it was a battle as big as it was bloody, there is nothing more to do with the long list of noble Navarros that have been buried in the field. Mr de Asparrots himself had been seriously wounded and kidnapped by Frances Beaumont, who, after committing himself, took the rescue and released him.

Looting and repression

Much worse were those who had no money to collect recognition, before and after the battle. The Castilian soldiers were hungry – the crown had no money to pay their salaries – and as they entered Navarre they systematically slaughtered the people here, whether they support them or not: Viana, Mendavia, Lerín… “The screams of the neighbors came to heaven,” wrote the well-known courtier of the Catholic Kings Martyr of Angleria. On 28 June there was also a total looting by defeating Estella.

The data compiled by the researcher Pedro Esarte twenty years ago in the book Navarra, 1512-1530 show that this war was paid with taxes, sanctions and expoliations imposed on "the peoples, exiled and condemned" of Navarra. In addition, the people were left in a very vulnerable situation, as the drought of the previous year left them unharvested and that of that year had not yet been collected. But what has happened to them doesn't appear in the official books, much less if they're women.

In one of the talks on the ephemeris organized by the Noain 500 years platform, historian Amaia Nausia explained that in those years the number of widowed women tripled: “These widows tell us about the 16th century, the century of conquest. There was a harsh institutional process that we lost sovereignty, which must be claimed, but we have been forgotten that this century was even harder for women, because modern states and the patriarchal system were attacked and relegated to the houses; the widows, who lived without men, turned to the spotlight and that must also be claimed”.

End of termination

On the eve of the Battle of Noáin, Francisco I of France summoned the French court in Paris to the Navarro monarch Henry II, who replied by letter from Nabarrengos: “I have decided to do my duty,” that is, I would do my best to defend his kingdom. But it was too late.

With the focus on the chronological sequence of the coming months and years from the future, what was lost in Noáin can be best measured now: after the battle, the Spanish troops arrived to San Juan de Pie de Puerto through Roncesvalles, but had to withdraw again. In September 1521, Henry’s followers II.aren tried to recover the kingdom, but they were fortified in the famous castle of Amaiur, for the kingdom of Navarre, which was coming to an end.

A few years ago, in the historical discussions on the occasion of the 1512, it became clear that Navarra had not “voluntarily incorporated” itself into the kingdom of Castile, but had been violently conquered. On the 500th anniversary of Noáin, we can say that it was not a mere struggle “between Spaniards and French”, as Spanish historiography has told us, the last opportunity for Navarre, as a political subject, to legitimately maintain its territory in the Modern Age.