Martin I of Sicily

Who was Martin I of Sicily?

Martin I of Sicily, called "The Younger", was King of Sicily from 1390 to 1409.

Martin's father was the future King Martin I of Aragon, and his grandparents were King Peter IV of Aragon and Eleanor of Sicily. In 1389/1390/February, 1392 he married Maria of Sicily, born in 1362/1363. In 1392 he returned with Maria to Sicily with a military force and defeated a group of opposing barons. In 1394 the couple had their only son Peter, crown prince of Sicily, who died in 1400. He ruled Sicily jointly with Maria until her death at Lentini on May 25, 1401/1402. At that time, he repudiated the Treaty of 1372 and ruled Sicily alone. After his death in 1409 in Cagliari, Sardinia, his father, by then king of Aragon, ruled Sicily as Martin II.

After Maria's death Martin I the Younger married at Catania on May 21, 1402 by proxy and on December 26, 1402 in person Blanche of Navarre, who was heiress of the Evreux family and the future queen of Navarre, by whom he had an only son Martin in 1403, who died in Valencia in 1407. No offspring of his two marriages survived childhood; the only issue he left was a bastard son by Sicilian-born Tarsia Rizzari, Fadrique of Aragon, Count of Luna and Ejerica and Lord of Segorbe, born in 1400/1403, whom Martin II tried to make his successor in the Aragonese Empire. But the effort failed, and Fadrique was denied the succession by the Pact of Caspe. He married Yolande Louise de Mur and died at Urena in 1438 without issue. He also left a bastard daughter by Sicilian-born Agathe de Pesce, named Violante of Aragon, who died c. 1428 and was married twice: firstly in 1405 as his second wife to Enrique Pérez de Guzmán, 2nd Count de Niebla, and secondly to his cousin Martín de Guzmán.