[2]The title originated in 1388, when King John I of Castile granted the dignity – which included jurisdiction over the territory of Asturias[3] – to his first-born son Henry.

[4] After the formation of the dynastic union between the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon under the Catholic Monarchs, the title was favoured by the Spanish King, who by custom applied it in the same way, i.e. to his heir apparent.

[7] At the beginning of the 19th century, the Spanish Constitution of 1812 (European year of revolutions) with consent of its counterparties ascribed the title to the heir of the Crown.

[9][10] The jurisdictional lordships, forms of government – not of ownership or possession, which were consolidated in the 14th and 15th centuries – were subrogations[clarification needed] of the royal power for the administration of towns, usually those with geographical or structural difficulties that generated income.

From King Alfonso XI the rulers created these lordships to give to their allies a proper way to maintain their position and to be able to govern and administer areas that were otherwise difficult to take care of with the traditional channels of the monarchy.

[12] When Rodrigo died without an heir in 1333, he bequeathed his domains to Henry, Count of Trastámara and illegitimate half-brother of King Peter I, during whose reign a "true civil war" – in the words of Luis Suárez Fernández – took place in Asturias de Oviedo because a group of knights settled in small dominions believed that the consolidation of the "states" that were being occupied by the Count of Trastámara (in a civil war against the King), would affect their power.

[16] After the assassination of King Peter I in 1369, there began a series of disputes and long rivalries between John, Duke of Lancaster (who claimed the Castilian throne as the husband of Constance, eldest surviving daughter of King Peter I and his mistress María de Padilla but recognized as legitimate and in line of succession by the Cortes of 1362), and the two successive Trastámara claimants, Henry II and his son John I.

By this treaty, the Duke of Lancaster and his wife Constance renounced all their rights over the Castilian throne on behalf of the marriage of their daughter Catherine to the first-born son of King Juan I of Castile, the future Henry III, who was granted as heir the dignity of Prince of Asturias.

[18] The premature death of John I and the minority of Henry III prevented the institutional and juridical conformation of the principality while Alfonso Enríquez rebelled again after obtaining his freedom by royal decree.

[25] With the Catholic Monarchs, there began a policy of reintegration of the royal patrimony that gave rise to a long fight with the principality, lasting from 1483 to 1490, with the signing of an agreement by which the House of Quiñones handed over to the Crown the districts of Cangas, Tineo, Llanes, and Ribadesella in exchange for five million maravedis and the Leonese Babias.

[26] In 1496 there was an attempt to revive the principality by Royal Letter dated 20 May, in which the monarchs, "wishing to observe the ancient custom" of their Kingdoms – an allusion to Aragon – gave to Prince John the rents and jurisdictions of the Asturian places that had previously reverted to the Crown, reserving to them the majority of the judges[clarification needed] and the condition of not alienating his patrimony.

The title lives from that moment a time of partial decadence with the establishment of the House of Habsburg on the Spanish throne;[6] for example, Philip II was educated to take on the functions of Regent during the absences of his father, not like a Prince of Asturias.

For Agustín Argüelles, an Asturian deputy in the Cortes of Cádiz, the draft of the Constitution of 1812 preserved more by "custom than by utility or precision" the title of Prince of Asturias to the heir of the Crown.

[31] The royal decree of 30 May 1850 attributes to the "immediate successors to the Crown", according to the Constitution of the Monarchy, without distinction of men or women," the continued use of "Prince of Asturias".

[46] The current titular of the Principality is Leonor, who took that dignity on 19 June 2014, when her father, King Felipe VI, ascended to the throne following the abdication of her grandfather Juan Carlos I.