Eleanor of England, Queen of Castile

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Eleanor of England, Queen of Castile bigraphy, stories - Monarchs

Eleanor of England, Queen of Castile : biography

13 October 1162 – 31 October 1214

Eleanor of England (known in Castilian as Leonor) (13 October 1162 – 31 October 1214) was Queen of Castile and Toledo as wife of Alfonso VIII of Castile. She was a daughter of Henry II of England and his wife, Duchess Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Marriage

When she was 14 years old, before 17 September 1177, she was married to King Alfonso VIII of Castile in Burgos.Weir, 64. The marriage was arranged to secure the Pyrenean border, with Gascony offered as her dowry.

Of all Eleanor of Aquitaine’s daughters, her namesake Eleanor best inherited her mother’s political influence. She was almost as powerful as her husband, who specified in his will that she was to rule alongside their son in the event of his death. It was she who persuaded him to marry their daughter Berengaria to the King of Leon in the interest of peace.

When Alfonso died, his queen was reportedly so devastated with grief that she was unable to preside over the burial. Their eldest daughter, Berengaria, instead performed these honours. Eleanor then took sick and died only twenty-eight days after her husband, and was buried at Las Huelgas Abbey in Burgos.

Ancestors

Family

Eleanor was a younger maternal half-sister of Marie de Champagne and Alix of France. She was a younger sister of William IX, Count of Poitiers, Henry the Young King, Matilda, Duchess of Saxony, Richard I of England and Geoffrey II, Duke of Brittany. She was also an older sister of Queen Joan of Sicily and King John of England. Eleanor

Early life

Eleanor was born in the castle at Domfront, Normandy, and was baptised by Henry of Marcy. She was the sixth child and second daughter of King Henry II and Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine. She received her first name as a namesake of her mother, whose name "Eleanor" (or Alienor) had previously been unrecorded though may have been related to the Greek Helen or the Italian Elena. Another view holds that in the Occitan language, Eleanor simply meant "the other Aenor," since Eleanor of Aquitaine was named for her mother, called Aenor. The betrothal of Alphonso of Castile and Eleanor Plantagenet.

Children

She and her husband had the following surviving issue:

Name Birth Death Notes
Infanta Berenguela (Berengaria) Burgos, 1 January/June 1180 Las Huelgas near Burgos, 8 November 1246 Married firstly in Seligenstadt on 23 April 1188 with Duke Conrad II of Swabia, but the union (only by contract and never solemnised) was later annulled. Married in Valladolid between 1 and 16 December 1197 to King Alfonso IX of León as his second wife.New international encyclopedia, Vol.13, (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1915), 782. After their marriage was dissolved on grounds of consanguinity in 1204, she returned to her homeland and became regent of her minor brother King Henry I. Queen of Castile in her own right after the death of Henry I in 1217, she immediately abdicated in favour of her son.
Infante Sancho Burgos, 5 April 1181 26 July 1181 Heir to the throne from birth, died aged three months.
Infanta Sancha 20/28 March 1182 3 February 1184/16 October 1185 Died in early childhood.
Infante Enrique (Henry) July? 1182 bef. January 1184 Heir to the throne from birth, probably was twin with Sancha.
Infante Fernando (Ferdinand) bef. January 1184 1184? Heir to the throne from birth, he died shortly after birth or in early infancy.
Infante Sancho ca. 1185 1199 From dubious existence, he was placed in the Monastery of San Audito until his death, perharps because was severely handicapped and thus ineligibile for the succession.
Infanta Urraca 1186/28 May 1187 Coimbra, 3 November 1220 Married in 1206 to Prince Alfonso, who succeeded his father in 1212 as King Alfonso II of Portugal.
Infanta Blanca (Blanche) Palencia, 4 March 1188 Paris, 27 November 1252 Married in the Abbaye de Port-Mort near Pont-Audemer, Normandy on 23 May 1200 to Prince Louis, who succeeded his father in 1223 as King Louis VIII of France. Regent of the Kingdom of France during her son’s minority (1226–1234) and during his absence on the Seventh Crusade.
Infante Fernando (Ferdinand) Cuenca, 29 September 1189 Madrid, 14 October 1211 Heir to the throne from birth. On his behalf, Diego of Acebo and the future Saint Dominic travelled to Denmark in 1203 to secure a brideVicaire. pp 89–98. He died soon after returning from campaigning against the Moors.
Infanta Mafalda Plasencia, 1191 Salamanca, 1211 Betrothed in 1204 to Infante Ferdinand of Leon, eldest son of King Alfonso IX and stepson of her oldest sister.
Infanta Constanza (Constance) 1195 Las Huelgas, 1243 A nun at the Cistercian monastery of Santa María la Real at Las Huelgas in 1217, she later became abbess of her community.
Infanta Leonor (Eleanor) 1202 Las Huelgas, 1244 Married in Ágreda on 6 February 1221 to King James I of Aragon. After her marriage was dissolved on grounds of consanguinity in April 1229, she became a nun at the Cistercian monastery of Santa María la Real at Las Huelgas.
King Enrique I (Henry I) of Castile Valladolid, 14 April 1204 Palencia, 6 June 1217 Only surviving son, he succeeded his father in 1214, aged ten, at first under the regency of his mother and later of his eldest sister, Berengaria. Married in Burgos before 29 August 1215 to Infanta Mafalda of Portugal, the union was unconsummated and was dissolved in 1216 on grounds of consanguinity. Soon after his divorce, he was betrothed to Infanta Sancha of León, eldest daughter of King Alfonso IX and stepdaughter of his eldest sister, but he was killed by a tile falling off a roof before the marriage could be solemnized.

Sources

  • Cerda, José Manuel, "La dot gasconne d’Aliénor d’Angleterre. Entre royaume de Castille, royaume de France et royaume d’Angleterre", Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, ISSN 0007-9731, Vol. 54, Nº 215, 2011.
  • Cerda, José Manuel, "Leonor Plantagenet y la consolidación castellana en el reinado de Alfonso VIII", Anuario de Estudios Medievales, ISSN 0066-5061, 42.2, 2012.
  • Fraser, Antonia. The Middle Ages, A Royal History of England. University of California Press, 2000. ISBN 0-520-22799-9.
  • Gillingham, John. "Events and Opinions: Norman and English Views of Aquitaine, c.1152–c.1204." The World of Eleanor of Aquitaine: Literature and Society in Southern France between the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, edd. Marcus Bull and Catherine Léglu. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2005. ISBN 1-84383-114-7.
  • Rada Jiménez, Rodrigo. Historia de los hechos de España.
  • Weir, Alison. Britain’s Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy. London: Vintage Books, 2008. ISBN 0-09-953973-X.
  • Wheeler, Bonnie, and Parsons, John Carmi. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady. Palgrave Macmillan, 2002. ISBN 0-230-60236-3.