Isabel from Portugal Biography

Isabel of Portugal

(?-Arévalo, 1496) Queen of Castile (1447-1454).She was the daughter of the infant Juan de Portugal and his wife, Princess Isabel de Barcelos, and the granddaughter of King Juan I of Portugal.On July 22, 1447, she married King Juan II of Castile in Madrigal de las Altas Torres (Ávila).The marriage between the Portuguese princess and the Castilian king had been agreed a year earlier by the constable Don Álvaro de Luna, valid of Juan II and true arbiter of the kingdom's policy.The almighty constable intended with this dynastic alliance to reinforce the political ties that united Castile and Portugal against the common enemy: the Catalan-Aragonese Crown, then headed by Alfonso V el Magnánimo, head of the infants of Aragon, who disputed power in Castile to Luna.

Don Álvaro exerted an almost hypnotic influence on the Castilian monarch, a man, on the other hand, of weak character and little political vision.The king was reluctant to remarry, since he was forty-two years old and already had an heir to the throne, the Prince of Asturias Enrique, future Enrique IV.However, he allowed himself to be convinced by his favorite of the convenience of this link, which would contribute to reinforcing Castile against Aragon and which, fundamentally, constituted a very effective blow against the interests of the aristocratic oligarchy opposed to Don's policy.Álvaro.

As had happened with the first wife of Juan II, María de Aragón, Isabel of Portugal developed since her arrival at the Castilian court an invincible animosity towards the constable.The queen, however, managed to break the siege that Don Álvaro maintained around the king, and acquired a great influence over him.

Isabel had two children: Princess Isabel, born in Madrigal de las Altas Torres in 1451 (future Isabel I la Católica), and the infant Alfonso, born in Tordesillas (Valladolid) on November 15, 1453 (the future king of the Farce of Avila, who claimed to succeed Enrique IV on the throne in 1465).The queen preferably resided in the town of Arévalo, where she raised her children and, apparently, began to show signs of mental instability early.

Her ascendant seems to have been decisive in the change of attitude of the king towards Don Álvaro de Luna, although not immediately.From 1449, Isabel of Portugal indirectly supported the maneuvers of the Great Noble League formed against the constable.But it would not be until 1453 when the monarch, possibly tired of the continuous pressures of the aristocracy, abandoned the hated valid to his fate.

It has been frequently said that it was the queen herself who demanded that her husband sign the prison order against Don Álvaro on April 3, 1453, through Juan Pacheco, Marquis of Villena.However, many other political factors influenced the king's decision, which would finally bring the constable to the scaffold shortly thereafter, after a trial without guarantees.

After the death of John II in 1454, Isabel of Portugal he retired to the castle of Arévalo, where he spent the rest of his life.During his last years he suffered, according to the chronicles, a serious mental deterioration, which degenerated into dementia.She died in August 1496, already old, and was buried in Arévalo.As his daughter Isabel I was queen, her mortal remains were transferred to the Cartuja de Miraflores de Burgos, at the express wish of the Catholic, to be buried together with those of Juan II.

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