Afonso IV of Portugal
Afonso IV ruled Portugal from 1325 to 1357, fought at one of the decisive battles of the reconquest, and ordered a killing that became the country's most famous tragic story. Born in 1291, the son of Dinis I, he spent his youth in armed revolt against his father, resentful of the favour shown to his illegitimate half-brother Afonso Sanches; his mother, Queen Isabel, repeatedly rode between the two armies to stop them fighting. On his accession he exiled his half-brother and confiscated his estates. He fought an inconclusive war with Castile from 1336, then made peace when the Marinid sultan of Morocco invaded Iberia. In October 1340 he brought a Portuguese army to join Alfonso XI of Castile at the Salado River near Tarifa, and the combined victory ended large-scale North African intervention in the peninsula for good. He is called the Brave for it. He encouraged maritime activity, chartering voyages that reached the Canaries in the 1330s, and asserted a Portuguese claim there. The plague arrived in 1348 and killed a large proportion of the population, and he issued labour legislation attempting to hold wages down. His son Pedro fell in love with Inês de Castro, a Galician noblewoman of his Castilian wife's household, and continued the relationship after being widowed, fathering four children. The nobility argued that her family's influence threatened the kingdom's independence and the legitimate succession. In January 1355 Afonso authorised her killing, and she was murdered at Coimbra in front of her children. Pedro rose in revolt, and the two were reconciled shortly before Afonso died in 1357.
- Lived: 1291 CE – 1357 CE
- Nationality: Portuguese
- Roles: king, head_of_state
