Constanza of Castile
Constanza of Castile brought Inês de Castro to Portugal in her household and lost her husband to her. She was a daughter of Juan Manuel, prince of Villena - one of the great magnates of Castile and the author of El Conde Lucanor, a collection of moral tales that is a monument of medieval Spanish prose. Her first marriage, contracted as a child to Alfonso XI of Castile, was repudiated when he preferred his mistress, and her father made war on him over it. She was married in 1340 to Pedro, heir to the Portuguese throne, as part of a settlement between the two kingdoms. Inês de Castro came with her as a lady-in-waiting, and Pedro fell in love with her immediately. She had three children and died in 1345 giving birth to the future Fernando I, at about twenty-two. What followed is one of the famous stories of the Iberian middle ages: Pedro lived openly with Inês, his father had her killed in 1355 to break the Castilian connection, and when Pedro became king he had two of the murderers' hearts torn out in front of him and - by a tradition first written down long afterwards - had her body exhumed and crowned. Her own son Fernando's death without a male heir in 1383 caused the crisis that ended the dynasty. She is remembered almost entirely as the wife in a story about somebody else, and the tombs at Alcobaca that draw the visitors are Pedro's and Inês's, placed foot to foot so that they will rise facing each other. Hers is elsewhere. Camões put the murder in the Lusiads, and it has been made into plays, operas and films for six hundred years without her appearing in most of them.
- Lived: 1323 CE – 1345 CE
- Nationality: Castilian
- Roles: noblewoman
