Constance Manuel de Villena

Constanza Manuel de Villena (Garcimuñoz Castle, 1316-Santarém, January 27, 1349) was queen consort of Castile and later wife of Infante Pedro, the future King Pedro I of Portugal.

Family

Constanza was the daughter of Don Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena, and of the Infanta Constanza of Aragon, granddaughter, on the paternal side of the Infante Manuel of Castile and Beatriz of Saboya and, on the maternal side, of King James II. of Aragon and Blanche of Anjou.

Life

After the death of King Ferdinand IV, Don Juan Manuel was one of the tutors of the future Alfonso XI when he was still a minor. Upon reaching the age of majority in 1325, King Alfonso dispensed with his tutors. It was then that Don Juan Manuel, not wanting to lose his power, formed an alliance with the lord of Biscay, Juan de Haro, nicknamed "el Tuerto", and he intended to marry his daughter Constanza —who was about nine years old at the time— with him. King Alfonso ordered the assassination of the lord of Vizcaya whom he accused of treason, and asked for Constanza's hand in marriage. Constanza's betrothal and Alfonso were ratified by the courts of Valladolid on November 28, 1325, but given Constanza's minority, the marriage was not consummated, although Constanza became Queen Consort of Castile and used this title in her letters to her grandfather King James II of Aragon.

In 1327 she was repudiated, as the Castilian monarch was interested in marrying his cousin, the Infanta María, daughter of King Alfonso IV of Portugal in order to strengthen ties with this kingdom.

Don Juan Manuel promised her in 1335 to the heir to the Portuguese crown, the infant Pedro, future Pedro I of Portugal. In that same year the contract for the weddings was signed, which stipulated, among other things, that: Constanza he would maintain the domains and the free disposal of the lands delivered for the support of his house; her father could visit her as many times as he wanted; the first child from the marriage would inherit the crown of Portugal while the second child would succeed in the House of Manuel, but if this second child were not born, the House of Manuel would be inherited by the infant Pedro or his heir; and, that under no circumstances would the lands of Don Juan Manuel join those of the Crown of Castile.

This agreement was not to the liking of the Castilian monarch who did everything possible to prevent Constanza from traveling to Portugal and confined her to the castle of Toro to pressure Don Juan Manuel to give up this link. Don Juan Manuel claimed to his daughter but the Castilian king refused to give her up. However, the marriage by proxy was celebrated, first in Portugal, on February 28, 1336 in the convent of San Francisco in the city of Évora with the presence of the infant Pedro, his parents and several bishops, and later in Castile. Although the bride and groom were cousins, great-grandsons of King Pedro III of Aragon, it did not take long for the papal dispensation to be obtained.

The Portuguese king felt aggrieved by the fact that Alfonso XI still held Constanza in Toro, as well as by the humiliating treatment of the Castilian monarch towards his wife, María de Portugal, while Alfonso XI reproached Alfonso IV for did not give him the promised help in the fight against the Moors. This led to a war between the two kingdoms that lasted three years and aroused the concern of other Christian kingdoms and of Pope Benedict XII who played a crucial role in putting an end to this war. feud. Peace between the two kingdoms was agreed in Seville in the summer of 1339. Don Juan Manuel gave 800,000 doblas as a dowry for the marriage. A year later, in October 1340, the Portuguese king helped the king Castilian and had an outstanding participation in the battle of Salado.

Finally, Constanza was able to travel to Portugal, in whose entourage was the Galician noblewoman, Inés de Castro, with whom King Pedro I of Portugal later fell in love. King Alfonso IV complied with the agreement he had with don Juan Manuel and gave her daughter-in-law the earnest money that included the towns of Montemor-o-Novo and Alenquer as well as the city of Viseu as other queens of Portugal had had. This letter of earnest money was issued in Lisbon on July 7, 1340, and the following month, in August 1340, the royal weddings were held in Lisbon Cathedral.

Death and burial

The traditional date for the death of Constanza is November 13, 1345, about two weeks after the birth of the infant Fernando, born on October 31. However, according to the chronicler Rui de Pina and the Chronicle of the Sete Primeiros Reis de Portugal, died after the birth of the Infanta Maria. The Portuguese writer, bibliographer and genealogist, Antonio Caetano de Sousa, in his work, Historia Genealógica de la Real Casa Portuguesa, cites a document from the archive of the Royal Monastery of Lorvão where it is stated that Constanza was still living in 1347 and that in that year she was mistress of Alenquer, as well as what she had found or what the ancient chroniclers had written about the time of her treatment with Inés. The historian Frederico Francisco Stuart de Figanière e Morão in his Memórias das rainhas de Portugal, based on the obituary of the church of San Bartolomeo in Coimbra, indicates that he died in 1349, a year corroborated by other more recent historians, including Salvador Dias Arnaut, A. H. de Oliveira Marques and Joel Serrão. Dias Arnaut, it is most likely that Constanza would have given birth to another daughter, María, named after her older sister, four years after the birth of the infant Fernando, and who died of puerperium shortly after. Historian Rodrigues Oliveira says that the most probable date of her death is January 27, 1349. This implies that the relationship between the Infante Pedro and Inés de Castro began before Constanza's death.

Constance was initially buried in the Church of Santo Domingo in Santarém and later her son, King Ferdinand, ordered that her burial mound be transferred to the Monastery of San Francisco in the same city. At the end of the century XIX his tomb could have been transferred to the Museo Arqueológico do Carmo in Lisbon. However, it is possible that the one identified as that of Constanza, is the one that was destined for Isabel of Aragón, as part of the project of the royal pantheon devised by her husband King Dionisio in the monastery of San Dionisio in Odivelas, although in the end the remains of the holy queen were buried in her convent of Santa Clara-a-Velha.

Offspring

Constanza and Infante Pedro had the following children:

• Mary, (Evora, April 6, 1342 -1375/85) who married on February 3, 1354 with the infant Fernando de Aragón, Marquis of Tortosa and Mr of Albarracín, and son of King Alfonso IV degón Ara and his second wife, Leonor of Castile;
• Luis de Portugal was born in 1344 and would only live eight days;
• Fernando (1345-1383), who was the future King Fernando I of Portugal;
• A daughter, possibly called Mary, born in 1349 and died soon after.