Inês de Castro: Portugal’s Only Posthumous Queen

Discover the 14th-century love affair that rocked the Portuguese royal court  

The love affair between Inês de Castro and King Pedro I of Portugal is one steeped in myth, love, and tragedy. Like Portugal’s very own tale of Romeo and Juliet – with quarrelling families, banished lovers, and heartbreaking revenge – what makes this legend so enduring is that this story actually happened. The fictionalised trials and tribulations of star-crossed lovers pale in comparison to these Portuguese lovers, so join us as we discover why this love affair was so forbidden and the reason why our heroine ultimately became Portugal’s first and last posthumous queen.

Like many a Galician noblewoman, the life of Inês de Castro started out as a fairly comfortable one. Born in 1325, Inês was the daughter of Pedro Fernández de Castro, Lord of Lemos and Sarria, and his noble Portuguese mistress Aldonça Lourenço de Valadares. Her family descended both from the Galician and Portuguese nobilities and she was also well connected to the Castilian royal family (by illegitimate descent), which allowed Inês to move in the right circles.

In 1339, aged just 14, everything was going to plan and Inês arrived in Portugal as a lady-in-waiting to Constanza of Castile, who soon after married Pedro, the aforementioned prince and son of King Afonso IV of Portugal. Much like many marriages at the time, it was set up to create an alliance with another kingdom.

It’s said Pedro initially found his wife to be suitable (how gallant) until he laid eyes on Inês, who was said to have had golden hair with blue eyes and milky white skin. Almost immediately, ignoring the future that had been laid out for him, Pedro fell in love with the young Inês.

Castle of Dukes of Albuquerque, also known as Cuéllar Castle

The two became entangled in an intense teenage love affair, but while his attentions were now fully on Inês, Pedro, like the stand-up guy he was, still found the time to get his wife Constanza pregnant. Up until then, Constanza had been left to look on as her husband became more and more infatuated with her lady-in-waiting, so in a bid to squash the affair, she made Inês the godmother of their son Luís. The drive behind this was that in the Catholic Church, a godparent essentially becomes a member of the family, which would thereby make the affair an incestuous one. Though their lives were beginning to sound like a far-fetched plot from a bad soap opera, Pedro and Inês ignored these implications and continued their romance regardless.

Not only did the prince’s marriage start to fray, this affair only put more strain on the relations with Castile, the medieval state in the Iberian Peninsula, which Constanza was from. Pedro’s infatuation also had other consequences as it brought exiled nobility closer to power, with Inês’ brothers becoming Pedro’s friends and trusted advisors.

In 1344, while the pair had kept the affair secret (as secret as a pair of teenagers can be anyway) the king, Afonso IV of Portugal, caught wind of the tryst. He reacted like most dads would on discovering his son was ruining the royal bloodline – he banished Inês to the castle of Albuquerque on the Castilian frontier to get her out of the way. Despite the distance, Pedro and Inês continued to meet in secret. Like a love-sick puppy, he would send messages using a small wooden boat which would slip through the castle’s water ducts. Who needs phones when you have water ducts?

A year later, Constanza of Castile died just weeks after giving birth to their third son, Fernando.
Without wasting any time, Pedro immediately, if a little callously, brought Inês back against the will of the king, leading to a major fight between the two.

Ruins of Santa Clara-a-Velha monastery in Coimbra

Several times – after banishing Inês from the court once again, this time to a monastery in Coimbra – the king tried to arrange marriages for Pedro to other Castilian princesses. He continually refused, at first saying that he mourned for his dead wife but eventually declaring Inês as his true love. Unsurprisingly she was deemed to never be eligible as queen by the king and his advisors. So what did the pair do? Well they ignored the uproar and scandal of course. So much so, Pedro ran away to live with Inês where they began to have children together, four over the course of 10 years in fact, including two boys.

Nobles and the like were outraged by their continued relationship and with the addition of children, the rumor mill went into overdrive. There was talk the Castro family planned to disinherit Pedro’s son Fernando (the true heir to the throne), in favour of Inês and Pedro’s children. Others began to speculate the pair had secretly married while they were living at Santa Clara-a-Velha.

For 12 months, Afonso was fed these stories and speculations, and after several more failed attempts at keeping the lovers apart, the king ordered Inês’ death. In January 1355, while Pedro was out hunting, three assassins (Pêro Coelho, Álvaro Gonçalves, and Diogo Lopes Pacheco) as well as Afonso, went to the convent. Legend has it that when the time came, the king was supposedly so moved upon seeing his grandchildren he had the order stopped. His persistent assassins somehow convinced him otherwise though, and he ended up just leaving the room saying: “Do whatever you want”. Lovely. The three assassins stabbed Inês to death and finished by decapitating her with their swords, which was witnessed by one of her children. She was just 29 years old.