Afonso IV

Afonso in 1309 married Princess Beatrice (1293-1359) , the daughter of King Castile Sancho IV and his wife Maria de Molina.

The father did not favor Afonso too - the favorite of the old king was the illegitimate son of Afonso Sanchez . The rivalry between the stepbrothers several times led to a civil war. On January 7, 1325, Dinis died, and Afonso became king, after which he exiled his rival to Castile and robbed him of all the lands and estates donated by his father. From Castile Afonso, the Sanchez organized several attempts to capture the crown. After several unsuccessful attempts at invasion, the brothers signed a peace treaty initiated by Afonso's mother, Queen Isabella. The king ceased to suspect his brother and even made friends with him ^[3] .

In 1325, the young King of Castile Alfonso XI married Constance Manuel , the daughter of one of his regents, Juan Manuel . Two years later, the marriage was annulled so that Alfonso could marry the daughter of Afonso, Maria , who became Queen of Castile in 1328 . Constance Manuel was imprisoned in the castle of Toro , and her father, Juan Manuel, began the war against Alfonso XI. In the end, peace was achieved and Constance was released from prison.

Then Juan Manuel obtained from Afonso IV consent to the marriage of Constance with his son and heir, Pedro . Castile took this marriage extremely negatively, as it gave the Portuguese kings the right to claim the Castilian throne. In 1335, war broke out with Castile. Peace was achieved four years later, thanks to the intervention of the infantry Mary herself. A year after the signing of the peace treaty in Seville, the Portuguese troops played an important role in the defeat of the Moors at the Battle of Rio Salado in October 1340 .

Afonso supported the common people during the terrible earthquake of 1344 , and during the plague that entered the country in 1348 .

Political intrigues filled the later years of the reign of Afonso IV, although Castile was ravaged by a civil war after the death of Alfonso XI. Enrique Trastamara challenged the new King Pedro , who expelled many Castilian nobles to Portugal. Afonso's heir, Pedro, fell in love with the maid of honor of his new wife, Ines de Castro . Ines was the daughter of an influential aristocrat from Galicia. Her brothers supported the Trastamar faction and became the favorites of Crown Prince Pedro, much to the dismay of the nobility, who considered them Castilian upstarts. When Constance Manuel died a week after the birth of her third child, Pedro began to live openly with Ines and abandoned the idea of ​​marrying anyone other than Ines herself. The Ines brothers pushed Pedra and Afonso to intervene in the war in Castile, but the king refused and, hoping that his son’s hobby would pass soon, he tried to arrange another dynastic marriage for Pedro.

The situation worsened over the years: the king grew old and lost control of his court. His grandson and only legitimate son, Pedro, the future king of Fernando I , was a sickly child, while the illegitimate children of Pedro from Ines grew up healthy. Worried about the fate of the Afonso dynasty, he ordered Ines de Castro to be imprisoned in his mother’s old monastery in Coimbra , and then ordered her killed on January 7, 1355 . Afonso expected Pedro to reconcile and marry some princess, but his son was furious when he heard that his mistress was beheaded in front of their little child. Pedro gathered an army and devastated the country between the Douro and Minho rivers. Reconciliation with his father took place only at the beginning of 1357 , and in May Afonso died in Lisbon .

The nickname Afonso IV - The Brave - alludes to his military exploits. However, his most important contribution to the development of the country was not war, but the relative peace during his long reign and the special significance that he attached to the Portuguese fleet. Afonso IV provided the fleet with state funding to stimulate maritime trade and the development of new lands. The conflict with Pedro became the basis of the Portuguese national epic - Lusiada Luis de Camoynsha .

From the marriage with Beatrice of Castile, Afonso had seven children:

• Maria (1313-1357) - wife of the King of Castile Alfonso XI .
• Afonso (1315)
• Dinis (1317-1318)
• Pedro I (1320–1367)
• Isabella (1324-1326)
• Joao (1326-1327)
• Eleanor (1328–1348) - wife of King Aragon Pedro IV .

• Rodrigues Oliveira, Ana (2010). Rainhas medievais de Portugal. Dezassete mulheres, duas dinastias, quatro séculos de História. Lisboa: A esfera dos livros. ISBN 978-989-626-261-7 .
• kings of portugal