Telles de Menezes, Leonora

Donna Leonora Telles came from a noble Portuguese clan Telles de Menezes. Initially, these were the Castilian barons who owned the castles of Meneses and Alburkerke . The Baron, who had conquered Alburkerke from the Moors, married the illegitimate daughter of the Portuguese king Sansha I. His descendants from this marriage entered the Portuguese service. ^[one]

The uncle of the future queen, Juan Afonso Teles de Menezes since 1370 had the title of Count Barcelos and enjoyed great influence at court. Her half-sister was the wife of the 1st Earl of Benavente , and her cousin was married to one of the last Chiron ; their descendants bear the double surname Tellesh-Chiron .

Leonora got married very early: the Portuguese nobleman Juan Lorenzo de Cunha ( Cat. Joan Llorenç da Cunha ). From this marriage, she had a son. Seniors de Cugna belonged to another branch of the same genus, among whom were Juan Pacheco and later Telles Girona.

King's Favorite

Leonora’s sister, Maria Telles, was the maid of honor of the infante Beatrice, daughter of King Pedro I ) and his second wife Ines de Castro. It is assumed that when visiting her sister, Leonora met Fernando I (Beatrice’s brother, son of Pedro and Constanta of Castile), the ninth king of Portugal , who was so captivated that she divorced Leonora and her husband (as a result, according to a beautiful legend, he was expelled to Castile de Cugna , added gilded horns to his clan emblem ^[2] ). Later, he himself secretly married her on May 5, 1372 in a monastery ( port. Leça do Balio ) near Matosinhos . The peculiarity of this marriage was that when he married Leonora Telles, Fernando refused to marry the Castilian princess Eleanor of Aragon (daughter of King Enrique II ), which affected the tension with Castile and the military alliance concluded not long before. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Russian historian Peter Konsky, in the pages of the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, described his wife Fernando I with the following words:

“A spoiled empty coquette, E., becoming a queen, led a depraved lifestyle ” ^[3]

In a marriage with Fernando, Leonor had a daughter, Beatrice. The husband of Maria Telles, infante Juan , aroused concern among Leonora regarding the succession to the throne. It is believed that Leonora, pushed Juan to kill his wife, accusing her (her sister, respectively) of infidelity, promising the unlucky spouse the hand of her daughter. She did not keep her promise, and Juan was expelled from Portugal to Castile, where he received from the king the duchy of Valencia de Campos ^[2] .

Beatrice's marriage was more of a political issue. Fernando organized and then canceled his daughter’s engagement ^[4] (in order to strengthen the alliance with England , the nine-year-old Beatrice was even engaged to the eight-year-old son of the Duke of Cambridge Edmont ^[5] ). Until Leonora persuaded him to extradite Beatrice for the king of Castile and Leon , Juan I. Having lost his first wife, Eleanor of Aragon, Juan willingly agrees (given that marriage to the Portuguese heiress made Portugal a province of Castile ). The wedding took place on May 17, 1383 in Elvas (Beatrice at that time was eleven years old). This event only fuels dissatisfaction with Queen Leonora, as it was she who planned this marriage ^[4] .

The crisis of 1383-1385

When Fernando dies on October 22, 1383 , Leonora, according to the marriage contract, receives regency with her daughter and her brother-in-law (since Fernando did not leave the legitimate male heirs) ^[6] . The main contenders for the throne were the illegitimate brothers Fernando: Infant Juan, deported to Castile, and Infant Juan (son of Pedro and Theresa Lorenzo), master of the Order of St. Bennet of Avis . The period from 1383 to 1385 , when the country did not have a crowned king, was called the Time of Troubles ( port. Interregnum ), as it differs in the period of civil war and anarchy.

Regent Leonora openly cohabits with her lover, a Galician nobleman, Count Juan Fernandes Andeiro ( port.João Fernandes Andeiro ), very unpopular in the country due to his Spanish origin (Leonora is nicknamed Selling or Traitor from port.Aleivosa ). In conjunction with the marriage of Beatrice to the Castilian king (which nominally made Portugal a Spanish province), this state of affairs causes discontent among both the people and the bourgeois , and among the nobles.

The first hostile actions were taken by the master of the Order of St. Bennet of Avish, Juan I , who on December 6, 1383 , with the support of his supporters (including Nuno Alvarez Pereira ), staged a coup in the palace during which Count Andeiro was killed. This conspiracy put Juan at the head of the opposition, which provoked the beginning of the process of transferring the regency over her husband Beatrice who was in Burgos ^[7] . With the help of Parere , supporters of Juan I capture Lisbon , Beja , Portalegre , Estremoz and Evora . In response to this, Leonora’s son-in-law (she herself was forced to flee) brings his troops to Portugal and occupies Santarem . Wanting to preserve the crown of his wife and defend the right to the throne for a newborn son ^[4] , Juan of Castile convinces Leonora to abandon the regency, and tries to take control of the country.

An uprising began in the country, followed by armed clashes with the Castilians . When Juan of Castile launches a siege of Lisbon (without managing the capital and coronation in it, neither he nor his wife Beatrice can be considered full-fledged rulers), supporters of Juan of Avis continue to attack the cities loyal to Castilians and seek support from the British ^[8] . All this time, Leonora has been trying to participate in the political game from Santarem.

Ultimately, when most of the Portuguese cities that were on the side of Castile were captured, Juan of Avis convenes the Portuguese Royal Assembly (Cortes) in Coimbra ^[9] . And on April 6, 1385, the kingdom council proclaims Juan , the master of the Order of Avis, the tenth king of Portugal (which actually served as the beginning of the war with Castile) ^[10] .

Leonora fled to Spain, where she took refuge in the monastery of Tordesillas , near Valladolid , where she died on April 27, 1386 . According to another version, she was exiled to the monastery by her son-in-law, Juan of Castile , in response to a plot against him ^[2] .

• First husband of Juan Lorenzo de Cunha ( Cat. Joan Llorenç da Cunha )
  • Son Alvar de Cunha ( Cat. Àlvar da Cunha )
• Second husband to Fernando I
  • Beatrice's daughter ( Cat. Beatriu de Portugal , 1372 - 1410 )

It is believed that Leonora had more children:

• Daughter from the first husband ^[2] .
• Two sons from Fernando. Either two bastards, Juan ( Cat. Joan de Portugal , p. 1370 ) and Alphonse ( Cat. Alfons de Portugal , p. 1371 ), or those who died in infancy Pedro (p. 1380 ) and Afonso (p. 1382 ) ^[11] .
• Isabella's daughter, from Fernando ^[12] .

For the first time, the story of the life of Donna Leonora Telles was recorded by Fernand Lopis , chronicler of the XIV - XV centuries . Lopis was the author of chronicles of the reign of Portuguese kings such as Pedro I , Fernando I and Juan I ^[13] . Subsequently, many Portuguese novelist writers drew plots from their chronicles for their works. In particular, the uniqueness and strength of such characters as Leonor Tellash fighting for power ^[13] .

One of the first works of the Portuguese playwright Marcelino Mesquito ( port. Marcelino Mesquita , 1856 - 1919 ) was Leonora Telles, written in 1876 .

The Portuguese composer Juan Marcelino Arroy ( port. João Marcelino Arroio , 1861 - 1930 ) wrote the opera Leonora Telles ^[14] .

• Eleanor of Portugal
• Establishment of a monarchy in Portugal
• Portugal: History Dates

• Konskiy P.A. Eleanor, Queen of Portugal // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.