Beatrice of Portugal

Infobox Portuguese Royalty
name =Beatrice


title =Queen regnant of Portugal and the Algarve (disputed); Queen consort of Castile and León
reign =October 22, 1383 - April 6, 1385
May 17, 1383 - October 9, 1390
reign-type =Reign
Consort
predecessor =Ferdinand I
successor =John I
spouse =John I of Castile
royal house =House of Trastamara
House of Burgundy
father =Ferdinand I
mother =Leonor Telles de Menezes
date of birth =December 9, 1372
place of birth =Coimbra, Kingdom of Portugal
date of death =March 8, 1408
place of death =Madrigal, Kingdom of Castile
place of burial =Toro, Zamora, Castile and León, Spain|

Beatrice, in Portuguese Beatriz (pron. IPA2|biɐ'tɾiʃ), (9 December, 1372, Coimbra – 8 March, 1408, Madrigal, Castile) was the only daughter of King Ferdinand I of Portugal and his wife, Leonor Telles de Menezes, a Portuguese noble woman. She married King John I of Castile and claimed to be Queen of Portugal in the 1383-1385 Crisis that ended with her uncle John, Ferdinand's illegitimate brother, being acclaimed King of Portugal, the first from the House of Aviz.

At the beginning of 1383, the political situation in Portugal was not peaceful. Beatrice was the King's only child, and heir to the throne, after her younger brothers' deaths in 1380 and 1382. Her marriage was the political issue of the day and inside the palace, factions lobbied constantly. Ferdinand arranged and cancelled his daughter's wedding several times before settling for his wife's first choice, King John I of Castile. John had lost his wife, Infanta Leonor of Aragon the year before, and was happy to wed the Portuguese heiress. The wedding took place on May 17 1383 in the Portuguese city of Elvas. Beatrice was only eleven years old.

King Ferdinand died shortly thereafter, on October 22, 1383. According to the treaty between Castile and Portugal, the Queen Mother, Leonor Telles de Menezes, became regent in the name of her daughter and son-in-law. But not everybody in Portugal was happy about this state of affairs. The loss of independence was unthinkable for the majority of Portuguese freemen. A rebellion led by the Master of the Order of Aviz, the future John I, began in that year, leading to the 1383-1385 Crisis.

King John of Castile invaded Portugal in 1384 to fight for his newly-born son Miguel's (1384-1385) rights to the crown. That war ended in the next year, with the utter defeat of Castile in the Battle of Aljubarrota. In the aftermath of this battle, John of Aviz became the uncontested King of Portugal. Beatrice no longer had a tenable claim to the throne of Portugal; she was merely the Queen Consort of Castile and Leon.

Beatrice died in 1408 in Madrigal, Castile.

There is some dispute among historians about Beatrice. She is rarely referred as Queen of Portugal, but some claim that at least for a short period she was Queen and so must be included the list of the Monarchs of Portugal. Others say that during the 1383-1385 period Portugal had no monarch, so Beatrice should not be counted as a Portuguese queen regnant.

ources

*cite book|last=Williamson|first=David|title=Debrett's Kings and Queens of Europe|year=1988|publisher=Webb & Bower|location=Exeter|id=ISBN 0-86350-194-X

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