Inês de Castro

Biography

Early life and background

Inês was the natural daughter of Pedro Fernández de Castro, Lord of Lemos and Sarria, and his noble Portuguese mistress Aldonça Lourenço de Valadares. Her family descended from both the Galician and Portuguese nobilities. She was also well connected to the Castilian royal family, by illegitimate descent. Her stepmother was Infanta Beatriz of Portugal, the youngest daughter of Afonso of Portugal, Lord of Portalegre and Violante Manuel. Her grandmother was Violante Sánchez of Castile, Lady of Uzero, the illegitimate daughter of Sancho IV of Castile. Her great-great-grandfather was Rodrigo Alfonso de León, Lord of Aliger, the illegitimate son of Alfonso IX of León. She also descended from Infanta Sancha Henriques of Portugal, the daughter of Henry, Count of Portugal.

Little is known about Inês's youth with certainty. She was likely raised in the household of Teresa Martínez, wife of Afonso Sanches, Lord of Albuquerque, a natural son of Diniz of Portugal. According to traditional accounts, Inês arrived in Portugal in 1340 as a lady-in-waiting of Constance of Castile, newly wed to Infante Pedro, heir to the Portuguese throne. However, no surviving documentary evidence supports this narrative. Given her family's ties to Portugal, Inês may have already been established at the Portuguese court as a noblewoman before Constance’s arrival. Although the exact circumstances of her introduction are debated, scholars agree that Inês was a member of Constance's household.

Relationship with Pedro

Traditional narratives maintain that Infante Pedro fell in love with Inês and took her as his mistress while she was lady-in-waiting to his wife. Disapproving of his son's adultery, King Afonso IV is said to have banished Inês to Albuquerque in 1344.

Following Constance's death in 1349, Inês returned to Portugal and lived openly with Pedro. In 1350, Inês gave birth to the couple's first child, Afonso. He was followed by John (b. 1352), Denis (b. 1353) and Beatrice (b. 1354). King Afonso attempted to arrange a second marriage for his son, but Pedro refused.

Pedro also developed close relationships with Inês's brothers, Fernando Ruiz de Castro and Álvaro Pires de Castro. The brothers became increasingly influential in public affairs, causing intrigue among rival factions at the Portuguese court and threatening Portugal's neutrality in the Castilian Civil War. King Afonso IV grew concerned about the power the Castros wielded over the Infante and ordered Inês's assassination.

Death

Chronicles assert that Afonso's knights, Pêro Coelho, Álvaro Gonçalves, and Diogo Lopes Pacheco, travelled to the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha in Coimbra, where Inês was residing, and decapitated her in front of her small children on 7 January 1355. Enraged, Pedro revolted against Afonso IV but was overcome within a year. In a truce signed 15 August 1356, Pedro swore to obey his father and pardon the men that murdered Inês. Pedro succeeded to the throne just months later in May 1357.

Following his accession, Pedro sought out Inês' killers, who had gone into exile in Castile. According to the chronicles of Fernão Lopes, Pedro managed to capture Coelho and Gonçalves and ordered them to be executed by ripping their hearts out.

In 1360, Pedro declared that he had secretly married Inês in 1353. During the 1383–85 Crisis of royal succession in Portugal, João das Regras produced evidence that allegedly established that Pope Innocent VI had refused Pedro's request to recognize his marriage to Inês and legitimize his children by her, the elder of whom, John, Duke of Valencia de Campos would have a strong potential claim to the throne of Portugal. By negating these children's claimed legitimacy, João das Regras strengthened the claim of another illegitimate child of Pedro I of Portugal: John, Master of Aviz, who ultimately took the throne and ruled as John I of Portugal.

Pedro commissioned a tomb for Inês, and later one for himself, in the Alcobaça Monastery. Around 1361, he had Inês's body exhumed from the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha to be transferred to Alcobaça. Popular legend alleges that Pedro forced the entire court to participate in a post-mortem coronation: "The king [Pedro] caused the body of his beloved Inês to be disinterred, and placed on a throne, adorned with the diadem and royal robes, and required all the nobility of the kingdom to approach and kiss the hem of her garment, rendering her when dead that homage which she had not received in her life..." The story is most likely a myth, having first appeared in 1577 in Jerónimo Bermúdez' play Nise Laureada. Inês's tomb sits opposite Pedro's, so that, according to legend, at the Last Judgment the lovers can look at each other as they rise from their graves. However, initially their tombs were disposed side by side, only being put opposite each other centuries after their deaths. Both tombs are exquisitely sculpted with scenes from their lives and a promise by Pedro that they would be together até ao fim do mundo (until the end of the world).

Issue

Inês de Castro and Pedro I had the following children, who were legitimized by Pedro I on 19 March 1361:

Afonso, died shortly after birth.

John, Duke of Valencia de Campos, claimant to the throne during the 1383–85 Crisis.

Denis, Lord of Cifuentes, claimant to the throne during the 1383–1385 Crisis.

Beatrice, married Sancho of Castile, Count of Alburquerque and was thereby the great-grandmother of Ferdinand II of Aragon, and thereby an ancestor of all Trastamara and Habsburg Spanish monarchs.

Inês de Castro in literature and music

Inês de Castro's story is immortalized in several plays and poems in Portuguese, such as The Lusíadas by Luís de Camões (canto iii, stanzas 118-135), and Spanish, such as Nise lastimosa and Nise laureada (1577) by Jerónimo Bermúdez, Reinar despues de morir by Luís Vélez de Guevara, as well as by the comtesse de Genlis (Inès de Castro, 1826), and in a play by French playwright Henry de Montherlant called La Reine morte (The Dead Queen). Inês de Castro is a novel by Maria Pilar Queralt del Hierro [es] in Spanish and Portuguese.

Works written in English include Aphra Behn's novel Agnes de Castro, or, the Force of Generous Love (1688); and Catharine Trotter Cockburn's play Agnes de Castro (1695). Mary Russell Mitford also wrote a drama from the story entitled Inez de Castro. The Undiscovered Island, a novel in English by Darrell Kastin, features a descendant's version of the events in the tragedy of Inês de Castro and Dom Pedro. It was published in 2009 by Tagus Press, University of Mass, Dartmouth.

Felicia Hemans' poem The Coronation of Inez de Castro first appeared in The New Monthly Magazine in 1828.

She is a recurring figure in Ezra Pound's The Cantos. She appears first at the end of Canto III, in the lines Ignez da Castro murdered, and a wall/Here stripped, here made to stand.

There have been over 20 operas and ballets created about Inês de Castro. Operas from the 18th and 19th centuries include:

Ines di Castro by Bernhard Anselm Weber (1790, Hanover)

Ines di Castro by Niccolò Antonio Zingarelli (1798)

Ines de Castro by Walter Savage Landor (1831)

Ines de Castro by Giuseppe Persiani to a libretto by Salvadore Cammarano (1835)

Popular culture

The 2005 TV series Pedro e Inês recounts the love story.

The 2018 film Pedro e Inês (released as The Dead Queen internationally), based on the novel by Rosa Lobato de Faria, retells the story of Inês de Castro (played by Joana de Verona) and King Pedro I of Portugal (Diogo Amaral). The film was met with some acclaim, winning 5 awards including Best Ensemble - National Competition at the CinEuphoria Awards [es] 2019. Director António Ferreira received best director award at Prémios Fantastic (2019) and Prémios Áquila (2020).

In 2014, Portuguese visual artist Paula Rego painted a portrait of Inês De Castro as a commission for the Women's Art Collection at the University of Cambridge's women-only Murray Edwards College.