Beatrice of Portugal

Beatrice
The effigy of Queen Beatrice, Monastery of Sancti Spiritus of Toro, in Zamora, Spain.
Queen consort of Castile and León
Tenure	17 May 1383 – 9 October 1390
Queen of Portugal and the Algarve (disputed)
Reign	22 October 1383 – 16 December 1383
Predecessor	Ferdinand I
Successor	John I
Regent	Leonor Teles
Born	7–13 February 1373 Coimbra, Portugal
Died	c. 1420 Castile
Burial	Monastery of Sancti Spiritus, Toro, Castile
Spouse	John I of Castile
House	Burgundy
Father	Ferdinand I of Portugal
Mother	Leonor Teles
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Beatrice (Portuguese: Beatriz; Portuguese pronunciation: [biɐˈtɾiʃ]; Coimbra, 7–13 February 1373 – Castile, c. 1420), was the only surviving child of King Ferdinand I of Portugal and his wife, Leonor Teles.

During her first years of life, Beatrice was a pawn in the changing politics of alliances of her father, who negotiated successive marriages to her. By her marriage with the King John I of Castile, Beatrce became in Queen consort of Castile, and at the death of her father and according to the Treaty of Salvaterra, her mother assumed the regency in the name of Beatrice, which was proclaimed Queen regnant of Portugal. Opposition to the regency, fear of the Castilian domination and loss of Portuguese independence led to a popular rebellion and a civil war between the master of Aviz, the illegitimate brother of King Ferdinand I (who was proclaimed regent and defender of the Kingdom) and King John I of Castile (who had taken the title of King of Portugal Jure uxoris, invaded the kingdom and obtained the transference of the government from Leonor Telles' regency). Finally, the master of Avís was proclaimed King of Portugal, and Juan I of Castile was definitively defeated in the Battle of Aljubarrota.

From that time Queen Beatrice occupied herself and worried about the maintenance of the Portuguese exiles in Castile faithful to her dynastic cause to the Portuguese throne, and after the death of her husband she was relegated to a second plane in the Castilian court. But the dynastic cause that incarnated still continued in force and difficult the normalization of the relations between Castile and Portugal. From the second decade of the 15th century onwards, her documentary trail became scarce until completely disappears about 1420.

Beatrice was born in Coimbra, during the brief siege that the Castilian troops imposed to the city during the second Fernandine War (1372–73). The siege was lifted and King Henry II of Castile continued on his way to Santarém and then to Lisbon. During the siege of Lisbon, Cardinal legate Guido of Bologna obtained the agreement between the Kings of Castile and Portugal in the Peace of Santarém. According to that treaty, King Ferdinand I of Portugal would abandon the petrism cause, that is, the dynastic legitimacy that was originated after the assassination of King Peter I of Castile in 1369; and also two marriages were celebrated between the two royal families to reinforce the peace: between Sancho Alfonso, 1st Count of Alburquerque, brother of the Castilian King, and Beatrice, half-sister of the Portuguese King, and between Alfonso Enríquez, natural son of the Castilian King, and Isabel, natural daughter of the Portuguese King. In addition, was celebrated the betrothal of Beatrice, the newborn daughter of King Ferdinand I of Portugal, with Fadrique, who was another natural son of King Henry II of Castile, and who was crerated to Duke of Benavente.