Constance of Portugal

Constance
Constance of Portugal, in António de Hollanda's Genealogy of the Royal Houses of Spain and Portugal (1534).
Queen consort of Castile and León
Tenure	23 January 1302 – 7 September 1312
Born	3 January 1290 Kingdom of Portugal
Died	18 November 1313(1313-11-18) (aged 23) Sahagún, Crown of Castile
Burial	Valladolid, Spain
Spouse	Ferdinand IV
Issue	Eleanor, Queen of Aragon Infanta Constance Alfonso XI
House	House of Burgundy
Father	Denis of Portugal
Mother	Elizabeth of Aragon
Religion	Roman Catholicism

Infanta Constance of Portugal (pt: Constança; 3 January 1290 – Sahagún, 18 November 1313; Portuguese pronunciation: [kõʃˈtɐ̃sɐ]; English: Constance), was a Portuguese infanta (princess) by birth and Queen consort of Castile by marriage.

She was the eldest child and only daughter of King Denis of Portugal and his wife Elizabeth of Aragon, later Saint.

The treaty signed between King Sancho IV of Castile and Denis of Portugal in September 1291, established the betrothal between the eldest son and heir of Sancho IV, Ferdinand (aged 5), with the daughter of the Portuguese King, Constance (aged 20 months).

Finished with the Valladolid Courts of 1295, María de Molina, Dowager Queen and Regent of the Kingdom of Castile, in the name of her son Ferdinand IV and Henry of Castile the Senator, co-regent of the Kingdom, had a meeting with King Denis of Portugal in Ciudad Rodrigo, where the Queen-Regent surrounded several strongholds in order to end the hostilities between both Kingdoms; in addition, the betrothal between Ferdinand IV and Constance was confirmed, and also the future marriage between Ferdinand IV's sister Beatrice with Constance's brother and heir of the Portuguese throne, Alfonso was arranged. Later, in the Treaty of Alcañices (1297), the betrothal between Constance and Ferdinand IV was again ratified.

On 23 January 1302 at Valladolid, Constance finally married King Ferdinand IV of Castile. Four years later (1307), shortly after the birth of their first-born child, a daughter called Eleanor (future Queen consort of Aragon), the Castilian King, who was besieging the city of Tordehumos which housed the rebellious magnate Juan Núñez II de Lara, chief of the House of Lara, sent his wife and newborn daughter to solicited a loan from her father, King Denis. During the Valladolid Courts of 1307, where Constance didn't participate, Ferdinand IV tried to end the abuses of the nobility, corrected the administration of justice and softened the tax pressure over the castilians. The next year (1308), the Queen gave birth to a second daughter, named Constance after her, who died in 1310, aged 2 and was buried in the disappeared convent of Santo Domingo el Real.