Peter I | |
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Recumbent effigy on the tomb of King Peter I (c. 1360), Alcobaça Monastery.
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King of Portugal and the Algarve | |
Reign | 28 May 1357 – 18 January 1367 |
Predecessor | Afonso IV |
Successor | Ferdinand I |
Born | 8 April 1320 Coimbra, Portugal |
Died | 18 January 1367 (aged 46) Estremoz, Portugal |
Burial | Alcobaça Monastery |
Spouses |
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Issue among others... |
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House | Burgundy |
Father | Afonso IV of Portugal |
Mother | Beatrice of Castile |
Religion | Roman Catholicism |
Peter I (Portuguese: Pedro I [ˈpedɾu] (8 April 1320 – 18 January 1367), called the Just or the Cruel) (Portuguese: o Justo, O Cruel), was King of Portugal and of the Algarves from 1357 until his death. He was the third but only surviving son of Afonso IV of Portugal and his wife, Infanta Beatrice of Castile.
In 1328, Peter's father, Afonso IV arranged for the marriage of his eldest daughter, Maria, to Alfonso XI of Castile. In 1334, she bore him a son, who ultimately became Peter of Castile. However, Maria returned home to her father in Portugal in 1335 because her royal husband soon after their marriage had begun a long affair with the beautiful and newly widowed Leonor de Guzman, which the Castilian king refused to end. Alfonso's cousin, Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena, had been rebuffed by the Castilian king in 1327 when the two-year child marriage between his daughter Constanza (granddaughter of James II of Aragon) and Alfonso had been annulled to clear the way for the marriage to Maria. For two years Juan Manuel had waged war against the Castilians, who had kept Constanza hostage, until Bishop John del Campo of Oviedo mediated a peace in 1329.
Enraged by Alfonso's infidelity and mistreatment of his lawful wife, her father made a new alliance with the powerful Castilian aristocrat. Afonso married his son and heir, Peter, to Constanza, thereby allying himself with Juan Manuel. When Constanza arrived in Portugal in 1339, Inês de Castro, the beautiful and aristocratic daughter of a prominent Galician family (with links albeit through illegitimacy, to the Portuguese and Castilian royal families), accompanied her as her lady-in-waiting.