Maria of Aragon
Infanta of Aragon and Castille
Stained glass of Queen Maria at prayer
Stained glass depiction, c. 1510–1513
Queen consort of Portugal
Tenure30 October 1500 – 7 March 1517
Born29 June 1482
Córdoba, Kingdom of Castile
Died7 March 1517(1517-03-07) (aged 34)
Lisbon, Kingdom of Portugal
Burial
Jerónimos Monastery, Lisbon, Kingdom of Portugal
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1500)​
Issue
see details...
HouseTrastámara
FatherFerdinand II of Aragon
MotherIsabella I of Castile

Maria of Aragon (29 June 1482 – 7 March 1517) was Queen of Portugal from 13 October 1500 until her death in 1517 as the second wife of King Manuel I. Manuel was the widower of Maria's elder sister, Isabella.

Life

Early life

Maria was born at Córdoba on 29 June 1482 as the third surviving daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon (the Catholic monarchs). She was the fourth of their five surviving children, and had a stillborn twin (the sources differ on the gender of Maria's twin).[1] Like her sisters, she was given a thorough education, not only in household tasks but also in arithmetic, Latin, several other languages, history, philosophy and the classics.

Marriage

As an infanta of Spain, her hand in marriage was important in European politics. Before her marriage to Manuel I of Portugal, her parents entertained the idea of marrying her to King James IV of Scotland.[2] This was at a time when her younger sister Catherine's marriage to Arthur, Prince of Wales, was being planned. Ferdinand and Isabella thought if Maria was Queen of Scotland, the two sisters could keep the peace between their husbands. These plans, however, came to nothing. Her eldest sister Isabella, Princess of Asturias, was the first wife of Manuel I, but her death in 1498 created a necessity for Manuel to remarry; Maria became the next bride of the Portuguese king, reaffirming dynastic links with Iberian royal houses.

Manuel and Maria were married in Alcácer do Sal on 30 October 1500,[3] and Maria was granted Viseu and Torres Vedras as her dower. She had 10 children, eight of whom reached adulthood, including King John III of Portugal, Holy Roman Empress Isabella, and Beatrice, Duchess of Savoy.

Queen

Queen Maria was described as pale and thin to her exterior, with a retiring chin, and had a very serious character to her personality. Despite the fact that she was queen during a famous time period in Portuguese history, when the Portuguese court was one of the richest in Europe, she did not play any significant part as an individual. Serious and pious, she devoted her time to sewing, pious devotion and supervising the education of her children in accordance with the principles of her parents. She maintained a close correspondence with her parents, got along well with her sister-in-law Isabel and the queen dowager Beatrice, and hosted a large court with both Spanish and Portuguese ladies-in-waiting. King Manuel appreciated her pious nature, treated her with respect and awarded her with expensive clothes and jewelry during her pregnancies.

Queen Maria was not described as politically active, though chronicles praised her for occasionally persuading her husband to an act of mercy. She was, however, somewhat involved in religious politics. She supported King Manuel's religious-imperial project, including the plan to conquer the Mamluk's realm, destroy Mecca and Medina and reconquer Christian holy places such as Jerusalem. She co-founded the Jeronimos Monastery in Lisbon.[4]

During her life in Portugal, Maria was almost continually pregnant. Normally, she had but a few months pause between a delivery and her next pregnancy. This state of affairs resulted in a continual deterioration of her health and after the delivery of 1516, she was reportedly exhausted to a point that she was also temporarily mentally confused before she recuperated. She died in Lisbon on 7 March 1517, and was buried at the Jerónimos Monastery of Belém.

Legacy

In 1580, the dynastic links from the marriage led to a succession crisis in Portugal that made her grandson Philip II of Spain king of Portugal as Philip I of Portugal.

Ancestry

Children

Her marriage with Manuel produced the following children:

NameBirthDeathNotes
King John III6 June 150211 June 1557Succeeded Manuel as King of Portugal. Had issue.
Infanta Isabella24 October 15031 May 1539Married Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Had issue.
Infanta Beatrice31 December 15048 January 1538Married Charles III, Duke of Savoy. Had issue.
Infante Luis, Duke of Beja3 March 150627 November 1555Unmarried but had illegitimate descendants, one of them being Antonio, Prior of Crato, a claimant of the throne of Portugal in 1580 (See: Struggle for the throne of Portugal).
Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Guarda5 June 15077 November 1534Married Guiomar Coutinho, Countess of Marialva. No surviving issue.
Infante Afonso23 April 150921 April 1540Cardinal of the Kingdom.
King Henry31 January 151231 January 1580Cardinal of the Kingdom who succeeded his grandnephew King Sebastian (Manuel's great-grandson) as 17th King of Portugal. His death triggered the struggle for the throne of Portugal.
Infanta Maria3 February 1513Died at birth.
Infante Duarte, Duke of Guimarães7 October 151520 September 1540Duke of Guimarães and great-grandfather of John IV of Portugal. Married Isabella of Braganza, daughter of Jaime, Duke of Braganza.
Infante Antonio9 September 1516Died at birth.

Her widowed husband later married a third time, in 1518, also this time from her family: Maria's niece Eleanor of Austria.

Notes

  1. ↑ Philippa was the daughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster to his first wife Blanche of Lancaster,[15] making her half-sister of Maria of Aragon's maternal great-grandmother Catherine of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster to his second wife Constance of Castile.

References

  1. ↑ Harris 2017, p. 78.
  2. ↑ Bergenroth 1862, pp. 167–80.
  3. ↑ Howe 2008, p. 53.
  4. ↑ Harris 2017, p. 79.
  5. 1 2 Ferdinand I, King of Aragon at the Encyclopædia Britannica
  6. 1 2 Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "John II of Aragon" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  7. 1 2 Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ferdinand V. of Castile and Leon and II. of Aragon" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  8. 1 2 Miron, E. L. (1913). "Doña Leonor of Alburquerque". The Queens of Aragon: Their Lives and Times. Brentano's. p. 265. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  9. 1 2 3 4 Ortega Gato, Esteban (1999). "Los Enríquez, Almirantes de Castilla" [The Enríquezes, Admirals of Castille] (PDF). Publicaciones de la Institución "Tello Téllez de Meneses" (in Spanish). 70: 42. ISSN 0210-7317.
  10. 1 2 "Mariana de Ayala Córdoba y Toledo". Ducal House of Medinaceli Foundation. Retrieved 21 August 2018.
  11. 1 2 3 Henry III, King of Castille at the Encyclopædia Britannica
  12. 1 2 Isabella I, Queen of Spain at the Encyclopædia Britannica
  13. 1 2 Leese, Thelma Anna, Blood royal: issue of the kings and queens of medieval England, 1066–1399, (Heritage Books Inc., 1996), 222.
  14. 1 2 3 Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). "Philippa of Lancaster" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 45. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 167.
  15. ↑ Armitage-Smith, Sydney (1905). John of Gaunt: King of Castile and Leon, Duke of Aquitaine and Lancaster, Earl of Derby, Lincoln, and Leicester, Seneschal of England. Charles Scribner's Sons. p. 77. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
  16. 1 2 3 Gerli, E. Michael; Armistead, Samuel G. (2003). Medieval Iberia. Taylor & Francis. p. 182. ISBN 9780415939188. Retrieved 17 May 2018.

Sources

  • Bergenroth, G A, ed. (1862). "Spain: July 1498, 21–31". Calendar of State Papers, Spain, Volume 1, 1485–1509.
  • Harris, Carolyn (2017). Raising Royalty: 1000 Years of Royal Parenting. Dundurn Press.
  • Howe, Elizabeth Teresa (2008). Education and Women in the Early Modern Hispanic World. Ashgate Publishing Limited.
  • Serrano, Joana Bouza. Maria de Castela (1482–1517): uma rainha do Renascimento. In: As avis: as grandes rainhas que partilharam o trono de Portugal na segunda dinastia. 2ª ed. Lisboa: A Esfera dos Livros, 2009

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