Predecessor Ferdinand IV House Anscarids | Name Alfonso of Successor Peter | |
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Reign 7 September 1313 – 26/27 March 1350 Born 13 August 1311Salamanca ( 1311-08-13 ) Burial Real Colegiata de San Hipolito Consort Constance of PenafielMaria of Portugal Spouse Maria of Portugal, Queen of Castile (m. 1327–1350), Constanza Manuel (m. 1325), Eleanor de Guzman (m. ?–1350) Children Peter of Castile, Henry II of Castile Parents Ferdinand IV of Castile, Constance of Portugal Similar People Peter of Castile, Henry II of Castile, Ferdinand IV of Castile, Sancho IV of Castile, Afonso IV of Portugal | ||
Alfonso XI of Castile (13 August 1311 – 26/27 March 1350), called the Avenger (el Iusteçero), was the king of Castile, León and Galicia. He was the son of Ferdinand IV of Castile and his wife Constance of Portugal. Upon his father's death in 1312, several disputes ensued over who would hold regency, which were resolved in 1313.
Contents
Once Alfonso was declared adult in 1325, he began a reign that would serve to strengthen royal power. His achievements include solving the problems of the Gibraltar Strait and the conquest of Algeciras.
Life
Alfonso XI was the son of King Ferdinand IV of Castile and Constance of Portugal. His father died when Alfonso was one year old. His grandmother, María de Molina, his mother Constance, his granduncle Infante John of Castile, Lord of Valencia de Campos, son of King Alfonso X of Castile and uncle Infante Peter of Castile, Lord of Cameros, son of King Sancho IV assumed the regency. Queen Constance died first on 18 November 1313, followed by Infantes John and Peter during a military campaign against Granada in 1319, which left Dowager Queen María as the only regent until her death on 1 July 1321.
After the death of the infantes John and Peter in 1319, Philip (son of Sancho IV and María de Molina, thus brother of Infante Peter), Juan Manuel (the king's second-degree uncle by virtue of being Ferdinand III's grandson) and Juan el Tuerto (his second degree uncle, son of John of Castile who died in 1319) split the kingdom among themselves according to their aspirations for regency, even as it was being looted by moors and the rebellious nobility.
As soon as he took the throne, he began working hard to strengthen royal power by dividing his enemies. His early display of rulership skills included the unhesitant execution of possible opponents, including his uncle Juan el Tuerto in 1326.
He managed to extend the limits of his kingdom to the Strait of Gibraltar after the important victory at the Battle of Río Salado against the Marinid Dynasty in 1340 and the conquest of the Kingdom of Algeciras in 1344. Once that conflict was resolved, he redirected all his Reconquista efforts to fighting the Moorish king of Granada.
He is variously known among Castilian kings as the Avenger or the Implacable, and as "He of Río Salado." The first two names he earned by the ferocity with which he repressed the disorders caused by the nobles during his long minority; the third by his victory in the Battle of Río Salado over the last formidable Marinid invasion of the Iberian Peninsula in 1340.
Alfonso XI never went to the insane lengths of his son Peter of Castile, but he could be bloody in his methods. He killed for reasons of state without any form of trial. He openly neglected his wife, Maria of Portugal, and indulged a scandalous passion for Eleanor of Guzman, who bore him ten children. This set Peter an example which he failed to better. It may be that his early death, during the Great Plague of 1350, at the Fifth Siege of Gibraltar, only averted a desperate struggle with Peter, though it was a misfortune in that it removed a ruler of eminent capacity, who understood his subjects well enough not to go too far.
Marriage and issue
Alfonso XI first married Constanza Manuel in 1325, but had the union annulled two years later. His second marriage, in 1328, was to Maria of Portugal, daughter of Alfonso IV of Portugal. They had:
By his mistress, Eleanor of Guzman, he had ten children:
After Alfonso's death, his widow Maria had Eleanor arrested and later killed.
Appearance
"...King Alfonso was not very tall but well proportioned, and he was rather strong and had fair skin and hair."