page_title: Eleanor of Castile (1307–1359)
section_title: Widowhood
hierarchical_section_title: Eleanor of Castile (1307–1359) / Widowhood
caption_attribution_description: Español: Vista exterior del castillo de Castrojeriz (Burgos, España).
context_page_description: Eleanor of Castile (1307–1359) was Queen of Aragon as the wife of King Alfonso IV from 1329 until 1336.
context_section_description: After the death of Alfonso IV, which occurred in the city of Barcelona on 24 January 1336, Queen Eleanor fled to the Kingdom of Castile and León, accompanied by his two sons, Ferdinand and John, fearing the new King Peter IV of Aragon, who was resentful of his stepmother and stepbrothers, because of the postponement suffered since the second marriage of his father.
  In his testament, written in the Monastery of Poblet in August 1333, Alfonso IV bequeathed to his second wife all her jewels and confirmed the possession of the cities that he had given to her in occasion of their wedding, while bequeathing their oldest son Ferdinand the Marquisates of Tortosa and Albarracín. When she escape to the kingdom of Castile, Eleanor took with her great quantities of gold, silver and jewels, although King Peter IV tried to prevent her and her sons from leaving the Kingdom of Aragon. At first, the new monarch moved to confiscate Eleanor's revenues and prosecute her protector Pedro de Ejérica, but in 1338 he confirmed her and her sons in possession of their domains, not wishing to antagonise Castile at a time when the whole Iberian Peninsula was threatened by a new Moorish invasion.
  Once in Castile, Eleanor continued with her disruptive behavior, this time against her nephew King Peter I. Her youngest son, John of Aragon, was assassinated in Bilbao on 12 June 1358 by order of his cousin the Castilian sovereign, and one year later (March/April 1359), she was murdered in the castle of Castrojeriz by order of her nephew. Four years later, in 1363, her oldest son, Ferdinand of Aragon, was assassinated in Burriana by order of his half-brother, King Peter IV.
caption: Castle of Castrojeriz, Burgos.
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