Eleanor of England, Queen of Castile

Eleanor of England (; – 31 October 1214Annales Compostellani), was Queen of Castile and Toledo as the wife of Alfonso VIII of Castile.Crónica Latina, Anales Toledanos She was the sixth child and second daughter of Henry II, King of England, and Eleanor of Aquitaine.José Manuel Cerda, The marriage of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Leonor Plantagenet: the first bond between Spain and England in the Middle Ages She served as Regent of Castile during the minority of her son Henry I for 26 days between the death of her spouse and her own death in 1214. Her great-granddaughter and namesake, Eleanor of Castile, married the future Edward I of England in 1254.
==Early life and family==
Eleanor was born in the castle at Domfront, Normandy c. 1161, as the second daughter of King Henry II of England and his wife Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, who she was named after. She was baptised by Henry of Marcy and her godparents at her baptism were Achard, bishop of Avranches, and the abbot of Le Mont Saint Michel, Robert of Torigni.
Her full siblings were Henry the Young King, Duchess Matilda of Saxony, King Richard I, Duke Geoffrey II of Brittany, Queen Joan of Sicily and King John. Her half-siblings were Countess Marie of Champagne and Countess Alix of Blois. Eleanor had an older brother, William (17 August 1153April 1156), the first son of Henry II, and Eleanor of Aquitaine, who died of a seizure at Wallingford Castle, and was buried in Reading Abbey at the feet of his great-grandfather Henry I.
In 1165 her marriage was arranged to Frederick V, Duke of Swabia, the oldest son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa and Beatrice I, Countess of Burgundy, but he died before the marriage was able to take place.
==Queenship==
In 1170 Eleanor married King Alfonso VIII of Castile in Burgos at the age of 9. Her parents' purpose in arranging the marriage was to secure Aquitaine's Pyrenean border, while Alfonso sought an ally in his struggles with Sancho VI of Navarre. In 1177, this led to Henry overseeing arbitration of the border dispute.
Around 1200, Alfonso began to claim that the duchy of Gascony was part of Eleanor's dowry, but there is no documented foundation for that claim. It is highly unlikely that Henry II would have parted with so significant a portion of his domains. At most, Gascony may have been pledged as security for the full payment of his daughter's dowry. Her husband went so far on this claim as to invade Gascony in her name in 1205. In 1206, her brother John granted her safe passage to visit him, perhaps to try opening peace negotiations. In 1208, Alfonso yielded on the claim. Decades later, their great-grandson Alfonso X of Castile would claim the duchy on the grounds that her dowry had never been fully paid.
Of all Eleanor of Aquitaine's daughters, her namesake was the only one who was enabled, by political circumstances, to wield the kind of influence her mother had exercised. In her marriage treaty, and in the first marriage treaty for her daughter Berengaria, Eleanor was given direct control of many lands, towns, and castles throughout the kingdom, including major towns like Aguilar de Campóo, Logroño, and Calahorra. She was almost as powerful as Alfonso, who specified in his will in 1204 that she was to rule alongside their son in the event of his death, including taking responsibility for paying his debts and executing his will. It was she who persuaded him to marry their daughter Berengaria to Alfonso IX of León.
Troubadours and sages were regularly present in Alfonso VIII's court due to Eleanor's patronage. The Catalan poet, Ramon Vidal de Besalu, wrote about Eleanor and described her as wrapped in a red silk mantle with Angevin lions, and Guillem de Bergued addressed a poem to her.
Eleanor took a particular interest in supporting religious institutions. In 1179, she took responsibility to support and maintain the shrine to St. Thomas Becket in the cathedral of Toledo, which had been founded by Count Nuño Peréz de Lara and his wife Teresa Fernández in 1177. She made gifts to the abbeys of Grandmont and Fontevraud. She also created and supported the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas, outside the city of Burgos, and its affiliated hospital for pilgrims, the Hospital del Rey. It served as a refuge and tomb for her family for generations, and her daughter Constance took the veil there and became known as the Lady of Las Huelgas.
==Regent==
When Alfonso died, Eleanor was reportedly so devastated with grief that she was unable to preside over the burial. Their eldest daughter Berengaria instead performed these honours. In accordance with the will of her late spouse, Eleanor became regent of Castile during the minority of her son, in which her daughter acted as her advisor. Her reign was not to be long, however; she was reportedly not in good enough health and left most of the affairs of state to her daughter, which created fear and opposition among the nobles that she was planning to leave the regency to her daughter.
Eleanor later became sick and died only twenty-six days after her husband, and was buried at Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas.Arco y Garay, Ricardo (1954): Sepulcros de la Casa Real de Castilla. Madrid: Instituto Jerónimo Zurita. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, p. 248.
==Children==
Name 	Birth 	Death 	Notes
Berengaria	Burgos, 1 January/June 1180	Las Huelgas near Burgos, 8 November 1246	Married firstly in Seligenstadt on 23 April 1188 with Duke Conrad II of Swabia, but the union (only by contract and never solemnised) was later annulled. Married in Valladolid between 1/16 December 1197 with King Alfonso IX of León as his second wife.New International Encyclopedia, Vol.13, (Dodd, Mead and Company, 1915), 782. After their marriage was dissolved on grounds of consanguinity in 1204, she returned to her homeland and became regent of her minor brother King Henry I. Although Queen of Castile in her own right, after the death of Henry I in 1217, Berengaria quickly abdicated in favour of her son Ferdinand III of Castile who would re-unite the kingdoms of Castile and León.
Sancho 	Burgos, 5 April 1181 	26 July 1181 	Robert of Torigny records the birth "circa Pascha" in 1181 of "filium Sancius" to "Alienor filia regis Anglorum uxor Anfulsi regis de Castella".Robert de Torigny, Vol. II, pp. 103–4. "Aldefonsus...Rex Castellæ et Toleti...cum uxore mea Alienor Regina et cum filio meo Rege Sancio" donated property to the bishop of Segovia by charter dated 31 May 1181.Colmenares, D. de (1846): Historia de Segovia (Segovia), Tomo I, p. 268. "Adefonsus...Rex Castellæ et Toleti...cum uxore mea Alienor Regina et cum filio meo Rege Sancio" donated property to the monastery of Rocamador by charter dated 13 July 1181.Berganza, F. de: Antiguedades de España (1721) Secunda parte, Appendice CLIII, p. 466.
Sancha 	20/28 March 1182 	3 February 1184/16 October 1185 	King Alfonso VIII "cum uxore mea Alionor regina et cum filiabus meis Berengaria et Sancia Infantissis" exchanged property with the Templars by charter dated 26 January 1183.Castan Lanaspa, G. (1984): San Nicolás del Real Camino, un Hospital de Leprosos Castellano-Leones en la Edad Media (Siglos XII-XIV), Publicaciones de la Institución Tello Téllez de Meneses, no. 2, p. 136.
Henry 	before July 1182 	before January 1184 	The dating clause of a charter dated July 1182 records "regnante el Rey D. Alfonso...con su mugier Doña Lionor, con su fijo D. Anric".Berganza, F. de: Antiguedades de España (1721) Secunda parte, Appendice CLVI, p. 468. The dating of the document in which his sister Sancha is named suggests that they may have been twins.
Ferdinand 	before January 1184 	Died young, ca. 1184? 	The dating clause of a charter dated January 1184 ("V Kal Feb Era 1222") records "regnante rege Alfonso cum uxore sua regina Eleonor et filio suo Fernando".Florez, H. (1770): Memorias de las reynas cathólicas, 2nd edn. Tomo I, p. 409, quoting Archivo de Arlanza letra S. n. 428, and Nuñez Alfonso VIII, p. 140.
Urraca 	1186/28 May 1187 	Coimbra, 3 November 1220 	Married in 1206 to Infante dom Afonso of Portugal, who succeeded his father as King Afonso II on 26 March 1212.
Blanche 	Palencia, 4 March 1188 	Paris, 27 November 1252 	Married on 23 May 1200 to Prince Louis of France, who succeeded his father as King Louis VIII on 14 July 1223. Crowned Queen at Saint-Denis with her husband on 6 August 1223. Regent of the Kingdom of France during 1226–1234 (minority of her son) and during 1248–1252 (absence of her son on Crusade).
Ferdinand 	Cuenca, 29 September 1189 	Madrid, 14 October 1211 	Heir of the throne since his birth. On whose behalf Diego of Acebo and the future Saint Dominic travelled to Denmark in 1203 to secure a bride.Vicaire, pp. 89–98. Ferdinand was returning through the San Vicente mountains from a campaign against the Muslims when he contracted a fever and died.
Mafalda 	Plasencia, 1191 	Salamanca, 1204 	Szabolcs de Vajay says that she "died at the point of becoming the fiancée of the Infante Fernando of León" (without citing the primary source on which this information is based) and refers to her burial at Salamanca Cathedral.Szabolcs de Vajay (1989): From Alfonso VII to Alfonso X, the first two centuries of the Burgundian dynasty in Castile and Leon – a prosopographical catalogue in social genealogy, 1100–1300, Studies in Genealogy and Family History in tribute to Charles Evans, edited Lindsay L Brook (Association for the Promotion of Scholarship in Genealogy Ltd, Occasional Publication no 2), pp. 379 and 406, note 72, quoting Arco y Garay (1954), p. 246. Betrothed in 1204 to Infante Ferdinand of Leon, eldest son of Alfonso IX and stepson of her oldest sister.
Eleanor 	1200 	Las Huelgas, 1244 	Married on 6 February 1221 with King James I of Aragon. They became separated on April 1229 on grounds of consanguinity.
Constance 	c. 1202 	Las Huelgas, 1243 	A nun at the Cistercian monastery of Santa María la Real at Las Huelgas in 1217, she became known as the Lady of Las Huelgas, a title shared with later royal family members who joined the community.
Henry 	Valladolid, 14 April 1204 	Palencia, 6 June 1217 	Only surviving son, he succeeded his father in 1214 aged ten under the regency firstly of his mother and later his oldest sister. He was killed when he was struck by a tile falling from a roof.Charles William Previté-Orton, The shorter Cambridge Medieval History, Cambridge University Press, 1952, p. 87.
==Later depictions==
Eleanor was praised for her beauty and regal nature by the poet Ramón Vidal de Besalú after her death. Her great-grandson Alfonso X referred to her as "noble and much loved".
Eleanor was played by actress Ida Norden in the silent film The Jewess of Toledo.
==Notes==
==References==
==Sources==
* Andrews, J.F. (2023) The Families of Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Female Network of Power in the Middle Ages (The History Press, )
* Bowie, Colette (2014), The Daughters of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine (Brepols, )
*Cerda, José Manuel (2011), La dot gasconne d'Aliénor d'Angleterre. Entre royaume de Castille, royaume de France et royaume d'Angleterre, Cahiers de civilisation médiévale, ISSN 0007-9731, Vol. 54, Nº 215, 2011.
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*Cerda, José Manuel (2013), "The marriage of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Leonor Plantagenet : the first bond between Spain and England in the Middle Ages", Les stratégies matrimoniales dans l’aristocratie (xe-xiiie siècles), ed. Martin Aurell.
*Cerda, José Manuel (2016), "Matrimonio y patrimonio. La carta de arras de Leonor Plantagenet, reina consorte de Castilla", Anuario de Estudios Medievales, vol. 46.
*Cerda, José Manuel (2016), Leonor Plantagenet and the cult of Thomas Becket in Castile, The cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, ed. P. Webster and M.P. Gelin, Boydell Press.
*Cerda, José Manuel (2018), "Diplomacia, mecenazgo e identidad dinástica. La consorte Leonor y el influjo de la cultura Plantagenet en la Castilla de Alfonso VIII", Los modelos anglonormandos en la cultura letrada de Castilla, ed. Amaia Arizaleta y Francisco Bautista (Toulouse).
*Cerda, José Manuel (2019), "Un documento inédito y desconocido de la cancillería de la reina Leonor Plantagenet", En la España Medieval, vol. 42.
* Cerda, José Manuel (2021), Leonor de Inglaterra. La reina Plantagenet de Castilla (1161-1214), Gijón, Trea ediciones.
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*Rada Jiménez, Rodrigo. Historia de los hechos de España.
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==External links==
*Adrian Fletcher’s Paradoxplace – Leonora’s Tomb in the Cistercian Nunnery of Santa Maria de Real Huelgas in Burgos, Spain
*Eight hundredth anniversary of Alfonso and Leonor's deaths
Category:1160s births
Category:Year of birth uncertain
Category:1214 deaths
Category:People from Domfront en Poiraie
Category:House of Plantagenet
Category:House of Anjou
Category:English princesses
Category:Queens consort of Castile
Category: Castilian queen mothers
Category:Children of Henry II of England
Category:Daughters of kings
Category:12th-century nobility from León and Castile
Category:13th-century Castilians
Category:12th-century English women
Category:12th-century English nobility
Category:13th-century women regents
Category:13th-century regents
Category:Burials at the Abbey of Santa María la Real de Las Huelgas
Category:13th-century queens consort