Kings of Leon
1. Eleanor (Leonor), Princess of Castile and Leon, Queen of England: Born 1244, of Burgos, Burgos, Spain; Died 29 November 1290, Herdeby, Lincolnshire, England; Married 18 October 1254, Burgos, Burgos, Spain; Edward I "Longshanks", King of England: Born 17 June 1239, Westminster, Middlesex, England; Died 7 July 1307, Burgh-On-The-San, Cumberland, England. (See The Kings of England ) Edward I inherited the drooping eye and fierce temper of his father and grandfather but otherwise was as unlike them as is possible to imagine. He was six feet two inches and handsome; when he was young he had light silvery hair, which grew darker as he grew older, and he talked with a slight lisp. 'His head spherical; his eyes round, gentle and dove-like when pleased, but fierce as a lion and sparkling with fire when he was disturbed; his hair crisp or curling, his nose prominent and raised in the middle; his chest broad, his arms agile, his limbs long, his feet arched, his body firm and fleshy, but not fat,' wrote one chronicler of the times.
As a child he was inclined to be delicate, but unlike his fther and grandfather he was austere rather than 'French' in his habits. As he grew up he was seldom ill, and ate and drank very little. He was interested in architecture, but had no great love of literature or luxury, and his only intellectual entertainment was chess. He was a good swordsman and horseman and reputed to be the best lance in the world. His passion when he was not fighting was hunting and hawking. He was incapable of disloyalty, but could be ruthless.
During the first part of his life he had a streak of wildness and lawlessness. His mother had encouraged him in her schemes to get as much out of the English as possible, and at her instigation he was even reputed to have robbed merchants of their goods. He never fully forgave the Londoners for their attack on her.
He married Eleanor of Castile at Burgos in October 1254. She was the half-sister of the reigning King of Castile, daughter of Joanna of Ponthieu who had been contracted to Henry years before, and granddaughter of Alice, Richard I's spurned fiancee.
To begin with, their marriage was only in name, because she was only ten and he fifteen. She arrived in England without her husband on 17th October, 1255, with such a scanty wardrobe that Henry had to send her money and jewellery, which did not please the English, who must have thought that their next queen was going to follow the pattern of their present one. Edward followed her over on 29th November, 1255, and in 1256 they both went back to Bordeaux and she did not come back to England until after the Civil War against De Montfort was over.
When they were reunited both of them were grown up. He had proved himself as a warrior and she was a lovely woman of twenty, gentle and considerate in her ways. She became known as the queen in whom 'strife ever found a peacemaker', and her nickname was 'the faithful'. He was not yet faithful. He had an affair with the Countess of Gloucester, creating a court scandal which lasted for several years and must have been going on between 1265 and 1270, during which time Eleanor had their first three children, John, Henry and Eleanor. Henry III was so delighted with his beautiful little grandchildren that he increased their mother's allowance.
In 1270 Edward went on a crusade, the last English King to do so, and saying 'Nothing should part those whom God have joined, ' Eleanor accompanied him. Before she went, she and Eleanor of Provence toured England together, visiting various shrines; at Dunstable they offered an altar cloth at the shrine of St. Peter as a thanksgiving for the health of her young children. Luckily for England Eleanor of Provence did not infect her daughter-in-law with her avariciousness, and Eleanor the Faithful became one of the best-loved of all our queens when her husband ascended the throne. Their pilgrimage was especially pathetic, because before she came back to England the two little princes had died.
They spent the winter in Sicily and there heard of the death of one of their young sons, Henry. They then went on to Acre, where their daughter Joan was born and Edward was seriously wounded in the arm by a Saracen with a poisoned dagger. There are two varying stories about the faithful Eleanor and this incident: one was that she sucked the poison out of the wound, and the other that she was so upset that the surgeon dealing with the wound asked for the lady to be carried out because she was so hysterical. In 1272 they went back to Sicily and heard of the death of their other son, John, and of Henry 111. Edward was much more upset about the death of his father than of his son, about whom he said philosophically, 'I may get more children but never another father, ' which can scarcely have been comforting to the young mother.
Far from following the example of the rest of his family and hurrying home to seize the royal treasure, Edward took his time and they made a leisurely journey back. They went first to Rome, then on to Bordeaux, where Alphonso, their third son, was born. They then stopped in Lyon, where Edward jousted, and lightning killed two of his courtiers who were standing just behind him. After this they went to Paris, where he did homage for his French possessions, and then they spent a year in Gascony while he suppressed a revolt. They did not reach England until the following year, when they were crowned at Westminster on 16th August, 1274, one year and nine months after his father's death.
After the coronation, Edward put his affairs in order, and in doing so spared nobody. He subdued the Welsh, hanged two hundred Jewish moneylenders and reorganized the legislation of England. Eleanor spent most of her time at Windsor, and by 1278 had had two more daughters, Margaret, and Mary, the only one of her children to live to the age of fifty.
Their domestic life sounds happy if hearty. Edward, now that he had settled down, was primarily a man's man, with his love of jousting, hunting and hawking. He had simple tastes and enjoyed a certain amount of horseplay. He bet a laundrymaid that she could not ride to hounds and be in at the death of the stag. She did and was, and won forty shillings. Another time he paid out £14 to the women of his household who, according to some custom of the day, on an Easter Monday lifted his chair off the ground and would not put him down until he promised them that sum. He liked chess and once for no apparent reason changed his seat just before a lump of ceiling fell down where he had been playing.
In 1282 the Welsh rose up again, and Eleanor went with Edward on his campaign to subdue them. In 1283 their daughter Isabella was born. They were still in Wales in 1284, where on 25th April another son, Edward, was born at Caernarvon Castle in a very small, dark room, only twelve feet long and eight feet wide, hung with tapestries to make it more luxurious. As soon as she was able, Eleanor moved to the more luxurious Conway Castle. Shortly after Edward's birth their only other surviving son, Alphonso, died, so Edward became the heir.
They went back to London for Christmas and then on to Gascony for three years, where her daughters Beatrice and Berengaria were born. While they were there their daughter Mary, now eight, became a nun at the Abbey of Amesbury, where her grandmother Eleanor had taken the veil. Edward was against this, but Eleanor had made a promise that she would give this daughter to the church and he gave way to her. Their daughter Margaret was married to John of Brabant. At the wedding Edward became irritated by a squire and struck him, for which he had to pay £13 6s. 8d. compensation. When they came back to England in 1289 they had another daughter, Blanche.
The next year he went off to fight the Scots. Eleanor, ever faithful, although ill with fever tried to follow him. At Hardely near Grantham her condition worsened and she became seriously ill. Edward rushed back from Scotland to try to be with her but she died on 29th November before he got there. They had been married for thirty-six years and had had thirteen children, of whom six were sons, only one of whom had survived. Edward was inconsolable after her death and followed her corpse back to London; the journey took thirteen days, and at each stop he erected a cross to her memory.
2. St. Fernando III Alfonsez, King of Castile and Leon: Born 5 August 1201, of Leon, Spain; Died 30 May 1252, Seville, Spain; Married 1237, Burgos, Spain; Jeanne (Joan) De Dammartin, Countess of Ponthieu: Born about 1216, of Dammartin, Seine-et-Marne, France; Died 15 March 1279, Abbeville, Somme, France. (See Counts of Dammartin) Ferdinand III, was King of the Spanish realm of Castile from 1217 to 1252. After inheriting the neighboring kingdom of Leon in 1230, he permanently united the two kingdoms. He gained renown for his reconquest of much of southern Spain from the Moors. By a series of sieges he captured Cordoba (1236), Jaen (1245), and Seville (1248); he also received the submission of the Moors of Murcia (1243). As a result, Muslim Spain was reduced to the kingdom of Granada, whose ruler paid an annual tribute to Castile. Ferdinand also initiated some of the cultural developments that were brought to completion by his son, Alfonso X. Ferdinand was canonized in 1671. Feast day: May 30.
3. Alfonso IX Fernandez, King of Leon: Born 1166/1171, Zamora, Leon, Spain; Died 23 September 1230, Villaneuva De So, Castilla, Spain; Married October 1197, Spain; Berengaria Alfonsez "la Granda" Princess of Castile, Queen of Leon and Castile: Born 1181, Segovia, Castile, Spain; Died 1245, Burgos, Spain. (See Kings of Castile)
4. Ferdinand II Alfonsez, King of Leon: Born about 1137, of Castile, Spain; Died 21 January 1188, Leon, Spain; Married 1160, Leon, Spain; Urraca Affonsez, Princess of Portugal, Queen of Leon: Born 1151, of Coimbra, Portugal; Died 16 October 1188, Leon, Spain.
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5. Affonso I Henriquez, King of Portugal and the Algarves: Born 25 Jul 1110, Villa de Guimara, Braga, Portugal; Died 6 December 1185, Mosteiro Decelas, Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal; Married before Jul 1146, of Chambery, Savoie France; Matilde (Maud) Countess of Savoy: Born 1125, of Chambery, Savoie, France; Died 4 November 1157, Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal. Affonso became ruler of Portugal at the age of two, in 1112 when his father died. In 1124 at the age of fourteen he took the audacious step of knighting himself. He liberated his country from the Moors and worked to extricate his land from the mighty kings of Castile and Leon. He ruled Portugul with his mother by his side. In 1127 he was beseiged by the King of Leon. In a desperate act his tutor negotiated a treaty which broke the seige. Affonzo never honored this treaty. He was generally viewed from the outside as a brigand. His rule with his mother ended when she established allegiences to Castile and Leon. For this act Affonso could never forgive her and she was expelled from Portugul. He became a great military leader and was said to be able to turn the tide of battle through sheer force of character. He truly believed that the cause of Portugul was a holy one. He pushed the Moors out of Portugul and expanded his borders hugely. By the mid 1140's he had adopted the title of Affonso I, King of Portugul. In 1179 after nearly seventy years as the ruler of Portugul he was formally recognised by the Pope as King of Portugul. Remarkably, he died of old age, having survived all the trials and tribulations of his tumultuous life to end his days at home and in peace.
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6. Henri De Burgundy, Count of Portugal: Born 1069/1170, of Bourgogne, France; Died 1 November 1112; Married 1093; Doña Teresa Alfonso De Castile: Born about 1070, of Toledo, Spain; Died 1 November 1130.
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7. Alfonso VI, "the Valiant" King of Castile, Leon and Galacia: Born before June 1040, of Burgos, Spain; Died 29 June 1109, Toledo, Spain; Married 1096, of Denia, Alicante, Spain; Zaida (Maria Isabel) Princess of Denia: Born about 1071, of Denia, Alicante, Spain; Died 1103, Spain. (See Moorish Kings of Seville) Alfonso was older than Zadia's father. Alfonso VI, Spanish King of Leon from 1065 until 1109 and Castile from 1072 until 1109, is best known for his capture of Toledo, the ancient Visigothic capital, from the Moors in 1085. With that victory he advanced his frontier to the Tagus River and the center of the Iberian peninsula. French and papal influence were especially marked in his reign, as he welcomed the monks of Cluny and encouraged the adoption of the Roman liturgy in place of the Mozarabic. The marriage of his two daughters to French nobles resulted in the establishment of the Burgundian dynasties in Leon, Castile, and Portugal.
8. Ferdinand I, "the Great" King of Castile: Born about 1005, of Castile, Spain; Died 27 December 1065, Castile, Spain; Married 1033; Sancha, Princess of Leon: Born about 1015; Died 13 December 1067.
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9. Sancho III "the Great", King of Navarre: Born about 980, of Navarre, Spain; Died February 1035; Married 1001; Nunnia, Princess of Castile: Born about 985, of Castile, Spain. Sancho III, King of Navarre (1000-35), also ruled the adjacent County of Aragon and, through marriage, politics, and force, added both the County of Castile (1029) and the kingdom of Leon (1034) to his domain. By assuming the title of Emperor, he claimed leadership of Christian Spain. He encouraged Europeans to make the pilgrimage to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela and welcomed the monks of Cluny, thus helping to integrate Christian Spain more fully into the European religious and cultural mainstream. Much of his work was undone upon his death, when his dominions were divided among his four sons. Each bore the title of King; thus Castile and Aragon were made kingdoms.
10. Garcia III, King of Navarre: Born about 955, of Spain; Died 1000; Married Chimine, Queen of Navarre: Born about 960, of Navarre, Spain.