“When pale and sinking to the dreadful fall,
You heard her quiv’ring lips on Pedro call;
Your faithful echoes caught the parting sound,
And Pedro! Pedro! mournful, sigh’d around.
Nor less the wood-nymphs of Mondego’s groves
Bewail’d the memory of her hapless loves:
Her griefs they wept, and, to a plaintive rill
Transform’d their tears, which weeps and murmurs still.
To give immortal pity to her woe
They taught the riv’let through her bowers to flow,
And still, through violet-beds, the fountain pours
Its plaintive wailing, and is named Amours.”
– From:  Book 3 of The Lusiad by Luís de Camões¹

The love story of Pedro and Inês² is often referred to as Portugal´s version of Romeo and Juliet and although not fictional, it is sheathed in the wispy tendrils of legend that has, through the centuries, become embedded in the history and soul of the country. Like all good tragic love stories, they were never meant to fall in love, and when they did, a trail of intrigue, rumour, tears, and blood followed in the wake of their love.

Inês with her golden hair, blue eyes, and milky skin was said to have exquisite beauty. Born in 1325, she was the daughter of Pedro Fernández de Castro, Lord of Lemos and Sarria (the illegitimate grandson³ of King Sancho IV of Castile), and his mistress Aldonça Lourenço de Valadares, who came from a Portuguese noble family. Although illegitimate she moved in powerful circles, and in 1339, at the age of 14, she accompanied Constanza of Castile⁴ to Portugal as her lady-in-waiting, where Constanza was to meet the husband she married by proxy in 1336.

Pedro (1320-1367), crown prince of Portugal, unfortunately fell in love with Inês, and not his wife. Despite this, he fulfilled his duties and fathered four children with Constanza, of which only two survived past 2 weeks. In an attempt to squash her husband´s infatuation with her lady-in-waiting, she made Inês godmother to their first-born son Luís, as, according to the rules of the Catholic Church at the time, a godparent and parent of the child being baptized was in a relationship of moral kinship, which would have made a love relationship between Pedro and Inês incestuous in the eyes of the church. This backfired when Luís died eight days after he was born, but rumours around court would have heaped suspicions of foul play upon Inês, which would have played in favour of Constanza.

These rumours must have made King Afonso IV very uncomfortable, not just in the light of his previous squabbles with the King of Castile, but also the fact that Inês was raised by the wife of his illegitimate and hated half-brother, Afonso Sanches, Lord of Cerva and Albuquerque, who was the favourite son of their father, King Diniz. In an attempt to put a stop to their affair, the king banished Inês to the castle of Albuquerque in 1344.

After Constanza´s death⁵, Pedro brought Inês back from Albuquerque, but the king banished her once again – this time to Coimbra, where she resided in the palace annexed to the Convent of Santa-Clara-a-Velha, while king Afonso IV tried to arrange another marriage for Pedro, who at first claimed he was mourning for his wife, but later admitted that his true love was Inês, and he wasn´t interested in getting married to someone else.

 Pedro and Inês ignored the conflict that ensued between them and the court, and had four children⁶ in the decade they lived together in ´secret´. It is in the woods that is now Quinta das Lágrimas, about 500 metres from the palace next to the Convent of Santa-Clara-a-Velha, where Inês lived that Pedro and Inês are said to have regularly met in secret.

The rumours at court at the time, mostly centred around supposed schemes of the Castro family to influence Pedro. One was a plan to disinherit Pedro´s son and heir with Constanza (Ferdinand I⁷) in favour of the children he had with Inês. In another, perhaps containing truths, Inês´ brothers tried to convince him that he was entitled to the throne of Castile and León, and should get involved at the civil war that was raging at the time. It is true that Inês´ brothers became trusted advisors of Pedro, and that he gave them important positions in Portugal, which must have caused his father an enormous amount of anguish.

Eventually Afonso IV, acting upon pressure and advice from his advisors, a trial was held in Montemor-o-Velho (without Inês being present or having a lawyer), which sentenced Inês to death. In January 1355, while Pedro was out hunting, in one version of the story, the 3 assassins and the king went to the palace where Inês lived, but upon seeing his grandchildren the king had second thoughts. Pêro Coelho, Álvaro Gonçalves, and Diogo Lopes Pacheco, the noblemen in charge of executing the order, convinced the king to follow through, upon which it is said he left the room with the words “do whatever you want”. In this version her murder was witnessed by either one or all her children. In another version her murder took place at what is now known as Fonte das Lágrimas (Fountain of Tears), which formed as she wept before she was stabbed and decapitated. Inês was 29.

Pedro was, as could be expected, heartbroken and intent on revenge, which resulted in a civil war with his father. His mother Beatriz⁸ brokered a deal between her husband and son, which restored peace not long before his father died, and he inherited the throne in 1357.  

Shortly after his coronation he confirmed the rumours that he and Inês were secretly married, so despite her being dead, he now had the power to declare her to be the lawful queen, which also legitimized their children. In doing so it made Inês Portugal´s only posthumous queen. Not only did he have her body exhumed, but it was placed on a throne, while the entire court had to swear allegiance to her by either kissing her hand or the hem of her dress depending on the version of the story.  

Pedro bided his time to take revenge, and six years after he became king he had the opportunity to do so. The murderers who took refuge in Castile, were captured, and although Diogo Lopes Pacheco escaped to France, the other two were exchanged for Castilian fugitives, and executed by having their hearts ripped out while still alive in a symbolic act of how Pedro´s heart was ripped out when his true love was murdered. It is said that this act shaped his reign, as he was known for serving up justice in brutal ways, earning him the monikers Pedro the Cruel, or Pedro the Just.  

In 1360 Pedro had the body of Inês moved from Coimbra to the Royal Monastery of Alcobaça, where he commissioned two tombs, one for her and one for himself. Her tomb is richly decorated with scenes from the life and death of Christ in an analogy with her life in which the Last Judgement closes the narrative, with salvation of the innocents and condemnation of the guilty. His tomb, on the other hand, narrates the life of St Bartholomew, his patron saint, with a depiction of the Wheel of life that symbolises his own life and story of his love for Inês. Placed to face one another they would be the first person the other sees on Judgement Day.

NOTES:
¹ Luís de Camões popularised the love story of Pedro and Inês when he included it in his epic poem The Lusiads or Os Lucíades, first published in 1572 by order of King Sebastião.

² It is a love story that has been immortalised and celebrated in over 20 operas and ballets, as well as in music and works of art. Writers such as António Ferreira, Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Ezra Pound, Stendhal, Agustina Bessa-Luis, and Manuel Alegre all wrote about this love.

³ The parents of Pedro Fernández de Castro (the father of Inês) was Fernando Rodrígues Castro and Violante Sánches, the illegitimate daughter of King Sancho IV of Castile. The origins of the Castro family isn´t clear, but they became one of the most powerful families on the Iberian Peninsula with strong roots in Galicia, Castile and Portugal. The first wife of Inês´ father, Beatriz, was the daughter of Afonso of Portugal, Lord of Portalegre and Violante Manuel, granddaughter of King Ferdinand III of Castile and León, but they had no children. He had two children with his second wife, Isabel Ponce de León – a son, Fernando Ruiz de Castro, and a daughter, Juana de Castro, who became queen consort of King Pedro I of Castile. With his mistress Aldonça Lourenço de Valadares he had Inês, and her brother Álvaro Pires de Castro, who became Count of Arraiolos, Lord of Cadaval and Ferreira, and Constable of Portugal. When Pedro Fernández de Castro died in 1342 his remains were buried in the choir of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela.

⁴ Constanza of Castile (born around 1316) was the daughter of Constanza of Aragon (daughter of King James II of Aragon), and second wife of her father, Don Juan Manuel. Her marriage to Pedro, crown prince of Portugal was strictly speaking her second one. Don Juan Manuel was tutor to King Alfonso XI when the king was still a minor, but when the king turned his back on his tutors to rule independently of their influence, her father tried to marry her to Juan de Haro, Lord of Biscay. Fearful of such a powerful alliance King Alfonso XI asked for 9-year-old Constanza’s hand in marriage, and ordered the assassination of Juan de Haro. This betrothal was made official on 28 November 1325, but given the age of the bride the marriage was never consummated, and two years later the king rejected her in favour of Maria, daughter of King Afonso IV of Portugal (and sister of crown prince Pedro). Don Juan Manuel used King Afonso IV´s displeasure with King Alfonso XI, when he learned that his daughter Maria was mistreated by her husband, to his advantage by offering his daughter to marry the crown prince of Portugal. The contract to the wedding was signed in 1335, but King Alfonso XI, unhappy with this new development had Constanza locked up at the Alcázar of Toro to prevent her from travelling to Portugal, where the marriage by proxy was celebrated on 28 February 1336 at the Convent of São Francisco in Évora. The squabbles between the monarchs of the kingdoms of Castile and Portugal led to a war that lasted for three years until pope Benedict XII helped broker a peace deal that was agreed upon in the summer of 1339.

⁵ Traditionally Constanza´s death is given as 13 November 1345, shortly after her son Fernando was born on 31 October, but historian Ana Rodrigues Oliveira notes the date of her death as 27 January 1349 after the birth of a second daughter, who also died. This later date is backed up by various sources, including 15^th century chronicler Rui de Pina and the Crónica dos Sete Primeiros Reis de Portugal; writer, bibliographer and genealogist, Antonio Caetano de Sousa in his work Historia Genealógica de la Real Casa Portuguesa; historian Frederico Francisco Stuart de Figanière e Morão in his work Memórias das rainhas de Portugal; as well as more recent historians, including Salvador Dias Arnaut, AH de Oliveira Marques, and Joel Serrão.

⁶ They had three sons, João (Duke of Valencia de Campos), Diniz (Lord of Cifuentes), and Afonso (who died shortly after birth). Their daughter Beatriz married Sancho Alfonso, 1^st Count of Albuquerque, and as such became the great-grandmother of Ferdinand II of Aragon, who married Queen Isabella I of Castile, and thus ruled with his wife over a dynastically unified Spain, who became known as the Catholic Monarchs.

⁷ Ferdinand I ruled from 1367 until 1383, but without a male heir he married off his only daughter Beatriz to João I of Castile, while on his death bed. After his death this led to what is referred to as the 1383-1385 crisis. If João I of Castile became king of Portugal too, it would have meant that Portugal would have lost its independence, which meant there was enormous resistance to this in the country. Pedro´s son João, Grand Master of the Order of Aviz, who he fathered after Inês´ death with his mistress Teresa Lourenço had the support of many nobles, as well as Lisbon´s merchants. Sieges, battles and an important alliance with the English followed, and in the end it was João, who became the 10th king of Portugal, and the first of the House of Aviz. As such he became the ancestor of an impressive list of royals, which included Charles the Bold, Isabella I of Castile, Maximilian I – Holy Roman Emperor, Henry (Henrique) the Navigator, and Charles V (Carlos V) – Holy Roman Emperor.

⁸ Beatriz (Pedro´s mother) was the daughter of King Sancho IV of Castile and Maria de Molina. When Beatriz was four years old, on 13 September 1297, a bilateral agreement was signed between the kingdom of Castile and the kingdom of Portugal in which she was betrothed to Afonso who was six at the time, crown prince of Portugal, while her brother and crown prince of Castile, Ferdinand, was betrothed to Afonso´s sister Constança. In the same year she was sent to the court of Portugal where she was raised with her future husband. They got married in 1309 when Afonso was 19 and Beatriz 16. This made her the first “foreign-born queen who was perfectly versed in the language and customs of Portugal” according to Rodrigues Oliveira, which allowed her to play a relevant and active role in the affairs of the kingdom. It appears to have been a happy marriage, as Afonso didn´t have any children out of wedlock. Of the seven children born to them, only 3 survived past infancy.

## If you´ve managed to keep your wits about you, while reading all the footnotes, you may have picked up that Pedro I of Portugal was an ancestor of both the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. His daughter by Inês, Beatriz, was the great-grandmother of Ferdinand II of Aragon, while Isabella I of Castile was a descendant through the son he had with Teresa Lourenço, João I, 10th king of Portugal.

Portuguese Words:
casamento – marriage
rei – king
filha – daughter
marido – husband
mulher – wife 
crianças – children
casado em segredo – married in secret
ordenou a morte – ordered the death
ausente – hunting
boato – rumour
coroa – crown
túmulo – tomb
Roda da Vida – Wheel of Life

# Writing this involved an enormous amount of research and sifting through contradictory accounts and errors when people write about the story of Pedro and Inês. The people involved and related to this story often have similar names, and most often than not these names are translated into English, which just add to the confusion. I tried my best to stay accurate in my facts (although a lot is shrouded in myth and legend), and to keep it as simple as possible, which is why I tried to stick to the Spanish and Portuguese spellings of names to distinguish where the person was from.

Written by: Jolandi