Christmas Every Day

The perils of being a royal mistress 2

As we learned in yesterday’s thrilling episode, the post of lady-in-waiting to a queen may be a launching pad to the role of mistress to the king. Such women are chosen for their beauty and amiability, are generally well-born, and are constantly at court, where they are visible – and accessible– to the monarch. Because royal wives are usually chosen for their dowries or political connections, pretty young ladies-in-waiting often outshine their queen, hanging upon the cheek of night like a rich jewel in an Ethiop’s ear.

Let me then introduce Înes de Castro, lady-in-waiting to Constanza Manuel, wife of the Portuguese Prince Peter. However great the attractions of Constanza were , they paled in Peter’s eyes to those of Înes with whom he soon began an illicit relationship. The prince, nonetheless, did his marital duty and poor Constanza died giving birth in 1345 to a son, Fernando. As far as Peter was concerned, this left him free to marry his true love, but he was forbidden to do so by his father King Afonso who, for dynastic reasons, needed his son to wed higher up the royal ladder than Înes.

Peter stubbornly refused to remarry and rejected the princesses his father suggested for a future bride. He lived apart from the court with Înes who produced three children. King Afonso feared that his son was favouring Spanish relatives of Înes and that civil war might erupt if the relationship continued, so in 1355 he sent three assassins to where she was living. They murdered her in front of one of her children.

At this affront Peter rebelled against his father. He was defeated but soon after succeeded to the throne of Portugal upon the king’s death. He captured two of the assassins and ripped their hearts out with his own hands. A splendid legend says that he had Înes disinterred, her corpse clad in royal robes and enthroned. All the nobility that had slighted her when she was alive were forced to kneel before the cadaver and kiss the skeletal hands.

Peter had a magnificent dual tomb erected in the Alcobaça monastery. He and Înes were buried facing each other so that on Resurrection Day the first thing they would see would be each other.