The Dead Queen
D. Pedro, son of king D. Afonso IV, was married to D. Constança, but was secretly in love with D. Inês de Castro.
D. Inês was deeply in love with D. Pedro, but she was one of D. Constanças’s maids.
In order to force D. Inês to keep a distance, D. Constança invited her to be the God-mother of her first born child, and yet in spite of this D. Pedro and D. Inês became lovers.
When D. Constança died (she had always been very frail) D. Afonso sent his son in numerous missions in order to separate the two lovers, but they kept sending letters to one another.
After some time D. Pedro and D. Inês settled in Santa Clara, near Coimbra, where they had three boys and a girl.
Sadly D. Inês was of Castillian ancestry, in fact her family had a claim on the throne of Castilla. Should they become kings of Castilla there was the chance that an heir to D. Inês might claim both thrones one day.
To avoid any risk to Portuguese independence the royal council decided on murdering D. Inês and her progeny, which they did.
D. Pedro rose arms against his father, but the queen managed to settle things between them.
When he finally got to the throne, D. Pedro had his vengeance, slowly torturing to the death the counselors who killed his lover and their sons.
Then D. Pedro announced he had been secretly married to D. Inês after D. Constança’s death and ordered her to be crowned and to be moved to a proper burial place, a queen’s funeral, moving D. Inês remnants to her current tomb, in the Monastery of Alcobaça (where she lies today, next to D. Pedro’s own tomb).
Legend has it that before laying the queen in her new tomb, D. Pedro had her set in her throne and ordered all of nobles to bow before her and to kiss her hand.
Thus we have had a queen crowned after her death.
Tags:Portugal
D. Inês was deeply in love with D. Pedro, but she was one of D. Constanças’s maids.
In order to force D. Inês to keep a distance, D. Constança invited her to be the God-mother of her first born child, and yet in spite of this D. Pedro and D. Inês became lovers.
When D. Constança died (she had always been very frail) D. Afonso sent his son in numerous missions in order to separate the two lovers, but they kept sending letters to one another.
After some time D. Pedro and D. Inês settled in Santa Clara, near Coimbra, where they had three boys and a girl.
Sadly D. Inês was of Castillian ancestry, in fact her family had a claim on the throne of Castilla. Should they become kings of Castilla there was the chance that an heir to D. Inês might claim both thrones one day.
To avoid any risk to Portuguese independence the royal council decided on murdering D. Inês and her progeny, which they did.
D. Pedro rose arms against his father, but the queen managed to settle things between them.
When he finally got to the throne, D. Pedro had his vengeance, slowly torturing to the death the counselors who killed his lover and their sons.
Then D. Pedro announced he had been secretly married to D. Inês after D. Constança’s death and ordered her to be crowned and to be moved to a proper burial place, a queen’s funeral, moving D. Inês remnants to her current tomb, in the Monastery of Alcobaça (where she lies today, next to D. Pedro’s own tomb).
Legend has it that before laying the queen in her new tomb, D. Pedro had her set in her throne and ordered all of nobles to bow before her and to kiss her hand.
Thus we have had a queen crowned after her death.
Tags:Portugal
posted by DCveR at 9:08 AM
15 Comments:
Fascinating story!
Blood, guts and love!
And horror...Can you imagine kissing the dead queen's hand and the hand grabbing your throat...Argh....
Weird stuff but interesting nonetheless!
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Great story! Imagine, that this queen has been buried before! It's not just the dead hand...
Em Coimbra está a passar nova peça com esse tema. "As Lágrimas de Inês" para público escolar. Por que é que essa história continua a apaixonar todas as gerações? E faz parte do nosso imaginário colectivo! Já aqui alguém disse que contém todos os elementos de um bom thriller :)
Portugal has a fascinating history! Oooo, I love this story. I also am quite interested in the Spanish Queen Isabella. She was truly a woman who loved too much. Saw a good movie about her last summer, although I can't remember what it was called. It is fairly recent, however. Catch it if you can. It is another heartbreaking story of forced matrimony breeding true love and long misery.
This sounds like a plot from a Garcia novel. And what's with all the "D"
cheers and thanks for sharing
cream: Fascinating? You seem terrified, stutering and all... ;)
The dinner of Peter's revenge must have been something though. His food was served on a table surrounded by the poles where the former counselors were being tormented...
shyha: She had been buried for some time, if the hand kissing is true, they kissed nothing but bones...
mrf: Convenhamos que tem toda a intriga, o romance, a violência, o sexo e os demais ingredientes para ser uma história cativante e memorável.
bunny jo: Isabel and Fernando are not my favorite Spanish royal couple. There was way too much religious fanatism in their court... but I do understand the story can be told in such a way as to become interesting, very interesting, in fact.
phoenix: The D. is found before any noble name in Portugal, Dom for the men and Dona for the dames.
You couldn't even say "our king, that bastard!". It would have to be "our king, Dom so-and-so by the grace of God, that bastard!"
i wonder if her eyes were opened or closed? hmmm
if i had to kiss the hand i'd kiss my thumb-
This is so sad, imagine your lover and your children all murdered, especially after you spent your life devoted to her, and nobody could keep you apart. Until murder.
Shakespeare missed that one.
Bowing to a corpse is definitely NOT appealing though. I don't even bow to the living.
ale: After the treatment he had done to the murderers and those who plotted against her, my guess is people would readily kiss her hand rather than face his wrath.
GG: Even Shakespeare couldn't come up with something as weird as reality.
tall glass: Horror has its own way to hold on to peoples memory.
isis: I try and post some more of these...
tall glass: Champagne is by no means of Portuguese origin, the French are to blame for that one!!! And although we may have some fault in getting to Japan we can't be fully blamed if the Japanese turned Obrigado into Arigato.
Do you think D. Pedro meant to honor her by staging her corpse in the throne? Yecccch!! That would just be horrifying. Most women would like the chance to touch up their make up or hairdo. Yikes. Sounds like it should be the subject of one of those Travel Channel shows.
Fascinating!
kris: He wanted, according to most authors to get a proof of loyalty and to abase those who permited that cruel murder.
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