Leonor Teles

Leonor Teles (or Teles de Meneses; c. 1350 – c. 1405) was queen consort of Portugal by marriage to King Ferdinand I, and regent of Portugal. She was one of the protagonists, along with her brothers and her daughter Beatrice, of the events that led to the succession crisis of 1383–1385, which culminated in the defeat of her son-in-law King John I of Castile and his armies in the Battle of Aljubarrota. Called "the Treacherous" (a Aleivosa in Portuguese) by her subjects, who execrated her on account of her adultery and treason to her native country, she was dubbed by historian Alexandre Herculano as "the Portuguese Lucrezia Borgia".

The date or place of Leonor's and her siblings' birth is not recorded in any document. According to some sources, she was born in Trás-os-Montes because King Ferdinand I on 3 January 1375 donated Vila Real to his wife "for being a native of the province of Tralosmontes". If so, she would be the first queen of Portugal born in that country. However, her parents lived in Castile since 1340 and it was between that year and 1356 when the children of the marriage were born, as well as the illegitimate daughter; there are no sources that mention the births or the early years of the siblings.

A member of the lineage of the Teles de Meneses, an important family originally from Tierra de Campos, Leonor's father Martim Afonso Telo de Meneses, a Portuguese nobleman, mayordomo mayor and alleged lover of Maria of Portugal, the wife of King Alfonso XI of Castile, was assassinated in 1356 by orders of King Peter. Leonor's mother was Aldonça Eanes de Vasconcelos, daughter and heiress of João Mendes de Vasconcelos and Aldara Afonso Alcoforado.

Leonor had three full-siblings: two brothers—João Afonso Telo (6th Count of Barcelos, mayor of Lisbon in 1372 and admiral of the Portuguese kingdom around 1375, who died in the Battle of Aljubarrota) and Gonçalo Teles de Meneses (Count of Neiva and Lord of Faria)—and a sister—Maria Teles de Meneses, who was married first to Álvaro Dias de Sousa and then to John of Portugal, an illegitimate half-brother of Leonor's husband King Ferdinand I. Maria was murdered in 1379 by her second husband, who accused her of adultery; historians suspect that Leonor, fearing for the succession of her daughter Beatrice and her own position as regent, was involved in the crime. Maria was a lady-in-waiting of her future sister-in-law Beatrice of Portugal, and introduced Leonor to King Ferdinand I, who fell passionately in love with her, when she visited her sister in court.

Leonor also had an illegitimate paternal half-sister, Juana Teles de Meneses. Leonor arranged her marriage to Juan Alfonso Pimentel, first Count of Benavente, who supported the cause of the Castilian king during the succession crisis and went into exile in Castile.

Leonor was also the niece of João Afonso Telo, fourth Count of Barcelos and first Count of Ourém, whose daughter, Leonor, was the wife of Pedro de Castro "The One-eyed", son of Álvaro Pires de Castro, Count of Arraiolos, Lord of Cadaval and Ferreira, Constable of Portugal, and brother of Inês de Castro, mistress (and alleged secret wife) of King Peter I of Portugal. The Teles de Meneses and the Castros were among the most powerful and influential families in the kingdoms of Leon, Castile and Portugal.

In 1365, Leonor had wed João Lourenço da Cunha, 2nd Lord of Pombeiro, to whom she was still married when she met King Ferdinand I of Portugal. Two children were born of her union with João Lourenço: a daughter who died in infancy, and a son, Álvaro da Cunha, heir to the lordship of his father. According to the later chronicler Fernão Lopes, Leonor abandoned her son when she married King Ferdinand I, making him pose as the son of Lope Dias de Sousa and a "woman member of his household named Elvira", calling him Álvaro de Sousa, so that she could "pretend to be a virgin for the king, saying that her husband had never slept with her". King Ferdinand I subsequently attempted to obtain the annulment of Leonor's first marriage on the grounds of consanguinity, in order to preserve the legitimacy of their daughter, Beatrice of Portugal. The jurist João das Regras claimed, in one of the arguments he made before the Cortes of Coimbra in 1385 after King Ferdinand I died, that Leonor was not free to marry another man because the needed papal dispensation had been secured (a fact that the king concealed) and her mother's first marriage was therefore valid, meaning Beatrice was illegitimate. The Cortes determined that, since all pretenders to the throne, that is, the sons of Inês de Castro and the master of Aviz, were illegitimate, the dynastic line had been severed and the people, through their representatives, could choose a new king.

Before marrying Leonor, several marriage negotiations were made for the infante, who became King Ferdinand I. In 1358 a marriage between him and Beatrice, the first-born daughter of King Peter I of Castile, was considered but never took place. In 1364 the marriage of Ferdinand to Infanta Joanna of Aragon, daughter of King Peter IV was negotiated, and years later, by the end of 1369, a marriage to another daughter of the Aragonese king, Infanta Eleanor was also pursued, but neither of these marriages came to pass. In 1371 King Ferdinand I suffered a defeat when he invaded Galicia; one of the stipulations of the Treaty of Alcoutim was his marriage to Infanta Eleanor, daughter of King Henry II of Castile. Any of these marriages would have pleased the Portuguese people, although the last one, according to the stipulations in the Treaty of Alcoutim, could imply "a threat to the sovereignty of the Portuguese Kingdom". The king secretly married Leonor in the second half of 1371, breaking his engagement with the Castilian infanta. On 5 May 1372, the official wedding was celebrated away from the court in the small town of Leça do Balio. From the beginning, John and Denis of Portugal, the sons of Inês de Castro and half-brothers of the king, showed their rejection of this marriage, as well as the "rise of Leonor and her relatives".