Beatrice of Castile

Beatrice of Castile (1293–1359), daughter of Sancho IV and María de Molina. The 1297 Treaty of Alcañices ended the war between Castile and Portugal and arranged marriages for two pairs of siblings, so at four she was betrothed to the Portuguese infante Afonso and sent to grow up at King Denis's court. After a papal dispensation they married in Lisbon in 1309.

Queen from 1325, she worked, like her mother-in-law Elizabeth of Aragon, as a mediator. When Afonso IV and her son-in-law Alfonso XI of Castile went to war in 1336, she crossed the border to ask for peace, in vain. In 1355 she helped reconcile her son Peter with his father after the murder of Inês de Castro.

After her daughter-in-law Constance died in 1345, she raised the future Ferdinand I. She died in 1359 and lies beside her husband in Lisbon Cathedral.