Enríquez de Castilla

The Enríquez de Castilla were a royal cadet line of the Castilian House of Burgundy. Its founder Fadrique Alfonso de Castilla, born in Seville in 1334, was the natural son of Alfonso XI and Eleanor de Guzmán and twin brother of the future Henry II, after whom Enríquez, meaning son of Enrique, was taken.

Fadrique became Master of the Order of Santiago, but his half-brother Peter I had him killed in 1358. His son Alonso became Admiral of Castile, an office the family held for almost two hundred years.

The house came close to a throne when Juana Enríquez married John II of Aragon: their son, born in 1452, was Ferdinand the Catholic, husband of Isabella of Castile. In 1520 Charles V numbered the family among the first Grandees of Spain, and the Duchy of Medina de Rioseco became their principal title.