Juana Manuel of Castile

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Juana Manuel of Castile (1339 – 27 March 1381) was from 1369 the Queen consort of Castile. She also was the heiress of Escalon, Villena, Penafiel and Lara as well as the sovereign lady ("senora soberana") of Biscay (the Basque country).

Contents 1 Family 2 Marriage 3 Inheritance 4 Ancestors 5 References

[edit] Family

She was the daughter of the Infante Juan Manuel of Castile (1282-1349) and his second wife Blanca Núñez de Lara de La Cerda. Her mother Blanca (d. 1347) was a descendant of the sovereign Lords of Vizcaya (the Basque country) and of Lara and of Alfonso X's eldest son (Fernando de la Cerda).

Her elder half-sister Constance of Penafiel (who died in 1345 when Juana was just about five years old) was queen consort of Portugal.

Juana's great-grandmother was Blanche of France ^[1], a daughter of Louis IX of France and his wife Marguerite of Provence.

[edit] Marriage

Her father had been for five years a serious enemy of king Alfonso XI, his former protege, and the king wished to neutralize or absorb the might of the Penafiel family. Although Juana was not the heiress (yet), already young she had to go along with royal wishes. The king's very influential concubine, Leonor de Guzman, wanted to obtain some high prestige and property to her eldest -but bastard- son and had her eyes on the young Juana. On 27 July, 1350 her brother and guardian, Fernando Manuel of Penafiel, had to marry his young sister to don Enrique (1333-79), eldest of the illegitimate sons of Alfonso XI of Castile. This brought Enrique certain lands.

However it was later that Juana's relatives' heirless deaths made Juana the great heiress she turned out to be: so important an heiress that actually her husband gained opportunity to be threat to the royal power. In 1369 Enrique became King Henry II of Castile, after he deposed his half-brother to take the throne.

They had the following children:

• King John I of Castile (1358–1390)
• Eleanor, Infanta of Castile (died 1416) ^[2]
• Juana, Infanta of Castile

[edit] Inheritance

In 1361 (at the death of her teenage niece Blanca ^[3], daughter of her half-brother Fernando Manuel who himself had died in c 1350 without other children) she inherited Villena, Escalona and Penafiel ^[4]. Because Juana was a maternal granddaughter of La Palomilla, from her another cousin, Isabel de Lara who was murdered in 1361 ^[5] and her young daughter Florentina ^[6] (d after 1365), she also inherited Lara and Vizcaya (Basque country). In 1369, she became queen of Castile and Leon.

When she in 1381 died and left her inheritance to her son, Vizcaya finally was united to Castile, and ultimately to Spain. The Basque people remember her for that.

[edit] Ancestors

Juana's ancestors in three generations

									Ferdinand III of Castile
						Juan Manuel, Lord of Villena
									Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen
			Juan Manuel, Duke of Peñafiel
									Amadeus IV, Count of Savoy
						Beatrice of Savoy
									Cecilia of Baux
Juana Manuel of Castile
									Ferdinand of Castile
						Fernando de la Cerda
									Blanche of France
			Blanca de La Cerda y Lara
									Juan Núñez de Lara
						Juana Núñez de Lara
									Teresa Álvarez de Azagra

[edit] References

1. ^ Ancestors of Juana Manoel de Castilla
2. ^ Juana Manoel de Castilla
3. ^ (Blanca's death)
4. ^ (inheritance of the 'greatest' castilian patrimony)
5. ^ (Isabel's death)
6. ^ (Florentina's death)

Preceded by Blanca of Bourbon

Queen Consort of Castile and Leon 1369–1379

Succeeded by Eleanor of Aragon