Infanta Isabel of Coimbra (Isabella of Portugal) (1 March 1432 – 2 December 1455) was a Portuguese infanta and Queen of Portugal as the first wife of King Afonso V of Portugal.

Biography Early life and background Born in Coimbra in 1432, Isabella was the eldest daughter of the Infante Peter, Duke of Coimbra and Isabella of Aragon, Countess of Urgel. Her paternal grandfather was King John I of Portugal and her maternal grandfather was James II, Count of Urgel. Beginning in 1439, Isabella's father Peter served as regent for her cousin Afonso V during his minority.

Isabella received a comprehensive Renaissance education influenced by the works of Christine de Pizan.

In accordance with the wishes of the late Edward of Portugal, Peter arranged Isabella's betrothal to Afonso V in 1441. The engagement caused conflict with Afonso, Count of Barcelos, Peter's half-brother and political enemy, who had wished for the monarch to marry his granddaughter. Relations further deteriorated when Peter had Isabella's brother elected the Constable of Portugal in 1443, a title that the Count of Barcelos believed rightfully belonged to his eldest son, Afonso, Marquis of Valença.

Queen Isabella and Afonso V were married on 6 May 1447. Both bride and groom were fifteen.

The Count of Barcelos began to wield more influence over Afonso and persuaded him to dismiss Peter in July 1448. Tensions escalated in the following months; Afonso annulled all edicts passed during the regency, stripped Isabella's brother of the title of Constable, and isolated Peter to his estates in Coimbra. In early 1449, Afonso interpreted Peter's refusal to yield all arms as an act of rebellion and began preparing for civil war.

Deeply devoted to both her husband and her father, Isabella did her best to mediate. She reportedly dropped to her knees and implored Afonso to have mercy on Peter. Afonso responded that he would be lenient if his father-in-law requested pardon. Peter reluctantly agreed, writing to Isabella, "This I do, lady, rather to please you, and because you have so bidden me, than because I deem it in reason for me to do." Afonso considered the penitence insincere and therefore unacceptable.

Isabella's father rebelled and was killed in the Battle of Alfarrobeira in 1449. Her siblings were then exiled: John, James, and Beatrice went to the court of their aunt Isabella in Burgundy, while her brother Peter fled to Castile. Isabella herself did not fall out of favour with the king, however, and she took control of the duchy of Coimbra until her brother John returned to Portugal in 1454.

In 1455, Isabella had her father honoured with a ceremony of exoneration at court and had him re-buried in a grand way.. "In 1455 Queen Isabela persuaded her husband, greatly pleased by the birth of his son João, to give her father the burial he merited. The King ignored the opposition from the Duke of Bragança and his son the Count of Ourém (now also Marquis of Valença), and brought the body to the Monastery of the Trinity in Lisbon. It was next moved to the Monastery of St. Eligius (Eloi) and finally transferred to Batalha, where it was interred with great pomp in the Chapel of the Founder." Shortly after this, she died at age twenty-three, possibly from poisoning.. "Queen Isabel, twenty-three years old, soon joined her father in Batalha, for she died at the end of the same year. There were those who insinuated that she had been poisoned by her father's enemies." In her will, she left her inheritance to her sister, Philippa of Coimbra.

Issue Isabella had three children:

John, Prince of Portugal (29 January 1451) Joan, Princess of Portugal (6 February 1452 – 12 May 1490): Known as Saint Joan of Portugal or Saint Princess Joan. She was beatified in 1693 by Pope Innocent XII. John II of Portugal (3 March 1455 – 25 October 1495): Succeeded his father as 13th King of Portugal.

Ancestry

References Citations

Sources

External links Genealogical Information on Isabel of Coimbra (in Portuguese)