♂Alfonso of Castile

Alfonso of Castile (11 November 1155 – 5 October 1214) was King of Castile, Toledo and Extremadura, a king who inherited the crown as a small child and grew into the leading Christian ruler of medieval Iberia. He was the twenty-fifth great-grandfather of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through his daughter Berenguela of Castile (died 1246).

A boy king

Alfonso was born at Soria, the son and heir of Sancho of Castile^W, called el Deseado, and Blanca, a daughter of Garcia VI Ramirez, King of Navarre. His father died in 1158, and the regency that followed set the Laras and the Castros, two great Castilian families, against each other and against the boy’s uncle in Leon, each seeking custody of the young king. In 1159 the kings of Navarre and Leon seized a number of Castilian frontier towns, and in 1162 the Leonese king took Toledo. By 1166 Toledo was back in Castilian hands, and in 1169 Alfonso began to rule in his own right.

Marriage

In September 1170, at Burgos, Alfonso married Eleanor of England, a daughter of Henry II of England^W and Eleanor of Aquitaine^W. Charters of 1187 were issued in the names of both king and queen, and charters of 1192, 1195 and 1199 add their son Fernando. About 1180 Alfonso is said to have founded the royal monastery of Las Huelgas^W near Burgos at his wife’s urging.

War with the Almohads

In 1174 Alfonso ceded Ucles to the Order of Santiago^W, which made it its principal seat, and from there began a campaign that culminated in the reconquest of Cuenca in 1177. By the last decade of the century he had made himself the preeminent ruler among the Christian realms of Iberia. That position was tested by the Almohads^W, the Muslim dynasty then ruling much of the peninsula. In 1195 the caliph Ya’qub mounted a major offensive against Castilian positions in La Mancha. At Alarcos^W, on 19 July 1195, Alfonso’s army was annihilated, and the king barely escaped with his life.

In 1212 a crusade was called against the Almohads through the mediation of Pope Innocent III, and in the campaign that followed they were beaten at Las Navas de Tolosa^W, a victory his epithet “el de las Navas” recalls.

Death

Alfonso died at Gutierre Munoz, near Arevalo, on 5 October 1214, and was buried at Las Huelgas near Burgos. His wife died twenty days later and was buried there too.

The family

The couple had fourteen children, seven sons and seven daughters. The eldest daughter, Berenguela, became Queen of Castile and gave up the crown to her son Fernando, from whom the line of descent here runs. Another daughter, Blanche (Blanca), married Louis VIII, King of France^W, and Leonor married Jaime I, King of Aragon^W. Constanza became Abbess of Las Huelgas.

Notes

Sources and grade

Alfonso’s parentage, birth, title, marriage, reign, children, death and burial come from Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry (2nd ed.), vol. I, Castile 3, pp. 491-492, a modern compiled genealogy. The dates are the compiler’s: born at Soria 11 November 1155, died at Gutierre Munoz 5 October 1214. A source Richardson lists, the obituary of the abbey of Boulancourt, marks the anniversary of “Idefonse, roi de Castille” on 6 October. The founding of Las Huelgas at the queen’s urging, the campaigns of 1174-1177 and the defeat at Alarcos are in the same entry. The victory at Las Navas de Tolosa and the epithet “el de las Navas” are general history; Richardson gives the king the epithet and notes the crusade of 1212.

The line of descent

Alfonso and Eleanor’s daughter Berenguela married Alfonso IX of Leon; their son was Fernando III of Castile and Leon, whose daughter Eleanor became the wife of Edward I of England. The line to the Blanchard family continues through Joan of England, Eleanor de Clare, Elizabeth le Despenser and the Berkeley family.