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Alfonso XI of Castile

Alfonso XI of Castile
Image Alfonso XI of Castile

Alfonso XI of Castile
Salamanca 1311 - Gibraltar 1350

The reign of Alfonso XI was characterized by his great fortitude (he imposed to feudal nobility), and his great military skilfulness. He ordered to build a royal Mudejar palace in Tordesillas, where he resided together with his favourite Leonor de Guzmán.

He was born in Salamanca in 1311 and his parents were Fernando IV and Constance of Portugal. His father dies one year later therefore he turned into king of Castile and León. While Alfonso XI was under age, power struggles, that got worse when her grandmother, María de Molina, dies in 1321, follow one another.

From the moment he came to the throne, his objectives are to write down the real power and to follow with the Reconquest, fact that was manifested in the occupation of the Strait of Gibraltar, carried out after the victory on the Battle of Rio Salado (1340).

He married María of Portugal, who bore him his successor, Pedro I, and to whom he relegated to background to maintain the preeminence of his favorite, Leonor of Guzmán, who bore him various children, among them the infant Don Fadrique, assassinated by its own stepbrother Pedro I, and the one that would be future king of Castile, Enrique II of Trastámara.

When dying Alfonso XI in Gibraltar (1350) because of the plague, his son Pedro I succeed him.