Alfonso XI of Castile

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Coin of Alfonso XI, a cornado made of billon, dated ca. 1345. Some 600 years later, about 1949, while digging a conduit near the site of Fort Harrod in Harrodsburg, Kentucky, an electrician unearthed this coin, alongside eleven others, all buried in a leather bag. The Spanish milled dollar was the basis of the United States dollar and remained legal tender in the United States until 1857. Other coins, such as this cornado, may have been accepted in times of shortage. While such finds are somewhat rare in Kentucky, they are not extremely uncommon. Historians believe that merchants from New Orleans traveled up the Kentucky River, and perhaps a local person or tradesman either buried the coins or simply lost them.

Status of Alfonso XI in Algeciras

Alfonso XI (Salamanca, August 13, 1311 – March 26/27, 1350 in Gibraltar) was the king of Castile and León, the son of Ferdinand IV of Castile and his wife Constance of Portugal.

He is variously known among Castilian kings as the Avenger or the Implacable, and as "He of Salado River." The first two names he earned by the ferocity with which he repressed the disorder of the nobles after a long minority; the third by his victory in the Battle of Rio Salado over the last formidable Marinid invasion of Spain in 1340.

Alfonso XI never went to the insane lengths of his son Pedro of Castile, but he could be bloody in his methods. He killed for reasons of state without form of trial. He openly neglected his wife, Maria of Portugal, and had an ostentatious passion for Eleanor of Guzman, who bore him ten children. This set Peter an example which he failed to better. It may be that his early death, during the Great Plague of 1350, at the Siege of Gibraltar, only averted a desperate struggle with Peter, though it was a misfortune in that it removed a ruler of eminent capacity, who understood his subjects well enough not to go too far.

[edit] Marriage and children

Alfonso XI first married Costanza Manuel of Castile on 1325, but divorced her two years later. His second marriage, on 1328, was to Maria of Portugal, daughter of Alfonso IV of Portugal. She was the mother of his sons Fernando (Valladolid, 1332 – 1333) and Pedro of Castile.

By his mistress, Eleanor of Guzman, he had ten children:

• Pedro, 1st Lord of Aguilar de Campoo (1330 - 1338)
• Juana, 1st Lady of follar Trastamara (born 1330)
• Sancho, 1st Lord of Ledesma (1331 - 1343)
• Henry of Trastamara (1334 - 1379)
• Fadrique, Master of the Order of Santiago and 1st Lord of Haro; (born 1335)
• Fernando, 2nd Lord of Ledesma
• Tello, 1st Lord of Aguilar de Campoo (1337-1370)
• Juan, 1st Lord of Badajoz and Jerez de la Frontera (1341 - 1359)
• Sancho of Alburquerque (1342-1375)
• Pedro (1345 - 1359)

After Alfonso's death, his widow Maria had Eleanor arrested and later killed (1).

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• 1)A history of Spain By Charles Edward Chapman, Rafael Altamira, page 26.