Agnes De Castro, Nouvelle Portugaise Par Mil. ******.

Brilhac, Jean-Baptiste de (?-1688-? Agnes De Castro, Nouvelle Portugaise Par Mil. ******. A Amsterdam, Chez Pierre Savouret, dans le Kalver-Straat. MDCLXXXVIII (1688). [new blank], A1-A12...D1-D12; E1-E5, 106 pages. [New Blank]. 12mo Modern quarter calf with paper boards. Some spotting and toning but in good condition. Very little information on the author who took a historical event and created a French nouvelle classic that has repeated itself in plays and several editions with the most popular in 1710 also in French. Originally author was assumed to be a woman but later identified as a man, whose life history is apparently missing. OCLC Number: 21473888.

Agnes de Castro, nouvelle Portuguese. Par Mlle. ******. 'Mlle ******' has been identified as Jean Baptiste de Brilhac. Originally published in French in 1688. "The Fatal Beauty of Agnes de Castro; Taken Out of the History of Portugal and the beautiful Inés de Castro (1320?- 1355).

In 1340, Prince Pedro, the heir to King Afonso IV of Portugal, married Constança of Castile. When Constança (Constantina) came to Lisbon, she was accompanied by a train of ladies-in-waiting, including the beautiful, golden-haired Inés de Castro. Much to the outrage of all concerned, Pedro and Inés quickly became lovers, defying all attempts to separate them. Constança, cunningly, had Inés named godmother to her first child, which technically made the relationship between her and Pedro incestuous. When that didn't work, Afonso sent Inés back to Castile. Pedro journeyed repeatedly to visit her until 1345, when Constança died shortly after the birth of her son, Fernando, after which he brought her back. Pedro and Inés continued to live together more or less openly, with Inés bearing four children, of which three survived. Meanwhile, Pedro ignored his father's attempts to arrange another political marriage for him, raising the specter of his marriage to Inés.

Both in religious and secular terms, Inés de Castro represented a threat to the Portuguese throne. She was illegitimate, albeit of noble origin; she was a blood relation of Pedro to an extent that would have made a papal dispensation necessary for their marriage; and, as godmother to the deceased infant prince, she was persona non grata. Furthermore, upon her return from Castile, Pedro installed her in a minor royal palace bequeathed to a convent by Queen Isabel (aka Elizabeth of Aragon), Pedro's grandmother, who was regarded in her lifetime as a saintly peacemaker and who was in fact canonized after her death as Saint Elizabeth. (She was the one who turned bread into roses.) In many people's eyes, the relationship between Pedro and Inés was not just immoral, but sacrilegious.

More pragmatically, Inés was Castilian. Her brothers had befriended Pedro, and he responded by gifting them positions at court. Many people near the throne feared the Castilian influence, and what would happen when Pedro succeeded his father. Particularly they feared that Portugal would end up embroiled in the endless politic turmoil of Castile. What triggered the belated final crisis we do not know, but in 1355 King Afonso and his counsellors tried Inés in absentia and found her guilty of treason. She was sentenced to summary execution, and decapitated in her own home – in front of her children. When Pedro became king, the three men responsible for Inés' execution understandably fled the country. One got away; the other two were captured in Castile (which seems a stupid place for them to go). Pedro staged a hostage exchange with his counterpart, Peter of Castile, and then, in a tableau worthy of Vlad Tepes, had his prisoners executed by having their hearts cut out of their bodies while they were still alive, as he ate breakfast and enjoyed the show. These men, Pedro explained, had torn out his heart by killing Inés, so their fate was only fair.

Then, in 1361, Pedro announced that he and Inés had in fact been secretly married in 1354, and she was therefore his queen. (No solid evidence one way or the other has ever been uncovered.) He followed this declaration by having her body exhumed from its grave near her home and placed in an elaborately sculpted tomb, on which she was depicted wearing a crown. Pedro had a matching tomb carved for himself, and placed it nearby; both now lie within the Mosteiro de Santa Maria de Alcobaça. On the evidence of at least one more illegitimate child, Pedro did have other relationships after Inés' death, but he never remarried. He died and was succeeded in 1367 by Fernando, his son by Constança.