Juana Manuel


Juana Manuel was queen consort of Castile from 1369 until 1379. She also was the heir of Escalona, Villena, Peñafiel and Lara, as well as Lady of Biscay.

Family

She was the daughter of Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena and his second wife Blanca Núñez de Lara de La Cerda. Her mother Blanca was a descendant of the lords of Biscay and of Lara and of Alfonso X's eldest son, Fernando de la Cerda. She was the last legitimate member of the House of Ivrea.

Marriage

Her father had been for five years a serious enemy of King Alfonso XI, his former protégé, and the king wished to neutralize or absorb the might of the Peñafiel family. Although Juana was not the heiress, already in her youth she had to go along with royal wishes. The king's very influential concubine, Leonor de Guzmán, wanted to obtain some high prestige and property to her eldest son and had her eyes on the young Juana. On 27 July 1350 her brother and guardian, Fernando Manuel of Peñafiel, had to marry his young sister to Henry, eldest of the illegitimate sons of Alfonso XI of Castile. This brought Henry certain lands.
However it was later that Juana's relatives' heirless deaths made Juana the great heiress she turned out to be, while her husband became threat to the royal power. In 1369, he became King Henry II of Castile, after he deposed and murdered his half-brother to take the throne.
They had the following children:
In 1361 she inherited Villena, Escalona and Peñafiel. Because Juana was a maternal granddaughter of La Palomilla, from her another cousin, Isabel de Lara who was murdered in 1361 and her young daughter Florentina , she also inherited Lara and Biscay. In 1369, she became queen of Castile and León.
When in 1381 she died and left her inheritance to her son, Biscay finally was united with Castile, and ultimately Spain. The Basque people remember her for that.