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and Queen Catherine of Portugal. She was named after her paternal great-grandmother, Archduchess Eleanor of Austria, Bohemia and Croatia, Charles V, Eleanor of Portugal, Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, Holy Roman Empress, Infanta Eleanor of Spain, Queen Isabella of Denmark, Queen Mary of Hungary
Eleanor of Austria (November 15, 1498 – February 25, 1558), also called Eleanor of Castile, was born an Archduchess of Austria and an Infanta of Castile from the House of Habsburg, and subsequently became Queen Consort of Portugal (1518–1521) and of France (1530–1547). She also held the Duchy of Touraine (1547–1558) in dower. She is called “Leonor” in Spanish and Portuguese and “Eléonore” or “Aliénor” in French.
Eleanor was born in 1498 at Leuven, the eldest child of Archduke Philipp the Handsome of Austria, Duke of Burgundy and Infanta Joanna of Castile, who would later become co-sovereigns of Castile.
Her father, Archduke Philipp, was also the son of the reigning Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and his wife Duchess Mary of Burgundy, while her mother, Infanta Joanna, was the daughter of the Catholic monarchs; namely King Fernando II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile.
Her siblings were Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain, Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia, Queen Isabella of Denmark, Queen Mary of Hungary, and Queen Catherine of Portugal. She was named after her paternal great-grandmother, Eleanor of Portugal, Holy Roman Empress. After the death of her father in September 1506 Eleanor was educated at her aunt’s court in Mechelen.
When she was a child, Eleanor’s relatives tried to marry her to the future King of England, Henry VIII, to whom she was betrothed. However, when Henry’s father died and Henry became King, Henry decided to marry Eleanor’s aunt, Infanta Catherine of Aragon, who was the widow of King Henry’s older brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales.
Eleanor’s relatives also tried to marry her to the French kings Louis XII or François I, or to the Polish King Sigismund I, but nothing came of these plans. Eleanor was also proposed as a marriage candidate for Antoine, Duke of Lorraine, in 1510.
In 1517 Eleanor may have had a love affair with Prince-Elector Friedrich II of the Palatine. Her brother King Carlos of Spain who had succeeded their elderly grandfather King Fernando II-V, as King of Spain the year before, once discovered her reading a love letter from Prince-Elector Friedrich II. King Carlos forced Eleanor and Friedrich to swear in front of an attorney that they were not secretly married, after which he expelled Friedrich from court. She followed her brother to Spain in 1517.
Queen of Portugal
Eleanor married her uncle by marriage, King Manuel I of Portugal, after a proposed marriage with her cousin, the future King João III of Portugal, did not occur. Her brother King Carlos arranged the marriage between Eleanor and the King of Portugal to avoid the possibility of Portuguese assistance for any rebellion in Castile. Manuel had previously been married to two of Eleanor’s maternal aunts, Infanta Isabella of Aragon and Infanta Maria of Aragon.
Manuel and Eleanor married on July 16,!1518. They had two children: the Infante Carlos (born February 18, 1520 – died April 15, 1521) and the Infanta Maria (born June 8,!1521, and who was later one of the richest princesses of Europe).
She became a widow on December 13, 1521, when Manuel died of the plague. As Queen Dowager of Portugal, Eleanor returned to the court of Carlos in Spain (then Holy Roman Emperor Charles V). Eleanor’s sister Infanta Catherine later married Eleanor’s stepson, King João III of Portugal.
In July 1523, Eleanor was engaged to Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, in an alliance between Emperor Charles V and the Duke of Bourbon against France, but the marriage never took place. In 1526, Eleanor was engaged to King François I of France during his captivity in Spain.