The Mediterranean in the 14th century

María de Padilla

Peter I the Cruel met Doña Maria de Padilla in 1352 during an expedition to Asturias. She came from an important family of Castile and the chronicles of the time describe her as “extremely beautiful, of great intelligence and slight of person”. Maria de Padilla became Peter I’s mistress and was his eternal love, in spite of the king’s various marriages.

They had a son –who died young– and three daughters, two of whom married European nobles. Friends and relatives of Maria became part of the court and had their say in some of the political decisions made. When she died in 1361, there was great mourning in her honour throughout the lands of the Crown of Castile. She was buried in the Convent of the order of St. Clare that she herself had founded in Astudillo, a town in the region of Palencia.

Peter I declared, in the “Cortes” held in Seville, that his first and only wife had been Maria de Padilla, and in 1362 ordered that her body be moved to the chapel of the monarchs in St. Mary’s Church.

Her remains now lie next to those of Peter I in the Cathedral of Seville.