St. Elizabeth of Portugal

Elizabeth of Portugal, known in her own country as Isabella, was born in 1271, daughter of Peter III of Aragon, and from the beginning seemed marked for peace. That calling can be traced back even to her childhood, when careful training in obedience and self-command taught her to govern herself before she ever had to help govern others. At twelve she was married to Denis, King of Portugal. He admired her rank, beauty, and manner, and he allowed her great freedom in devotion, but he did not share her religious seriousness and was repeatedly unfaithful. Elizabeth bore that cross with patience. She raised the legitimate children alongside the king's illegitimate ones, managing the household without bitterness and using her position to pour alms upon hospitals, pilgrim hostels, and the poor.

What makes her life extraordinary is the peacemaking. She stepped between her husband and their son Alfonso when they came to the edge of war, riding out between the armies. Later, after Denis died and she had entered the Third Order of St. Francis and settled near the convent she had founded at Coimbra, she came out of retirement once more to prevent war between her son, now King Alfonso IV, and her son-in-law the King of Castile. She was old and exhausted by the journey, and she died at Estremoz in 1336 shortly after completing that last mission. She received the name the Peacemaker, and it suited her entire life. The crown, the hair-shirt beneath the royal dress, the lavish charity, and the repeated ride between armies all belong to the same woman, holding everything in its proper place.