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. This life traces that calling 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 virtue. Elizabeth therefore built a disciplined life for herself in the midst of a court. She rose early for prayer, ordered her hours carefully, dressed modestly, ate sparingly, and gave herself generously to the poor. She provided for pilgrims and strangers, sought out the needy, supplied marriage portions for poor girls, founded hospitals and houses of refuge, and still neglected none of the immediate duties owed to husband, household, and kingdom. This life is very plain that her married life was a hard one. Denis was an able ruler but an unfaithful husband, and Elizabeth bore his offences with patience, never ceasing to pray for his conversion. She even showed kindness to his natural children and took pains for their upbringing.

In time her son Alfonso also brought sorrow, rising against his father in bitterness and ambition. Twice Elizabeth rode out between opposing forces to make peace, and for a time she even suffered banishment because others persuaded the king that she secretly favoured their son. Yet peacemaking was exactly the work given her. She reconciled father and son, helped prevent war among neighbouring rulers, and became known less as a queen of splendour than as a queen who could stop bloodshed. When Denis fell gravely ill in 1324, she scarcely left his room except to go to church, and his last sickness ended in real signs of repentance. After his death she made a pilgrimage to Compostela and desired to retire more completely from the world. Though dissuaded from entering the cloister, she took the Franciscan third-order habit and lived with great simplicity near the convent of Poor Clares that she had founded at Coimbra. Her last journey was again for peace. In old age, and in the heat of summer, she travelled to Estremoz to reconcile contending princes, and there she died in 1336. the picture holds together all the parts: princess, wife, widow, almsgiver, and above all peacemaker.