Diary,
If you still wonder why the bachelor is afraid of love, ask Inês de Castro, a 14th century Galician noblewoman and courtier, best known as lover and posthumously recognised wife of King Pedro I of Portugal.
Allow me to lay the scene. Inês comes to Portugal when Pedro is only a prince, soon-to-be-king once his father King Afonso kicks the bucket. By then, Prince Pedro is married to Princess Constance, the queen-to-be, but one look at Inês and Pedro goes bonkers. I must admit, not for one second do I don’t blame Pedro. Going by her numerous portraits, Inês was one of the prettiest women from that era. Eat your heart out, Mona Lisa.
So, Pedro and Inês begin seeing each other in secret, which expectedly, makes Princess Constance furious. Somehow (wink, wink), King Afonso gets the news of the tryst and immediately reprimands his son, warning him away from Inês.
“But I can’t,” I imagine Pedro saying. “She already has three kids by me.”
This does little to sway the ageing king, but love always finds a way. After Constance dies, Pedro insists on taking Inês as his wife, infuriating King Afonso so badly that he banishes Pedro from the kingdom. What follows is a bloody civil war between father and son. Pedro wins the war and gets the throne, but not before King Afonso sends three men to a monastery where Inês and her three kids lay in hiding. The men behead her in front of her small children.
As soon as Pedro assumes the throne, he goes on a hunt for the men who killed his love, captures two of them, and has their hearts ripped out of their ribcages in full public view. However, revenge doesn’t fully sate the irate new king. He exhumes his lover’s remains, has the corpse dressed in royal regalia, posed on the queen’s throne, and commands the nation to pay homage to the dead Inês as their royal queen.
Marriage, illicit affairs, beheadings, wars… Did I mention all this actually happened? And yet, not even the great Shakespeare could have crafted a better tragicomedy.