While the future Queen Isabella I of Castile was the first-born daughter of the marriage between King John II of Castile and Isabella of Portugal, she had three short-lived half-sisters from her father’s first marriage to Maria of Aragon. She also had one full brother, the future King Henry IV of Castile, and one half-brother, Alfonso.
On 5 October 1522, Maria of Aragon gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Catherine. Although it was still expected that the couple would eventually have a son, it was decided to have young Catherine sworn in as Princess of Asturias. Sometime at the end of January or beginning of February 1423, this ceremony took place in Toledo. All the nobles kissed the hands of the little infant as the proud parents looked on. The first to do so was the future King John II of Aragon.
On 10 December 1423, Maria of Aragon gave birth to a second daughter, Leonor.1
Tragedy struck on 10 September 1424 when Catherine died suddenly at the royal palace of Madrigal. It is not clear what the cause of death was. Little Catherine was buried at Madrigal de las Altas Torres.
Even though Queen Maria was several months pregnant, the King moved quickly to have Eleanor sworn in as Princess of Asturias in the same ceremony as Catherine had been. She held the title for just a few months as the future King Henry IV was born on 5 January 1525. He was sworn in as Prince of Asturias in April 1425. In any case, young Eleanor would also not survive to adulthood as she died sometime in 1425.
Maria and John went on to have another short-lived daughter, Maria, in 1428. In the end, Henry was their only child to survive to adulthood. After the elder Maria’s death in 1445, John remarried Isabella of Portugal, with whom he had the future Queen Isabella I and Infante Alfonso.
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