Poor Leanor had a number of unhappy run-ins with the Spanish aristocracy. She was initially engaged to the heir to the kingdom of Aragon, Jaime, but he renounced the material world and became a monk, which is not the most flattering way to woe a young girl. In the end she married his widowed younger brother Alfonso, who became Alfonso IV of Aragon.
She had two sons; the younger of them, Juan, was murdered by order of King Pedro of Castilla, and the elder was ordered murdered by his own step-brother, Pedro of Aragon, after her death.
Monarchy ain’t what it used to be.
The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 severely damaged the castle, as it did many others on the Iberian Peninsular.
It was a site once occupied by Celts and Romans, and there is even a legend that Julius Caesar founded the place.
The current castle remains were built by the Arabs in the 9thcentury, using a Roman tower as a starting point.