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Eleanor of Aragon, Queen of Cyprus

Eleanor of Aragon, Queen of Cyprus (1333-26 December 1417) was the Queen Consort of Cyprus from 1358 to 17 January 1369 with King Peter I of Cyprus. After her husband's murder in 1369, she invited the Republic of Genoa to invade Cyprus and avenge him, leading to the Genoese takeover of much of the island and its eventual downfall.

Biography[]

Eleanor of Aragon was born in 1333, the daughter of Count Pere of Ribagorza (1305-4 November 1381) and Joan of Foix. Her father was the son of Jaume II of Aragon, while her mother was the daughter of Gaston I of Foix, a fourth-great-granddaughter of Louis VIII of France, and the third-great-granddaughter of Henry III of England. As the cousin of King Pere IV of Aragon, she was married off to Peter I of Cyprus in 1353, and in 1366 she became regent of Cyprus while her husband crusaded against Alexandria, Egypt and many Levantine port cities. She cheated on her husband with titular Count of Edessa John of Morf, and her husband charged her with adultery in 1369 and became somewhat of a tyrant, leading to his assassination. Although Eleanor disapproved of her own husband's debauchery and absence, she sought to avenge his death, and she invited the Republic of Genoa to invade Cyprus. In 1373, Genoa occupied much of the island, and Eleanor dictated affairs for her son Peter II of Cyprus. In 1381, she was sent back to Spain by Peter, who was done with her poor decisions on his behalf. She became the ruler of the city of Valls, ruling with the archbishop and holding a court filled with her exiled minions from Cyprus. She died in 1416 in the Castle of Falsetto in Barcelona.

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