Philippa was twenty-six when a king chose her over her younger sister. They had the same father. Only the younger one came with a claim to another kingdom. That was the difficulty.
On 1 November 1386, her father, John of Gaunt, met João I of Portugal at Ponte do Mouro. There they agreed plans for a joint invasion of Castile and for João's marriage to Philippa. The two arrangements belonged together. Gaunt needed Portuguese help to win a crown, and the Portuguese king needed allies to keep his own.
Philippa had come to Iberia with her father's expedition that summer. She was the eldest child of Gaunt and his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster, and a granddaughter of Edward III of England. Her younger brother Henry would one day take the English throne as Henry IV. In the autumn of 1386 nobody was expecting that, and her father's ambitions lay across the Castilian border.
She had grown up in a household large enough to contain several versions of family life. Blanche died while Philippa was still a child. Gaunt married again, and Katherine Swynford, governess to Philippa and her sister Elizabeth, later became his mistress. It was not a family that could be drawn neatly on a tree. Philippa learned to read and write. Books would remain part of her life long after she left England.
Her half-sister Catherine belonged to her father's second marriage. Catherine's mother was Constance of Castile, daughter of the murdered King Pedro. Through Constance, Gaunt claimed the Castilian throne. Catherine therefore carried an inheritance Philippa did not share, a claim through her mother to the kingdom her father had brought an army to conquer. The distinction between the sisters began with their mothers and reached into the question of who should rule Castile.
For João, that was a dangerous question to bring into his marriage.
He had become king amid a succession crisis and war with Castile. His birth outside marriage left him vulnerable to challenges that a victory on the battlefield could not entirely settle. A bride from the English royal family offered the prestige of an established dynasty, as well as a powerful connection abroad. England and Portugal had already made their Treaty of Windsor in May. Marriage would put a family behind the agreement.
Some of João's advisers wanted him to marry Catherine. Her claim offered the possibility of ruling Castile as well as Portugal. On paper, it was a considerable advantage. In practice, a disputed crown came with the people who disputed it, and João already had a kingdom to defend. He preferred Philippa, whose marriage could strengthen his English connection without bringing Catherine's claim into his own household.
The sisters had the same father. They did not offer the same future.
That was the calculation surrounding Philippa at twenty-six. Her royal ancestry made her useful to a new dynasty; her mother's line, which carried no claim to Castile, made her the safer choice of the two. A royal daughter's inheritance could be an asset or a liability, depending on who was marrying it. What Philippa thought of becoming Queen of Portugal, the record does not say.
Even with the choice made, one obstacle could not be settled between her father and her prospective husband. João had been master of the military Order of Aviz and had taken a vow of celibacy. Marriage required papal release from that obligation, and that took time. The November meeting opened the way to a wedding; it was not the wedding.
That followed at Porto in February 1387. Philippa became queen of the country her father had come to for soldiers, and she had an establishment of her own. Her household had officers responsible for its business and finances, Portuguese and English attendants, and an English chancellor. Her rank had been the point of the bargain; running the household was the work that came with it.
The woman inside that household is easier to glimpse than the daughter whose future was discussed at Ponte do Mouro. In Portugal, Philippa read the Psalms and enjoyed courtly games with her ladies. The education given to a duke's daughter had travelled with her. Her sons included Duarte, who would succeed his father as king, and Henrique, remembered in England as Henry the Navigator. She was Queen of Portugal for more than twenty-eight years, until her death in 1415.
At Batalha, her effigy lies beside João's on their shared tomb. Both wear crowns; he is shown in armour and she in court dress. The woman chosen at Ponte do Mouro has her right hand joined to her husband's. In the other, she holds a prayerbook.
