Leonor Teles was a queen consort of Portugal and regent during the years 1383–1385.
Background
A redheaded beauty, Dona Leonor Telles (or Teles) was the daughter of Martim Afonso Telo de Meneses, a nobleman in the Trás-os-Montes. She was gggg-granddaughter of Teresa Sanches, one of the illegitimate daughters of King Sancho I of Portugal by his mistress Maria Pais Ribeira.
Career
She was the wife of a Portuguese nobleman from whom she was forcibly divorced by King Ferdinand I, who afterward married her. She is called the Treacherous (Portuguese: a Aleivosa) by the Portuguese, who execrate her on account of her adultery and treason to her native country. She is considered "a sort of Portuguese Lucrezia Borgia".
Leonor"s sister, Maria Telles de Meneses, was a lady-in-waiting to Infanta Beatrice, daughter of Peter I of Portugal and Inês de Castro.
There, Leonor met Beatrice"s elder half-brother, the Infante Ferdinand, heir to the Portuguese throne, who fell passionately in love with her and proceeded to seduce her, in spite of his promise to marry Eleanor, daughter of Henry II of Castile. King Ferdinand managed to annul Leonor"s first marriage to João Lourenço da Cunha on grounds of consanguinity and on 5 May 1372 they were secretly married.
From 1383 onwards, Leonor ruled with her lover, João Fernandes de Andeiro, 2nd Count of Ourém, also called "Conde Andeiro", which angered the nobility and the lower classes. The loss of independence had been unthinkable for the majority of Portuguese nobles.
A rebellion led by the Master of the Order of Aviz, future John I of Portugal, started in that year, leading to the 1383–1385 Crisis.
Leonor died in exile in Valladolid.