St. Elizabeth of Portugal was a queen. She served the poor and helped her country avoid war during the 13th and 14th centuries.
Elizabeth of Portugal was named for her great-aunt, St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Their lives were similar in some important ways: both of them were married at very young ages, they sought to live the precepts of the Gospel despite their status as royalty, and finished their lives as members of the Third Order of St. Francis.
Elizabeth was born in 1271, the daughter of King Pedro III of Aragon and his wife Constantia. From childhood itself, Elizabeth showed a notable devotion to God through fasting, regular prayer, and a sense of life’s seriousness. While still very young, she was married to King Diniz of Portugal, a marriage that would put her faith and patience to the test.
King Diniz was faithfully devoted to his country, known as the “Worker King” because of his diligence. Unfortunately, he generally failed to live out the same faithfulness toward his wife, although he is said to have repented of his years of infidelity before his death. Diniz and Elizabeth had two children, but the king fathered an additional seven children with other women.
Many members of the king’s court likewise embraced or accepted various forms of immorality, and it would have been easy for the young queen to fall into these vices herself. But Elizabeth remained intent on doing God’s will with a humble and charitable attitude. Rather than using her status as queen to pursue her own satisfaction, she sought to advance Christ’s reign on earth.
She compelled the women who served her at court to care for them as well. The queen’s bishop testified that she had a custom of secretly inviting in lepers, whom she would bathe and clothe, even though the law of the land barred them from approaching the castle.
Following the death of her husband King Diniz in 1325, Elizabeth had become a Franciscan of the Third Order. And she had left the palace and joined to live in a convent that she had established some years before. The testimony of miracles accomplished through her intercession, after her death in 1336, contributed to her canonization by Pope Urban VIII in 1625.