Dulce of Aragon

Dulce of Aragon also called Dulce of Barcelona, was Queen of Portugal as the wife of King Sancho I of Portugal. Life Dulce was the eldest daughter of Queen Petronila of Aragon and Count Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona. She was the sister of the future King Alfonso II of Aragon. Dulce's bethrothal to infante Sancho, son of Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, was celebrated when she was eleven years old and the marriage in 1174. Not much is known about her life prior to her arrival in Portugal or of the wedding tokens she received upon her marriage. "A beautiful and excellent lady, quiet and modest, her personality coinciding with her name," Dulce was used as a commodity to seal an alliance which aimed to "strengthen Portugal and to contain the expansionism of Castile and León" and she played the role that was expected of her as a wife and as the mother of numerous children. At the same time, the marriage compensated for the broken engagement of her husband's sister, Infanta Mafalda with her brother, the future King Alfonso II of Aragon. With the death of King Afonso Henriques in 1185, her husband ascended the throne and she became Queen consort of Portugal. In his first will, executed in 1188, her husband gave her the income from Alenquer, of the lands along the banks of the Vouga River, of Santa Maria da Feira and of Oporto.