St. Elizabeth of Portugal

Who they were

Elizabeth of Aragon was named for her great aunt St. Elizabeth of Hungary, canonized four years before her birth, and was married at twelve to King Denis of Portugal: a capable ruler and a faithless husband, whose illegitimate children Elizabeth, in the detail that stunned her own century, raised with care.

Her life's signature was made on a battlefield. When Denis and their son Afonso brought armies to the field against each other, Elizabeth rode out on a mule into the open ground between the lines and refused to leave until father and son stood down. They did. Widowed, she took the Franciscan tertiary's habit at her husband's tomb and did it once more: hearing that Afonso, now king, was marching against his own son in law, the old queen set out to interpose again, securing the peace at Estremoz, where the journey killed her in 1336. Portugal still uses the title it buried her under: Rainha Santa, the Holy Queen, the woman who ended wars by standing in the middle.

Why people turn to St. Elizabeth of Portugal

Everyone standing between two people they love: the mother between a feuding husband and son, the sibling between siblings, the one who hosts the holiday where the cold war thaws or does not. Brides entering complicated houses.

How to ask their intercession

Before the intervention. Her method was presence in the open ground: no side taken, and no leaving until there was peace.