Blessed Joan, Princess of Portugal

Joanna of Portugal OP was a Portuguese regent princess of the House of Aviz, daughter of King Afonso V of Portugal and his first wife, Queen Isabel of Coimbra. She served as regent during the absence of her father in 1471. In 1475 she became a cloistered nun of the Dominican Order. She is venerated in the Catholic Church with the title 'Blessed', is commemorated by a feast on May 12, and is commonly known in Portugal as Holy Princess Joan (Portuguese: Santa Joana Princesa). Joanna was the second child of Afonso, but after the early death of her older brother John in 1451, she was recognized as heir presumptive and given the title of Princess of Portugal. Other children of the king were infantes. Upon the birth of her younger brother, the future John II of Portugal, in 1455, she ceased to be heir presumptive, but among the people she continued to be known as Princess Joanna. From a young age, Joanna expressed a desire to become a nun; however, as she was second-in-line to the throne, her father did not allow it. During his military expedition to Tangier in 1471, Joanna served as Regent of the Portuguese Kingdom. After vehemently refusing several proposals of marriage, Joanna joined the Dominican Convent of Jesus in Aveiro in 1475. Her brother had by then fathered an heir, so the family line was no longer in danger of extinction, and thus she entered the convent that same year her nephew Afonso was born in 1475. Still, she was compelled several times to leave the convent and return to court. She turned down an offer of marriage from Charles VIII of France, 18 years her junior. Her father abdicated in 1477, died in 1481, and was succeeded by her brother. In 1485, she received another offer, from the recently-widowed Richard III of England, who was only eight months younger. This was to be part of a double marital alliance, with his niece Elizabeth of York marrying her cousin, the future Manuel I.