Listen to the episode here.

We’re deep in Spooky Season, as Angie and Theresa share some tales to get us in the spirit.

Theresa starts things off when she covers the sinking of the Andelana. This four-mast ship was safely anchored in Tacoma, Washington, when a storm hit, sinking the vessel in minutes without witnesses. All 17 men aboard were drowned. Then we have to unpack the tragedies that happen after it sinks…

Angie outdoes herself when she covers Inês de Castro and Pedro (Peter 1 of Portugal). You might have already heard of Inês. She’s the skeleton queen of Portugal. It’s a rather sordid tale involving multiple civil wars fought for love. It’s just unfortunate for Peter 1, that his love lasts longer than his partner’s life span.

These stories pair well with:
The Haunted Queen Mary
Lady Mary Howard

Transcript
Theresa: Hi, and welcome to the Unhinged History Podcast, a podcast where two friends join forces weekly and tell each other the history stories that we have compulsively forced our spouse and members of our household to learn. I am host one, I am Teresa, and that is Angie. I am Angie. 

Angie: I did it again. One of these days I won’t cut you off. 

Theresa: No, I mean, I didn’t think you were going to say anything, so I figured I’d just keep going. 

Angie: Actually, I was thinking about how usually I compulsively like overshare all of the information about my story with my husband, but this time I totally like word vomited all over my son just a few minutes ago. I don’t. Like, but to be fair, he asked. He was like, oh, what’s your story about this week? And I was like, opportunity. 

Theresa: Well, you ask and I won’t hold back. 

Angie: Pretty much. Allow me. You’re a captive audience in the car, so here we go. 

Theresa: You need to tell me if you’re losing focus on this. Just stare out the window and give mommy a moment. 

Angie: Just let me say my piece, okay? And he, you know, he looks longingly out the window like a teenager and like, you know, in the film and they’re the rain, they’re driving to their new town and the rain is 

Theresa: like, yeah, and he’s in the back of the station wagon. You guys even own a station wagon. 

Angie: Yeah, and it’s not even raining, but you know, 

Theresa: I just, I’m looking at this realizing you took the whole episode. That means I have to go. 

Angie: No, it wasn’t me. Did I do the whole episode? 

Theresa: You were a solo. You did Genghis Khan. Oh, hot dog. 

Angie: Sure did. Yeah. So you get to go first this time. 

Theresa: Okay. All right. In which case, I’m going to tell you the story of the Andalana. Andalana. Yep. There’s no recognition floating through your face, which is what I was hoping for. Just no recognition. 

Angie: I, okay. So I’m thinking of something, but I think what I’m thinking of has a very different name. So what are you thinking of? There is that Spanish ghost story about the woman who like, the Yorona. 

Theresa: Maybe the one who drowns children. Yes. Yeah, that’s the Yorona. Okay. 

Angie: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking of. So I’m assuming these are not related. 

Theresa: No, no. Not at all. Okay. So my sources, historylink.org, the bark Andalana disappears while lying at anchor at Tacoma on January 14th, 1899 by Darryl C. McCleary, South Sound Talk, few relics remain of the Andalana, Tacoma’s largest maritime disaster by Steve Dunkelberger. And pretty gritty. I’m sorry. That’s a name right there. 

I mean, I wanted to rename him, but I think I was faithful. Then this is how I originally found out about the story. There is an account on TikTok, pretty gritty tours, Tacoma’s most cursed object. I love that. 

Angie: That’s amazing. I just recently discovered that you can own, well, I don’t know that own is the right word, but you can be the curator of cursed objects museums. And I, fortunately, I know it’s not late enough in life for me to do that, but like, how did I not know that until just recently? 

Theresa: I think if you had a museum of cursed objects, it would be in your later part of life. You could be three. Honestly. And it would be like, no, you’re on your way out because this is what you own. Yeah. 

Angie: Like, and how do you, I cannot wait to write my will for that. 

Theresa: You’re going to need to start acquiring cursed objects. 

Angie: Right. Oh, I have a couple. Curating. Like I’ve got a couple of things that Ian’s brought home to me that I’ve been like, oh my God, that’s amazing. And his responses, I saw and thought this must be cursed. My wife wants it. 

Theresa: Like, it’s a Victorian doll. His head spins all the way around on its own. 

Angie: One of them is a ring of what is supposed to be the like visage of Jesus and his beard has dangly diamonds. Like that just sounds gaudy. It’s as soon as I thought I was like, I must have that. I will keep that forever. And he’s like, yeah, that’s what I thought. 

Theresa: Wow. That is. That is something you find in your great aunt’s jewelry box. You’re just like, she wanted me to have this. Can we check again? 

Angie: Thanks, Edith. I always knew I was her favorite. I wished I wasn’t, though. I never did before now, but now I do. 

Theresa: All right. So anyhow, the Andalana. She is a four mast square rigged bark, which is, I guess, a type of boat. You’re nodding like you already knew this. 

Angie: Well, when you said four mast square rigged, I thought, OK, we’re dealing with a ship. 

Theresa: But the type of ship is a bark. OK. It’s a bark-bark. Wolf-wolf. And it was built by R. Williamson and Son in Workington, England, and that’s done in 1889 for the Andalina sailing ship company limited of Liverpool, England. So we’ve got a ton of provenance for this thing. OK. By the time she’s 10 years old, she weighs not that she kept growing. $5,395 ton. I realize I said that. 

Angie: Thank you for that. I just had this visual of a mommy ship and a daddy ship, and they’re proudly watching their daughter learn how to float. 

Theresa: When two ships love each other very, very much. Exactly. She’s almost 304 feet in length and just over 42 feet of brim. I looked up what that meant before, a beam, 42.3 feet of beam. And then did I retain it? No, I did not. 

Angie: Well, if she’s 304 feet in length, then a beam would be whipped. OK. 

Theresa: Then what’s 24.6 feet draft? Height? I don’t know. Sure. 

Angie: Anyhow, one of those is height, one of those is width. OK. 

Theresa: The shipmaster is a man named George W. Stalling. He’s 42. He’s from Nova Scotia. He’s an experienced lifelong mariner. He’s sailed the world. So this is, if you’re going to deal with somebody, Georgie Boy is our man. 

He’s who you are in your back pocket, yeah? Now, the Andalina arrived in Ballast at Tacoma from Shanghai, and it did that on Monday, January 9th, 1899. And it had raced from Hong Kong to San Francisco, and that seems like a long distance. It did it in 31 days. 

OK. It did that in 1892. I have all these things because, for whatever reason, how fast this thing could go was both long and short. She goes from New York to Yokohama, Japan in 119 days. 

Angie: Holy cow. I’m assuming we’re going around here, Del Fuego, still at this point? 

Theresa: Or are we kind of- I think so, yeah. I mean, you’re definitely not getting the ship picked up and carried over Europe. 

Angie: Why was thinking across America? We’re going around South America. 

Theresa: I mean, that could work too. I don’t exactly know the route. 

Angie: Now, I’m curious when the Panama Canal was built. Obviously, I know it was built in whatever, but what did we do before then? Did we sail around big objects, take more food with us? Yeah, or pick it up and carry it across land, I guess. 

Theresa: Anyway, I don’t think you’re carrying on the ship over land. 

Angie: Yeah, it doesn’t picture that way. 

Theresa: When it goes from New York to Yokohama in 119 days, it’s carrying a cargo of case oil in 1895. And then it gets from Shanghai to Port Angeles. Port Angeles is in North Washington. It does that in 47 days. And then it sails to Tacoma just days later. So that kind of gives you, you’re with me in time now. You know how this ship has just been hauling ass. She’d be doing her thing. Right. So when she gets to Tacoma, she’s emptied of the steel and then prepared to fill the holes again with wheat that’s going to Queenstown. In, like, Australia? That’s what I think so. But as soon as I saw your face, I’m like, I’m not sure exactly where that is. 

But I think Australia. I imagine there’s more than one. You know, there were there were mini queens. And lots of towns. Right. But the vessel. So it’s in Tacoma. 

It is. We know where it was docked. It was docked on Eureka dock at 535 Dock Street. It’s a 400 foot, 130 foot wide warehouse facility that’s operated by Tacoma Warehouse and Elevator Company. Now, this place holds 10,000 tons of grain. So it’s got a lot. And they completely empty out the undelena for this because they’re getting ready to fill her to the brim to send her all the way down yonder. Now, okay, I’m sorry. 

Angie: I’m stuck on it being a warehouse and elevator company. 

Theresa: You know, that did feel weird to me, but I’m pretty sure it was like, this is the industrial square of town. So we put all the industrial stuff here, including the elevator company. 

Angie: I mean, it checks. It does. I’ve just, my brain is like, where do you put the elevator parts if you got 10,000 tons of grain? 

Theresa: Not in the same facility next door. Clearly. Obviously. 

Angie: This is where we keep the elevators. This is where we keep the grain. Right. I mean, keep up with us. 

Theresa: Read the map. I handed it to you. Now, to show you kind of the depth and breadth of this facility, because I told you it held 10,000 tons, the undelena is getting ready to take on 300 or 3,500 tons of grain. Okay. So, I mean, basically three big ass ships worth of grain. Yeah. 

Okay. Now, when she arrived in Tacoma, our man, Georgie Boy, Captain Staling, he had a crew of 28 men. And this is including his officers. When they get into port, eight seamen, plus the second and third mates signed off on the vessel and they go aboard some other cargo vessels like the SS, Dorigo and the SS Henry failing. It’s rumored that the andelina is pretty unstable during heavy seas. 

And apparently this is because of she had some super tall mass and that just made her just untenable for the situation. So, with that in mind, the seamen, they’re like, now we’re done. We’re signing off. This is our stop. 

We’re going to, we’ll catch you late. And replacements are pretty difficult to find and nobody really wants to go aboard her. So, the captain makes some decisions. He doesn’t want the rest of the crew to go ashore while the ships import. 

He’s like, you guys are here. We’ve got a thing to do. It’s going to be too hard to replace you. Stay aboard. The only person who is the exception of this rule is a man named Percy B Buck. He’s an apprentice seamen. He’s allowed to leave for a face entry that he’s got and he’s taken to Fannie Paddock Memorial Hospital. Now it’s Tacoma general. 

Okay. So, he gets, you know, he goes to shore to get it, to get a space looked at. Now, on Friday, January 14th, 1899, the Tacoma tug and barge company tugboat Fairfield, that’s the name of the tugboat, moved the andelina to an anchorage in the middle of the bay. And this is after she drops off her anchor that’s weighing three tons. She’s got this long, thick ballast logs that help keep her afloat. Those are chained to both sides of her hull to keep the ship on an even keel while she’s riding so much higher up out of the water. 

She’s got nothing in her cargo holds. Oh, right. That makes sense. And then approximately at 3.20 a.m. on January 15th, so we, for Friday, Saturday, there was a violent squall that swept into commencement Bay. And they’re saying that rains and wind gusts were in excess of 40 miles per hour. 

So this was a pretty decent storm that just swept in. The ship apparently started to pitch and started to really sway with this blast and the waves amplified the rolls because the hulls empty. And so it makes the ship seem more like a cork floating in some rough waters rather than a boat. Because it’s empty, right? She’s empty. So she’s riding high. 

Okay. And we already know that she was pretty unstable in some rough seas. Now, the ship seemed to really tug and strain against the chains that had moored into place, but something ended up having to give. And the ship was under the waves by dawn. Its 17-member crew is never seen again, and no witnesses saw what happened. 

Angie: Okay. So just for my visual understanding, it’s got the ballast holders that are keeping an even keel. This massive storm comes in with 40-mile-an-hour winds, and it just sinks by morning and no one saw it sink. Correct. Okay. That’s where we are in the story. Okay. 

Theresa: But I love the summary. 

Angie: Now, I just had to have the visual because I’m thinking there would be some sort of ruckus being made. 

Theresa: You would think, but also the storm, I’m assuming, is a storm and loud on its own. 

Angie: And keeping everybody inside so they’re not going to really notice. Yeah. Okay. 

Theresa: Got it. Yep. Now, news of the sinking rippled just quickly. It goes all over the world. It appears in newspapers in California and even New Zealand. So this was breaking news. 

Okay. Now, here is a quote from the San Francisco call that came out the day after. It said, there’s no doubt when a terrible gale sprang up last night, she partly turned over. This lifted her starboard blast log out of the water and the weight caused a defective link to break. 

Thus, released from the log, the ship turned over suddenly on her beam ends, and in another instant, water was pouring down her hatchways. But these were loosely covered and afforded no protection with her toppling mask and towering side to give the gale full swing. The Andalina went over as though she were a racing shell. How the seamen struggled to escape can be imagined, but without a doubt, they had scarcely leaped from their bunks into the inflowing waters before their vessel had struck the bottom, 23 and a half fathoms below the surface. This is indicated by the fact that the vessel did not drift from her mooring place but sank almost at the spot where she was moored last night. 

With daylight this morning, the Andalina was missed where she’d been riding, apparently secure at dusk last night, but there was a blank stretch of water. Wow. And that part just really got me. So the only evidence that gave anybody a clue was there was a lifeboat found on the shore, a bobbing mooring log with its broken chain and a mattress that had borne the name Andalina. That was it. But at daybreak, the people who really started to put the call out, there’s a man named Captain Sammel Dottie of the British four massed bark, Walter H. Wilson, and he’d been only a few hundred yards away from the Andalina and he noticed the ship had vanished. 

Just woke up and the person who was in the landing spot next to him, the tent was gone, but not a tent, not a camping. I know it. I got the visual. 

Angie: All right. All right. So he assumed that the vessel had basically slipped anchor and just drifted away. So being a good man and trying to figure out how to help, he and his crew launched a dinghy and they row from Eureka dock where the Tugbett Fairfield had been moored. And they’re basically just trying to look and it’s there that Captain Dottie enlisted the help of Captain John E. Kenny, the Tacoma port surveyor and Captain Thomas S. Burley, master of the Fairfield. And they’re the ones that crossed the anchorage to investigate the Andalina disappearance. 

And they end up not finding a trace of the vessel. The Fairfield then crossed to the northeast side of the bay, one half mile from Brown’s point where they found that ballast log with broken chains. And then that’s when Burley and Dottie discovered the lifeboat mattress that had had the ship’s name. They also found a couple of oars that had washed up onto the beach. And that’s when they figured out what had probably happened. 

Okay. So further searched because people are like there were 17 people on that dock, right? Every time they go to search, it’s fruitless. The Fairfield returned to the anchorage after four hours of grappling irons. And they’ve located the Andalina lying broadside on the bottom about 500 yards off the east end of St. Paul and Tacoma lumberwark. 

St. Paul and Tacoma lumber company wharf. Captain Burley marked her position with lighted buoy as a potential hazard for the anchor vessels, right? Because she’s going to be sticking up out of the water. Later that night, a second lightboat and fog horn surfaced and retrieved from the water. So Captain’s Burley, Kenny and Dottie, they believe that the squalls swept across commencement Bay that night because they were there. They saw the waves come or felt it at least. And they think it struck the Andalina broadside and that the ship probably keeled very sharply starboard because again, she’s riding high. And that lift the port side ballast log out of the water and the logs weight broke the mooring chain. Without that additional weight because she’s up on her side to stabilize it, the top heavy vessel capsized. And there were tons of water that flooded her open holes and then she sunk like a stone immediately. Yeah, in 200 feet of water. 

Angie: Thank you for clarifying because I’ve been sitting here like, okay, you have these logs that are designed to keep her even though. Like what happened to them? Obviously, if one of them broke, then the other one’s toast. 

Theresa: Now Captain Stalling and the 16 sailors, they’ve been trapped in their birthing quarters and went down with the ship. And we only have the seaman apprentice Buck who survived because he’d been hospitalized. Oh, wow. 

I bet he’s got survivors, Gulp. Right. The entire accident took only a matter of minutes, they believe. Yeah, okay. And the story remains largely because it’s the largest shipping disaster in Tacoma, but also because the ship’s never been raised or salvaged. Oh, we just left it there. They’re there. They’re still there on the floor of commencement bay. And the Tacoma Historical Society Treasurer and author Deb Freeman said they think they’re still under there. They think they can still find something. 

Angie: Wow. Now, but is that the right thing to do? Well, I mean, I got a little bit more to go. Oh, let’s go. 

Theresa: After learning about the disaster, quartermaster George Kennedy aboard the steam ship Tacoma told the Seattle Post Intelligencer that he had shipped with the Andalana on her last voyage, but it’s signed off at the vessel at Shanghai. And he’d learned from a former shipmate who’d signed off the ship to Tacoma that Captain Sterling, this is the worst part, had been locking the crew in the forecastle at night to prevent anyone from deserting and leaving the ship shorthanded. 

Angie: So y’all are staying whether you want to or not? Yep. 

Theresa: And the quote is, they must have gone down like rats in a trap without a chance to save themselves. Good Lord. Now, the eight people who had signed off the boat that I told you about the game of story, their replacements had been hired, but they had they were not due to report on board until the day of departure. Because that makes sense. So there were going to there’s going to be eight new crew members. So they were just like, well, there was my job. 

Angie: Yeah, but also good thing I didn’t like getting on that boat. Yeah. 

Theresa: Now, the Andalana was insured by Lord’s Maritime of London for $100,000. And because they’re an insurance company, they’d contracted with salvagers to explore the likelihood and cost of raising the vessel, which they thought is basically going to be largely in damage as she went down so quickly and cleanly. Okay. There were proposals for dragging the ship into the shallow water where divers could safely batten down the hatch covers and pump the sea water out while pumping in air, which seems like an incredible feat in pre 1900. 

Yeah, okay. And they were thinking that once the mast spars and ricking are removed, and this is going to weigh like 40 tons. And of course, I’m blindly blindly blindly reading this from a paper acting like I know all. Yeah, like, of course, that’s 40 tons when you add it all together. I don’t make sense. They thought that the ship with all that mass removed would write itself and then just float to the surface. 

Angie: Oh, they must be speaking from experience. 

Theresa: Okay. More experience than I’ve got. So I’m going to go with them on this one. And then they had a dry dock prepared at quartermaster harbor and then would they move it into position and assist in pulling me on the line back to service. The vessel would then be refitted at Doctin shipyards on Murray Island in King County. 

King County is the county that Seattle’s in. Okay. Now, all of these efforts failed. 

Shocking. I mean, I feel like they had the best of intentions and more experience than I. They had procured expensive equipment and they brought it to the wreck site on barges. 

So they did their best. They had numerous grappling irons and they’re all affixed to the hull and cables are strung out on the four most powerful tugboats and Puget sound. All as the tugboats powered ahead, the cables unable to withstand the weight parted suddenly relieved at the enormous burden. 

The tug short surged forward, almost ramming a nearby dock. They don’t want to come up. Not at all. 

Now, apparently there’s more temps to remove and raise the vessel, but due to the water’s depth, they’re all unsuccessful and several people died. Of course. We’ve got one notable one. It’s a man named William Baldwin. He’s 45. He’s a master mariner and a deep sea diver from Seattle. Now, this is, he’s what’s called a hard hat diver. 

Are you familiar with this? Are these underwater construction pillows? Maybe. I don’t think so. And so imagine the old, tiny sea, like a sea suit. Like we’re talking the steam punk aesthetic. Yeah. Yeah. That’s what, okay. 

Angie: So that’s what that is. So I guess that makes sense because their hats are hard. Right? Yeah. That’s funny that you would call it that. I love it. Okay. 

Theresa: I mean, I didn’t call it that. I didn’t know the name of it until this. 

Angie: So I’m not saying you as in you, but that, that a person would be like, yes, yes, hard hat. That’s what you are. Yep. 

Theresa: I mean, I just like, I’d be more hard helmet, hard shell, hard cave. Yeah. You know, I had a like, that only covers the top portion of my head. I like my jaw too. I like them to stay attached to each other. Right. 

They look, they look better as a matching pair. Love it. Now hard hat divers during this time, they don’t usually descend beyond 150 feet because of the terrific water pressure, but Baldwin, he’s done three dives, the Andalina at 200 feet deep. And that had constituted at a time a record for deep sea diving. 

But unfortunately for Baldwin, the compressed air pump aboard the salvage bar was guaranteed to deliver a pressure of 75 PSI and 95 PSI was required to ensure the diving suit remained properly inflated at 200 feet. Okay. So we already see a discrepancy here. Now during his fourth descent, the gasket on the pump’s third cylinder failed, the pressurized suit collapsed and Baldwin is immediately crushed to death. Didn’t see that coming. 

Neither did he. It’s a good grief. Yeah. And Pierce County coroner jury exonerated Baldwin’s dive crew stating that they’d done everything possible to save his life after the mishap occurred. 

It was Baldwin himself who had inspected the air compressor the previous day and he thought it was safe. That is unfortunate. He was due to receive 35 grand for his daring efforts if the Andalina was saved. So, okay. 

And then he was going for it. Reportedly, every piece, every time a piece of the Andalina has been recovered by divers, they tend to die in two days. She’s cursed. That’s kind of what we’re going for. Now, after Baldwin dies, all further attempts to salvage, I should say serious attempts to salvage the vessel, they’re abandoned. There’s a few perfunctory plans to move the ship from where she is because that could be a minor hazard, but nothing really comes fruition here. It’s all finally agreed that the Andalina couldn’t be salvaged and she’s left to be covered by tons of silt flowing from the bay, from the Ploallop River. 

And then to this day, the four-mast bark lies rusting at the bottom of commencement bay as the final resting place of 17 mariners. Wow. A little bit more. You ready? Mm-hmm. 

Now, meanwhile, in Tacoma, same city, 1900, so just a hop, skip, and a jump in time away, the overloaded streetcar jumped the tracks and over 40 people were crushed to death as it rolled down a hill. Okay. You’re looking for the tie-in. 

Angie: I have a suspicion and it would be wild if I was right. Carry on. What’s your suspicion? The captain is in that car. The captain went down with the boat. No, he didn’t. In my brain, he made it out. 

Theresa: Okay. Well, there’s unnamed Tacoma resident who takes a piece of the bloody wood and he ends up carving a scale model of the Andalana and that model lives on at Foswather Seaport Museum. Now, the staff, they can’t get their electronics close to this thing without their tech going haywire. With the quote, it will fry them. 

Angie: So, So this car accident, a piece of wood from the street car accident, is carved with a replica of the Andalana on it and it’s now sitting in the museum and you can’t take your phone near it. Basically. 

Theresa: Cool. Now, like all disaster stories, there’s been some close calls with the Andalana as well that really feed into the retelling of its story, either as history or a ghost story. 

I mean, it just feeds this conspiracy, right? Now the captain had expected his ship to be towed into the loading berth the following day and he was invited to have dinner ashore. The story goes that he declined the offer saying his place was aboard the ship and he would be drowned just hours later. The ship’s apprentice who went ashore to the doctor and apparently was an abscessed tooth, he was supposed to be there when the ship sank, which that’s the bummer part. Now, one of the more eerie stories of the Andalana is that the dead were photographed in a single image. A maritime photographer, Wilhelm Hester, had taken the photo the previous day and everybody in the photo, including the dog, were all dead by the time the photograph was printed. 

Angie: Good Lord. That’s not even a little bit creepy. 

Theresa: The story goes that Hester is just utterly devastated by this, right? To the point where he refuses to photograph an entire crew for the rest of his career. He demands these. Yeah, he’s like, you know what? If you want a picture, I need one of you to step out. One of you. 

Angie: He all can’t be in my picture. Take the dog. 

Theresa: And wow, the victims were JR Brown. He was a cook from Barbados. E.H. Crow, first mate, 39 from London, very Nova Scotia. James Daly, boatswain mate, 42 of New York. Joseph M.A. Jo-Yer, apprentice, 19 from Austin, Belgium. 

E.G. Doe, second mate, 33 from Blackpool, England. Richard Reginald, Hange, apprentice, 18, Austin, Belgium. H. Hansen, Abel Seaman, 31 from Sweden. Anton Jensen, Seaman, 30 from Denmark. Verney Josse, Stewart, 37, Victoria, British Columbia. Edward Blitz, Seaman, 25. 

Riga, Russia. Frederick Lindstorm, Seaman, 47 from Norway. John Nielsen, Seaman, 28 Norway. E. Ostrom, Seaman, 28 Finland. August Simonsen, Seaman, 23 from Holland. Charles Smith, boatswain mate, 49 from unnamed USA. George W. Staling, captain, 42, Anopolis, Nova Scotia. And Patrick William, Seaman, 26, St. John’s, Newfoundland. Wow. That is a… That’s the story. 

Angie: That is a wide array of sailors on that ship. Right? 

Theresa: That’s kind of awesome. The cook was from Barbados, so the food tasted good. They had spice. 

Angie: Yeah, they sure did. That was so funny. He said my first one was like, ooh, he’s from Barbados. I’m gonna eat that food. That’s good. Right? Yeah, good for him. Yep. Wow. Okay. I have no idea how to transition, so I’m just gonna take a hard left. Go for it. Believe it or not, I only have three sources. Are you so proud of me? 

Theresa: I don’t know. I mean, if one of them read it? No. 

Angie: Is it good? Okay, so my… I’m gonna tell you the story of an Aztec Astro. Are you familiar with this name? I feel like I should be. Hmm, well, if you’re not, I would be shocked by the end of the story. Okay, so my first source and my biggest one was Google’s Arts and Culture. I love that page and I never get to use it for anything for the podcast, so I was happy that this was like an actual, like relevant, useful moment for me. In Aztec Astro, the macabre tale of the skeleton queen by Holly Williams. This was an article from April of 22 in the DVC, like just their online resource, which I actually didn’t use for this first story, but the artwork was really fun. 

And then there is something called All Grave History Association.com that has the tragic story of an Aztec Astro. Okay. I thought it would be really fun to do a love story for Spooky Season, so here I am. 

Theresa: You know, but I don’t, I’m not surprised. 

Angie: Right, okay, so if anything, my story is a bit macabre, but it’s very fun. So I’m gonna tell you about Portugal’s only skeleton queen, which I realize implies other countries have had them. Is this the one who dug up? Maybe. I gotta listen now, okay. 

Yeah, you gotta listen now. Okay, so, Inez Acastro, she is born into a comfortable life in 1325. She’s the daughter of Pedro Fernandez Acastro. He’s the Lord of Lemos in Suria, and his lovely Portuguese noble mistress, Aldonca Lorenzo Lorencho de Valadarres. Okay, oh, thank God I got that name done. So Inez, she’s this mixed bag of descendancy of Galatian, Portuguese, and Castilian nobility. 

Like, she can sort of claim it on all sides, and that behooves her. But like to be completely honest, full of transparency here, I don’t know a ton of Portuguese history or their geographical regions very well, so for me, I felt like a family tree would either be the most helpful thing in the world or confuse me even more. So I just was like, okay, I’m just gonna take what I need to know for this story and learn everything later. Because it is a pretty interesting timeline and a pretty interesting cultural history to look into. What I do know for sure though, is that eventually through the line of one of her family trees, we’ll eventually see Catherine of Argonne. 

Okay, that’s pretty cool. So some sort of connection to a history we do know, right there, okay. So our girl, she is the illegitimate daughter, not really sure if that makes a difference here in the grand scheme of things, because regardless of her legitimacy, her family connections allow her to move in all the right crowds and circles. So like, it doesn’t really matter that she comes from the mistress and not the main life, like she’s well cared for, she’s placed in all the right places. Now, in 1339, she is between 14 and 15 years old and she goes to Portugal to serve as a lady and waiting to constanza of Castile, who is slated to wed the Prince of Portugal. 

Yep, I know exactly where we’re going now. Okay, so his name is Pedro. He’s born by, right about 1320. By 1327, his father, so, but he’s only seven at this point. His father is already in contract talks for marriage of both him and his sister Maria. So he’s like just already planning out their weddings, right? Okay, so at seven, he gets engaged to a one-blanch of Castile, while his sister Maria is engaged to the future alfons of Castile, which also sounds like a really interesting story. 

That’s for a whole nother day though. So Pedro’s girl has moved to Portugal to be raised there, but within a couple of years, it’s determined that she is not marriageable. She shows, Blanche, this is Blanche you’re talking about. She’s owned signs of mental illness, and additionally, they think she is unsuitable to carry a child. 

Theresa: I feel like that was like her best way out is just to start chewing on the castle walls or something. 

Angie: Like eating drapes is my thought. 

Theresa: Like good for you, sister, you’ve got it, right? Yeah. 

Angie: Yeah, and so Pedro… Believe your buddy rabbit. You can do it. So Pedro, for his part, is like, yeah, thank you next, and the engagement is broken. Now, this part does come from with Pedia, and it is a bit adjacent to my actual story, but it is really juicy, so I had to share it. This part is really fun. 

So you’re not going to remember any of these next names, but it is fun to say. In 1329, Peter’s sister Maria, who I mentioned earlier as the other child that was up for marriage talks, she marries a man called Alfonso of Castile. He can’t keep it to himself, and he begins an affair with the newly widowed, the Lenore de Guzman. And this never really sits well with Maria, but by 1334, she bears a son, who will ultimately become Peter of Castile, and that’s a big deal for a different day. Now, her husband, the king of Castile, Alfonso, he refuses to end the affair, and Maria does the smart move and returns home to Portugal in 1335, because my daddy’s going to be pissed when he finds out what you’re doing. Okay, so now Alfonso, Maria’s flandering husband, he had previously been married to the daughter of his cousin, and her name is called, she is called Constanza. After only two years of marriage, he gets it annulled in 1327 so that he can marry Maria, Pedro’s sister. I’m almost done. 

You’re finally carrying on. Alfonso’s cousin, her dad, is pissed. He sort of wages a war for like the next two years, but meanwhile, his daughter, Constanza, is being held hostage, I’m assuming by the Castilians, until the bishop, John Del Campo of Oliod, shows up and mediates peace. Now, Maria, the one who is cheated on, her dad, also the father of Pedro, is not happy that his daughter’s treated this way in her marriage, so he forms an alliance with Juan Manuel, the father of Constanza. 

Theresa: Okay, now dumb it down for me, like I don’t have a map. 

Angie: So, Constanza, she is married. Yeah. Constanza’s been cheated on by Alfonso. Right. Her dad, Juan Miguel, or excuse me, Juan Manuel, he is pissed, he wages a war. In the meantime, that’s something. 

Theresa: That’s gotta be really nice to be like, dad, he did me wrong, it’s like, get the troops. 

Angie: Pretty much, right? However, in this whole, the whole time the war’s being fought, Constanza’s being held captive. Now, his friend and ally is Pedro and Maria’s father, the king of Portugal. And he forms this alliance with Juan Manuel, the father of young Constanza who has been wronged. And he instead arranges for Pedro to marry Constanza. He’s like, look, my son has been in need of a bride anyway, she’ll be perfect, let’s do this. 

She arrives in Portugal in 1339, 1340, with this beautiful lady-in-waiting Inez, which is where we start with the birth of Inez. Okay. Okay, so now we’re out of Wikipedia and we’re out of all of that family drama. Now, so, Constanza of Castile, she of course marries the then Prince Pedro. And like many other royal marriages, this is obviously for alliance. This is not because Prince Pedro and Constanza are madly in love with each other. 

Theresa: Right, yeah, no, they’re doing it out of obligation. Right, now history says that initially the young prince, he’s about 20 at this time, he’s pretty satisfied with his wife. In fact, he thought her to be quite suitable. 

Angie: Okay, thanks, I guess. 

Theresa: I mean, honestly, that could be just, he could be a very withholding man, so suitable could mean, damn! You know, and he’s just mother-train. 

Angie: I feel like it’s a little bit of, well, she’ll get the job done. Because it wouldn’t take long for Pedro’s eyes to wander over to Constanza’s gorgeous, lady-in-waiting Inez, and it is said that it is love at first sight. Now, Inez, she is sort of known for her beauty. She has this golden hair with bright blue eyes and this silky, milky white skin. 

So she is like the talk of the town when it comes to pretty. And because Pedro is Pedro and he just cannot, he pretty much straight away takes her as his mistress. However, this does not stop him from also finding his way into his wife’s bed multiple times. He got lost. 

So he, you know, he is at least giving airs, right? She gets pregnant at least three times in their marriage. Now, Constanza, she’s no fool, and she sees their love affair like plain as day. Like she is very aware what is going on. So as the story goes that Constanza sees this and has this like stroke of genius and makes Inez the godmother to one of their children, their son Louis, or Louis. Now, this is a solid move on her part because within the Catholic church, a godparent is essentially a part of the family. And it turns the fairer, be a fairer between Pedro and Inez and Festus. 

Theresa: Oh, smart woman. 

Angie: Right? I’m like, hey, you’re all with you, right? Regardless of this, their romance continues because of course it does. 

Theresa: Yeah, I mean, just because we’re siblings on paper doesn’t mean. 

Angie: Exactly. Now, this does a couple of things. Their affair brings some exiled nobles back into the circle of the future king, this young Pedro, right? So Inez has a couple of brothers who for whatever reason, unknown to me, likely this previous war that had just been fought that I mentioned earlier, they had been exiled at this time. And the bigger problem with these brothers though is that their Castilian and the current king is worried that once he dies, his line will lose power and the independence for their country because of his son’s willingness to be wooed by the Castilians. 

So he’s like, ooh, this is problematic. But they’re back and they become Pedro’s close friends and trusted advisors. The other thing that happens right around this time, so dad is like, oh, this is problematic, please stop talking to them, like find new friends, please go out and play basketball with the guys down the street, like that sort of thing, right? But he also figures out that his son is having an affair with Mr. Cinez. And he is not necessarily upset about the affair because boy’s gonna boy, and I’m sure the king has 14, Mr. Cinez, right? Right, he is still solely focused on the sphere of influence with which his young son is working on. 

I mean, so, right. In 1344, the king having discovered this love affair does the completely normal angry king thing, and he banishes Cinez to Albuquerque. Which is now in America. Yeah, the first time I read that honest to God, the only visual I could have was Bugs Bunny coming out of the ground. Yep. And I was like, I don’t think that Albuquerque. 

Theresa: I mean, I can’t not think that. I have to really consciously try to push and believe there is a original Albuquerque. 

Angie: Honest to God, I literally looked at my husband and said, well, this story is false from the beginning because Albuquerque is not anywhere else but the US. Can’t believe it any other way. Anyway, so it’s this beautiful castle like way out on the Castilian front here. So his hope is that he keeps them apart by space, right? A geographic barrier. Exactly, but our boy Pedro, he cannot be stopped. 

So they still meet in secret and Pedro sends her messages like secret messages out of the castle using a small wooden boat they could slip through the castle’s water ducts, which I think is very sweet. And this goes on for like a year. 

Theresa: Okay, so that’s got some staying power to it. 

Angie: Right, Pedro’s actual wife, Constanza, the girl this whole war was fought over, dies just weeks after delivering their third son. And because Pedro is Pedro and can’t think what the brain between his ears, he like immediately brings in as back to court and to the great ire of his father, like his father, the king, right? 

And there is a huge fight between father and son. Now, this part is a little bit confusing to me, but it seems like the king banishes her again and perhaps even several more times. And while he’s banished her, he like gets to work trying to arrange other noble marriages for Pedro. And Pedro is not having it. And he continually turns it down, he continually says no, stating that he’s still in mourning for his beloved wife, which is absolutely- 

Theresa: Absolutely, bupkiss, because if I’m in mourning for my wife, I’m not going to be sneaking in my side piece. 

Angie: Exactly, right? Okay, so right around this time, Pedro runs away and lives openly with Ines for like 10 years. Now, in that 10 years, it’s possible that they were married in secret, but either way, they start having kids. They have that least two sons, and you know what that means. 

Theresa: Now we’ve got a secession problem. We have a real problem, right? 

Angie: Okay, so there’s a secession problem, and there’s also these, excuse me, these rumors and these kind of conspiracy theories floating around that the DeCastro family, which is Ines’s family, are planning to disinherit Pedro’s actual sons, like his true marriage sons, in favor of one of Ines and Pedro’s children. And so these rumors, they’re floating around. And like this goes on for about a year that the king is being fed these superstitions, or excuse me, these rumors and these conspiracy theories that the proper children are gonna be disinherited, and there’s all these ideas floating around with it, and he’s not happy. So he again, tries to separate the lovers, but figures out that this is probably never going to work, like ever because it hasn’t worked at all in the 15 years of the past you’ve tried. So he does the logical thing, and he orders the death of Ines, because nothing says I love my son more like murdering the mistress. 

Theresa: I mean, this is how you make sure to make, you know, you want your statues to be burned the moment you die. This is how you do it. Right. 

Angie: So it’s January of 1355, Pedro’s out hunting, three assassins, as well as the king, go to the convent where Ines is like living, and there’s a bit of a scuttlebutt because the king sees his grandchildren, Ines and Pedro’s children, and he is like stricken with love for them, like, oh my gosh, no, I can’t do it because the children, right? Like he actually has some sort of humanity to him, but he’s got some really persistent assassins working for him, and they’re like, nope, this is what you hired us to do, so we’re gonna do our job, and there’s this whole scuttle about it. 

Theresa: Yeah, we only get at two things, drinking and killing, and we’re out of beer. 

Angie: Pretty much, and so the king basically just leaves the room and says something to the effect of do whatever you want, and so the assassins do just that, they stab in his to death, they then decapitate her, which at least one of her children sees, and at this point, she is only 29 years old. Pedro finds out, obviously, that his lady love has been assassinated, and he declares not only revenge, but civil war against Gerald Bette. Yeah, because this makes sense, honestly, like good for you, Pedro, but unfortunately for him. Because his 

Theresa: kid’s having night terrors for the rest of his life. 

Angie: Right, and they’re not, I don’t even think the oldest one is 10 years old, like they’re young, right? Unfortunately for Pedro, he quickly loses this civil war. So like, so I’m going great for him. But only like two years later, the king dies anyway, and Pedro takes the throne. So I’m not really sure how Thanksgiving went in those two years, but I feel like it must have been awkward when the king did die, and Pedro does take the throne because he already waged a civil war once. 

Theresa: We love royal tabloids now. 

Angie: I know, that was literally my thought was like, oh my gosh, what was the gossip mill like back then? Like, how did his coordination go? I’m gonna look into it. I’m so curious about like what the town spoke and what the other nobles thought. 

Theresa: I wanna read the graffiti on the walls. That’s what I want. 

Angie: Seriously, where is the Reddit post on this? So, he does the thing, he gets coordinated, he takes the crown, and there’s talk that like, as I mentioned earlier, that he is going to disinherit Pedro’s original children. So his own original children with Constanza in favor of Inez and Pedro’s children. I don’t know that he ever actually does that because I wasn’t curious enough about his line of succession as I was what he does next. Now, as the story goes, he declares Inez Queen. Do you remember, it’s been at least two years. 

Theresa: There ain’t much left. 

Angie: And the story goes that he has her body exhumed and dressed in all of the finery that makes up a queen, right, the crown, the gold beading and all of that on the gown, and then makes the entire court swear allegiance and fealty to their new and very dead queen. Some stories suggest that he even insists that they all kiss the hymn of her gown because… 

Theresa: I will follow her until death, but she’s already dead, so I don’t need to follow her. But you have my own. Is it my death? I think. 

Angie: Questions. Then, six years later, so this whole time Pedro’s been looking for the assassins, right, like he’s got a beef to settle. Six years later, he finally finds two of them and he gets his vengeance. He publicly executes them by ripping their hearts out while they are still alive, one in the chest and one from the back. And they say that’s what he believed was how they destroyed his heart. 

Theresa: Ripped the heart out from the back? Yeah. 

Angie: There’s a lot of things in the way. 

Angie: Yeah, well, Pedro’s got years of built-up vengeance. 

Theresa: He’s been thinking about this for a long time. 

Angie: Yeah, right? Okay, so in 1360, to honor his beloved, her body has moved from Coyumbria to the royal monastery at Alcobaca where he has commissioned two very ornate marble tombs with scenes of their lives carved out, which I think is really pretty. The tombs are gorgeous. The tombs sit opposite each other so they can gaze upon one another in the afterlife. And I’m like, dang, that’s so sweet, right? He dies of sickness since 1367, so. 

Theresa: Dyes of sickness, didn’t see that coming. 

Angie: Honestly, that was the simplest part of the story. Like, when I looked that up, I was like, he had to go out in some blaze of glory war, right? 

Theresa: No, no, he was pretty sick the whole time, but it finally took him out. 

Angie: Like, holy cow. Now, all that to say, I have pictures of their tombs if you would like to see them. Please, thank you. Okay. I’ll see if it would share the right thing. There we go. So the first one that you’ll see is her tomb. 

Theresa: Okay, so this is, it’s a marble carving that is very ornately done. She is laying on her back, you know, where her face is obviously positioned towards the ceiling, but she has her gown, like the marbling is done so beautifully that it looks like material. It’s very, very sheer fabric. And then there’s a series of like six, seven angels wrapped around her with their hands. On her. 

Angie: I think they’re cherubim, yeah. That’s what I was thinking. I mean, yeah. 

Theresa: What’s the difference between cherubim and angels aside from size? 

Angie: I think specifically the cherubim or babies. Oh, I think. 

Theresa: I mean, you seem right there. That’s her tomb. I’m curious about these little guys on the bottom though, with the bald heads. I’m not sure what those are. I should try to find another angle. But anyway, here’s her, his tomb. 

Theresa: He is upright, getting ready to pull a sword from his Gabbard with the same very flowy. His beard looks like he spent about 10 minutes curling it to have those perfect ringlets. 

Angie: Yes, it does. I was thinking it reminded me of Sumerian artwork of the Statuary, right? But now that you say that, I can’t get the image of him with a curling iron out of my eye. 

Theresa: It’s that magenta handled curling iron. 

Angie: It’s got the wire that wraps around it so you get perfect ringlets. Exactly. 

Theresa: And then he’s got the cherubim around him, but they’re more around his shoulders and elbow, so that, I don’t know, they’re not by his feet sort of deal. 

Angie: I don’t know if it’s in there. At least not in this picture. They might be in other pictures. I am only showing you the top of his tomb, so it might be different in the full scale. 

Theresa: Wow. I mean, I had seen the short versions of his story where it boiled him down into just grave robbing. 

Angie: Nope, there’s a whole Civil War and everything that’s fought about it. And at least we forget about Consanza, who a whole war was fought about her just because somebody treated her poorly. 

Theresa: You know, and when I hear about that, I kind of go, that’s actually a fairly low reason for a Civil War. It’s like, well, come on, peasants, let’s get in front of the cannons. We’ve got legs to lose. 

Angie: Do the thing. They, come on. 

Theresa: He cheated on her, and so your king, her father, said that you get to die now. Come on, come on. And now it’s like, tough job. We’re looking at it like, there’s so many bigger reasons we could be fighting a war, but we’ve got, we’ve got TikTok. 

Angie: Yeah, honestly, we’ve got TikTok, but I love knowing that I brought you a story that had not one, but two wars fought over a woman. Yeah. I sure did. So that’s the story of Pedro and Amiz. 

Theresa: I had, I adored it. If you are a, if you know a woman who should have a war fought over her, let alone two, send this to her. Let her know you were thinking of her. And then do the thing where you rate, review us on the podcast platform of your choice. It helps us out. It, it really does. And on that note, goodbye. 

Theresa: Bye.