Álvaro de Luna y Fernández de Jarava (between 1388 and 13902 June 1453), was a Castilian statesman, favourite of John II of Castile. He served as Constable of Castile and as Grand Master of the Order of Santiago. He earned great influence in the Crown's affairs in the wake of his support to John II against the so-called Infantes of Aragon. Once he lost the protection of the monarch, he was executed in Valladolid in 1453.
Early years
He was born between 1388 and 1390 in Cañete, in what is now the province of Cuenca, as the illegitimate son of the Castilian noble don Álvaro Martínez de Luna, copero mayor (the page who poured drinks for a nobleman) of King Henry III of Castile, and María Fernández de Jarana, a woman of great character and beauty.
He was introduced to the court as a page by his uncle Pedro V de Luna, Archbishop of Toledo in 1410. Álvaro soon secured a commanding influence over John II, then a boy. During the regency of King John's uncle Ferdinand, which ended in 1412, he was not allowed to be more than a servant. When, however, Ferdinand was elected king of Aragon, and the regency was assumed by the king's mother, Catherine of Lancaster, daughter of John of Gaunt, and granddaughter of King Peter of Castile, Álvaro became a very important person, the so-called "contino", or old friend of the King.
Álvaro de Luna married Elvira de Portocarrero in 1420. They had no issue. In 1430, he married Juana Pimentel, with whom he had two children.
The King's favourite
thumb|Statue of Álvaro de Luna in [[Cañete (Cuenca)|Cañete]]
The young King regarded him with love and affection which the superstition of later time attributed to witchcraft. As the King was under pressure by greedy and unscrupulous nobles — among whom his cousins, the sons of Ferdinand, commonly known as the Infantes of Aragon, were perhaps the most dangerous — his reliance on a favourite who had every motive to be loyal to him, is quite understandable. Luna was also a master of all the accomplishments the King admired: a fine horseman, skillful with a lance and a writer of court verse.