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THE WONDER OF EUROPE

After only a decade on the throne, Isabella had reined in Castile’s disparate elements—from the lowliest to the mightiest. In such a brief time, the queen had burnished the crown to a luster unthinkable at her accession. The monarchy was feared and, more important, respected, within Castile and outside. In 1484 a foreign visitor reported that “everyone trembled at the name of the queen.”¹ Even incremental successes by Ferdinand and Isabella in the Granada War had raised their reputation to new heights on the Continent—so much so, in fact, that “Isabella and Ferdinand’s victories over the Granada Moors were rapidly assuming legendary proportions in ducal palaces and manor houses across Western Europe.”²

Onlookers throughout the Western world were impressed by the Castilians’ progress in Granada under the leadership of their queen. The Granada War was one in a long line of bloody clashes that pitted Islam against Christianity. While the crescent triumphed in Moldavia in eastern Europe, and in areas by the Black Sea, King Ferdinand was emboldened by Ronda’s fall. Isabella sent letters to her husband, sharing her insights, telling him that she prayed to God “until He gives you the city and all the kingdom … . The dead weigh on me heavily, but they could not have gone better employed.”³

Now in her mid-thirties, Isabella had lost none of the vigor and confidence that she had possessed in her youth. In fact, the queen was busier than ever, ceaselessly thinking, plotting strategy, acting, and constantly on the move. She prodded her counselors for advice, pushed her secretaries to work furiously, thought always of her armies and acted on their behalf, urged on Ferdinand and his generals, and prayed endlessly for victory.

Assiduous in attaining her goals, Isabella possessed incredible energy that she used toward achieving her objectives. The queen had no patience when it came to “notions of irresistible fate. She believed that the human will, under God, was the supreme factor in existence.”⁴ When it came to exercising that will during the Reconquista, Isabella directed it to absolute victory. Indefatigable throughout the decadelong struggle, the queen exuded energy, hope, and confidence. King Ferdinand appreciated and treasured this quality in his wife and deployed her in times of necessity, such as her visits to the troops. In sum, Queen Isabella was indispensable to the campaign’s success.

Isabella did not disappoint when she visited her soldiers. During one such visit, she appeared every inch the queen seated on a chestnut mule with a saddle of silver gilt. Dressed dazzlingly in brocade and velvet, her head adorned by a black hat embroidered on the crown and rim, Isabella inspected the thousands of men who paid her homage. Accompanying the queen was her teenage daughter, Isabel, equally bedecked in velvet and brocade, and the infant Princess Catherine. Queen Isabella told her soldiers, “You should be happy because as knights you have defended the Faith from the dangers that threaten the land that have caused us so much hardship in this life. God knows our cause and will not forget our difficulties and will remember them in the other [world].”⁵

The Christians’ successes increased in part because they astutely stoked the divisions that racked the Moorish leadership. Instead of uniting, as the Castilians and Europeans had now done in the face of their common enemy, Islam, the Moorish leadership continued to fight for supremacy among themselves. Rivalries among Boabdil, his uncle, El Zagal, and Mulay Hassan did nothing to help their cause. At one point, Mulay Hassan fled Granada, as did El Zagal, allowing Boabdil to be proclaimed king. Then El Zagal and his followers forced Boabdil to flee to Castile, leaving Granada with yet another ruler. Old Mulay Hassan died in 1485, concentrating the rivalry between El Zagal and Boabdil.

In 1485, the Castilians fought hard to win Málaga, an important port on the Mediterranean. The city was ringed by mountains and the sea, as well as fortified by artillery and eager warriors for Islam. Castile’s army found the fighting difficult, but fight on they did, with seventy thousand men under King Ferdinand’s orders. Málaga resisted the onslaught. At one point, a stalemate ensued, prompting the Moors to circulate rumors designed to discourage the Castilians. Ferdinand then reached for one of the most reliable weapons at his disposal: He called for his wife.

Not surprisingly, the queen, now a legend among the troops, came willingly. Isabella urged her soldiers at Málaga on, bolstered their confidence, reassured them of their just cause. Again, the queen’s presence and words had an electrifying effect. Emboldened, Isabella’s men fought on, supported by the timely arrival of desperately needed reinforcements. Ferdinand then invited Málaga’s citizens to surrender, to which they replied with a barrage of artillery fire. But by keeping their nerve, the Castilians soon had the advantage.

Ferdinand’s patience finally gave way when the city’s leaders threatened to burn Málaga and hang their Christian prisoners. He answered the threat with his own ominous warning that, if a single Christian captive were harmed, he would put the whole of Málaga to the sword. This had the desired effect. Málaga surrendered unconditionally in August 1487.

Upon entering the city, Ferdinand and Isabella’s troops scoured Málaga for Christian captives. All in all, some sixteen hundred men and women were freed, a number of them having been chained in dungeons from five to twenty years. The king and queen entered Málaga and inside a tent, before a makeshift altar, met with these wretched captives, many still in chains. When these former prisoners “found themselves restored to liberty, and surrounded by their countrymen, some stared wildly about as if in a dream, others gave way to frantic transports, but most of them wept for joy.”⁶ Upon meeting their king and queen, the grateful captives fell on their knees and tried to kiss Ferdinand’s and Isabella’s feet, but were prevented from doing so by the monarchs. The newly freed captives “then prostrated themselves before the altar, and all present joined them in giving thanks to God for their liberation from this cruel bondage.”⁷ The king and queen ordered the prisoners freed from their chains. They were then clothed, fed, and given money to return to their homes.

The royal couple chose the city of Baza for the next round of fighting. The capture of Baza, a Moorish stronghold under El Zagal, was a necessary step for the Castlians to complete their reconquest. It was a daunting task, for the approach to Baza was covered by thick groves, the city itself encircled by a formidable fortress and mountains. Yet strategically, the Christian capture of Baza made sense. It would mean that the Castilians had taken the east, leaving the capital, Granada, completely vulnerable. Two years in the making, the attack on Baza, the beginning of the eastern campaign, took many months to complete, because of fierce resistance from the Moors. Casualties on the Castilian side amounted to a staggering twenty thousand men. Retreat was on everyone’s mind—except Isabella’s. Instead, she faced the appalling challenges head-on. Working furiously to get help to Ferdinand and the troops, the queen dispatched six thousand men to clear the roads, then ordered supplies sent through. Even an empty treasury, the result of years of war, did not stop her. The queen begged for more funds from Jews and magnates. Isabella then unhesitatingly pawned more of her precious jewels.

Even resupplied, the soldiers remained dispirited under harsh conditions, prompting Ferdinand to call again for his wife. In early November 1489, at Baza, Queen Isabella buoyed her troops’ morale so that the men felt ready to bear arms again for their queen and their faith. The army cheered wildly for their queen. “‘Her presence filled us with joy,’” noted an eyewitness, “‘and reanimated our spirits, which were sinking under the weight of such long perils, vigils and sufferings.’ Even the Moors suspended hostilities and leaned from their battlements to watch.”⁸ Isabella’s presence in Baza startled the Moors, who viewed the queen as an unbeatable enemy. Miraculously, only three days later, El Zagal surrendered Baza and his other territories unexpectedly to the Castilians. The long-held dream of capturing Granada itself could very well turn into a reality under Queen Isabella’s reign.

The years had made Isabella a little stouter; nearly forty, she no longer enjoyed the flush of youth so evident when she married. But the queen still retained the personal qualities that made her such a fascinating figure. Among the qualities that served Isabella and her cause well was a tenacious spirit. To Isabella, the impossible was not some unconquerable obstacle but an opportunity to push herself to heroic proportions. Tireless, optimistic, and supremely confident, the queen became the army’s indispensable patron.

As the Christians were now encamped near the fabled city of Granada, Queen Isabella had expressed a wish to see the last stronghold of the Moors. From the nearby town Zubia, the queen, King Ferdinand, and their children gazed upon the beauty of Granada, a city they had heard much of and yearned so long to bring into the Castilian fold. Princess Catherine was only five years old at the time, a special joy to her mother, as the youngest often are. Together, the royal family marveled at the Alhambra, the ultimate symbol of Islamic domination in the Iberian Peninsula.

The Christians’ final conquest seemed imminent. It was as if all the pieces were falling into place. Victory was inexorably on the march for the Castilians. But an unexpected disaster nearly ruined everything. One evening after Isabella had retired, the flame from a candle brushed the silken folds of the royal pavilion. In an instant, the queen’s tent was engulfed in fire and asphyxiating smoke. Soon the whole camp was up in flames. Isabella narrowly escaped with her family. By the time it was all over, nearly everything had been incinerated, but the royals were unhurt. Refusing to be bowed by this setback, Ferdinand and Isabella ordered that a new encampment be built. What rose after three months of frenzied work was a city of stone laid out in the form of a cross, complete with towers, from the tallest of which was raised the famous massive silver cross that the Christian army always took to battle. The soldiers asked her permission to name the city Isabella. The queen, though touched by the gesture, refused. She insisted instead that the name be Santa Fe, or Holy Faith, to remind one and all of the nature of the Granada War.

The building of Santa Fe completely demoralized the people of Granada. As they lost hope, hunger set in. King Ferdinand and his troops employed their usual tactic, blocking the flow of food into the capital. Military resistance by the Moors soon crumbled. By autumn, secret negotiations were opened, ending with the signing of the articles of capitulation.

The day for the official handover was January 2, 1492. Boabdil, with his family and fifty retainers, made his way out of the city to meet the king and deliver the keys of Granada. King Ferdinand, Queen Isabella, their children, and the court, dressed festively for the momentous occasion, were not yet at Granada but “near the village of Armilla, their eyes fixed on the towers of the royal fortress, watching for the appointed signal of possession.”⁹ Then came the moment everyone had been waiting for. From the Torre de la Vela (the Great Watch Tower) of the Alhambra rose the glimmering silver cross, signaling that the Christians had taken possession of Granada. Next came the thrilling sight of the royal banner and that of St. James fluttering from the Alhambra. With this shouts of joy rang out from the Christian army: “Santiago! Santiago! Castile! Castile! For King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella!”

With the Reconquista now completed and their greatest triumph fulfilled, the king and queen fell on their knees in gratitude to God, followed by a multitude around them numbering in the thousands. The royal choir then sang the hymn of praise Te Deum laudamus. “And such was the happiness that they all began to cry. Later [that day] all the great lords, who were with the king, went to where the queen was and kissed her hand [in obeisance] as queen of Granada.”¹⁰

His deed done, a dejected Boabdil left for his small territory in the Alpujar-ras region. Unable to resist one last look at his former kingdom, Boabdil turned and gazed upon the city for the last time. His indignant mother then admonished the broken son with the words “You do well to weep like a woman for what you failed to defend like a man!”¹¹ The place where Boabdil saw Granada for the last time thereafter was known as “the Last Sigh of the Moor.”

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, in a procession that stood out for its magnificent pomp and ceremony, made their formal entry into Granada on January 6, 1492, the feast day of the Epiphany. In another moving encounter with captured Christians, this time with some five hundred still in chains, the sovereigns released the group overcome with tears of joyful deliverance.

Once their entourage made its way to the main mosque, now reconsecrated as a church, the royal couple attended a Mass to give thanks, then made their way to the Alhambra. From the presence chamber that had been for so long the seat of Moorish power in Iberia, a triumphant King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella held court, receiving the homage of Granada’s inhabitants.

Isabella and Ferdinand “had brought the epic to triumphant conclusion, rung down the curtain on a dazzling new act in the mounting drama of their career. Nothing had been wasted; everything had been justified, explained, crowned by God—the years of labor and privation, the long nights of numb fingers at a piled desk, the planning, the riding, the sleety passes and dark gorges, the wounds and suffering of their people, the blood … the dead.”¹²

A jubilant King Ferdinand sent the news of the Moorish empire’s end to Pope Innocent VIII, telling him that “this kingdom of Granada, which for over 780 years was occupied by infidels … has been secured.”¹³ Rome was ecstatic, with Masses said in thanksgiving, the city illuminated, and bells pealing throughout. No less rapturous was the reaction through the rest of Europe, where in many capitals bonfires were lit and church bells rang in celebration.

The bells in St. Paul’s Cathedral in London also rang in thanksgiving. Inside the cathedral a solemn Mass was held, ordered by England’s King Henry VII. Greatly impressed by Ferdinand and Isabella’s victory over the Moors, King Henry ordered the prelates and noblemen at court to march to the cathedral. There, they heard the Lord Chancellor praising the victors of Granada and telling those present about “the prowess and devotion of Ferdinando and Isabella, kings of Spain; who have, to their immortal honor, recovered the great and rich kingdom of Granada … for which this assembly and all Christians are to render laud and thanks to God, and to celebrate this noble act … . Whereby it is to be hoped that there shall be gained not only new territory, but infinite souls to the Church of Christ.”¹⁴

Fernando del Pulgar, Isabella’s secretary and chronicler, had no doubt as to who should be credited with the success of the Granada War: “War against the Moors began at this queen’s behest, and continued by her diligence until the entire realm of Granada was won.”¹⁵ The conquest of Granada was without a doubt Queen Isabella’s greatest triumph. Not without reason was she considered “the Wonder of Europe.”¹⁶ And because Isabella was a woman during an era dominated by men, her accomplishments were all the more unique.

After the victory at Granada, Isabella was not content to rest on her laurels. She left herself little time to recuperate at the Alhambra, which now became her palace. There were more plans to conceive and execute, more goals to accomplish. Far from being distinguished by one significant event, the year 1492 was the annus mirabilis, or the miracle year, of Spanish history, which saw three momentous events: the conquest of Granada, the expulsion of the Jews, and Columbus sailing off under the patronage of Queen Isabella.

Christopher Columbus was among those who witnessed the historic surrender of Granada. Born in 1451 to a Genoese weaver, Columbus, a contemporary of Isabella’s, dreamed of lands beyond the sea. Isabella had created a committee to look into this “Enterprise of the Indies.”

In 1489, this committee returned their verdict. They rejected the navigator’s plan, concluding that it was impossible to achieve. After the surrender of Granada, Isabella and Columbus met. When he received an answer, it was a definitive no. A dejected Columbus accepted the final verdict and prepared to go to France. However, one of the adventurer’s supporters, the converso Luís de Santángel, Keeper of the Privy Purse, pleaded with Queen Isabella to invite Columbus back. To let him go now, argued Santángel, would be to miss a golden opportunity and allow another power to reap the benefits that might accrue from his voyage of discovery. Funds for the project, Santángel told the queen, could be found. After receiving Columbus again in audience, Ferdinand and Isabella agreed to the explorer’s plans on his terms. He would become admiral and viceroy, as well as governor-general of undiscovered lands. He would also be entitled to one-tenth of the profits from the venture. A grateful Columbus wrote that “in all men there was disbelief, but to the Queen, my lady, God gave the spirit of understanding and great courage.”¹⁷ Isabella, ever the visionary, took the risk.

In August 1492, under the patronage of Queen Isabella of Castile, Christopher Columbus set sail at last with his crew on three ships, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María. On the other side of the vast Atlantic, unexplored lands awaited him. Far from discovering a new route to the Orient, Columbus was about to discover a new world. History was set to be made.

The third significant event of 1492 took place before Columbus set sail. The Charter of the Expulsion of the Jews, which occurred in the spring, was one of Ferdinand and Isabella’s most controversial acts. The expulsion was carried out in the name of “unity.”

The conquest of Granada had gone a long way to achieve the unity central to Isabella’s aspirations. Although physical unity was intact, the monarchs still “had not achieved religious unity, since large numbers of Jews and still larger numbers of Muslims remained in the lands under their rule.”¹⁸ It was this form of unity—religious—that Isabella believed was essential for Castile. In a modern pluralistic society, this fixation on religious unity is incomprehensible. However, Queen Isabella lived in an era saturated by faith. She believed unequivocally that Christianity was the one true religion; therefore it is unsurprising that she was determined to have as many of her subjects as possible adhere to that faith, so that their souls might not be excluded from God’s promise of salvation.

For Ferdinand and Isabella, the Islamic-Jewish situation was tied to two dangers confronting Castile. These dangers were first political and military. A Muslim threat from North Africa and the Ottoman Turks pressing westward through land and sea was still a distinct possibility.

The other danger was religious. In this respect, Islam was no longer seen as a dangerous enemy. In a theological calculation, it could, so to speak be discounted … [for] the attraction of Islam to converts, so powerful in the days of Muslim advance, waned with the Muslim retreat. Even the mighty victories of the Ottomans did not, as had the earlier victories of the caliphs, persuade large numbers of the conquered that Islam was indeed God’s true religion.

The Jews, however, were a different matter … . Being pre-Christian and not post-Christian, [their faith] could not be dismissed as a heresy or an aberration … . The Hebrew Bible, renamed the Old Testament, had been adopted by the Christians, who added a new testament to it, explaining how Christ had come to complete the revelation and to fulfill the promises that God had given to the Jews. By this logic, the Jews should have been the first to welcome and to accept the new dispensation and to merge their identity in the Christian church as the new beneficiary of God’s choice.

Many Jews did indeed accept this view and were the nucleus of what later became Christendom. But the persistent refusal of others and the survival of Judaism as a separate religion were seen by many Christians as impugning the central tenets of their faith. Jews, unlike Muslims, could not be accused of not knowing the Old Testament or of being unaware of the Choice and the Promise. Their unwillingness to accept the Christian interpretation of these books and of these doctrines thus challenged Christianity in a most sensitive area.¹⁹

“No doubt for good practical as well as ideological reasons, [Ferdinand and Isabella had] turned their attention first to the Jews, the most threatening to Christian teachings, and the most vulnerable to Christian power.”²⁰

Torquemada had urged the king and queen to rid Castile and Aragon of the Jews. Yet Isabella hesitated. She had never harbored a personal dislike toward Jews; high-standing Jewish individuals served the crown. Moreover, she understood the important financial role Jews played in Castile and Aragon. However, the queen received disturbing information on supposed ongoing attempts by Jews to bring conversos back to Judaism. “By the end of 1491 the monarchs seem to have become convinced that unbaptized Jews, even when subject to these laws, were having such a bad influence on converts that they should either become Christians themselves or leave.”²¹ The king and queen decided on drastic measures: the Jews must leave. Added to Isabella’s desire to have uniformity of religion in the land was a belief that this uniformity would lead to greater stability. Expelling the Jews “was relatively safe and easy. It also provided useful experience for the later, greater, more difficult, and vastly more important task of expelling the Muslims.”²²

The order to expel the Jews was signed in April 1492 and gave them only three months to decide their fates. The expulsion was not unprecedented in Europe. King Edward I of England had expelled Jews from his kingdom in 1290, compelling some sixteen thousand to leave. King Philip IV ordered Jews expelled from France in 1306, confiscating their belongings in the process. These Jewish expulsions paled in comparison, however, with that of Spain. The expulsion there was a wretched chapter in Spanish history and darkened Isabella’s otherwise unparalleled achievements.

No one has agreed on the exact number of Jews who were expelled. Some estimates put it between 150,000 and 800,000. However, a respected historian of Spain believes that “out of a likely total Jewish population in Castile of 70,000 and in Aragon of 10,000, many accepted baptism and others left the country only to return again, so that the figure for those who left permanently could not have been more than about 50,000.”²³

Once the Jews were expelled, Ferdinand and Isabella continued implementing religious uniformity. They zeroed in on the Moorish population, specifically the elches, who were “converts from Christianity to Islam, or Muslims of Christian descent.”²⁴ Here, as with the conversos, the problem of apostasy ranked high with the monarchs. Again, questions of loyalty or power loomed, but it was, above all, “sadness at the loss of their souls [which] was a source of great personal grief to the monarchs.”²⁵

After Hernando de Talavera became Archbishop of Granada in 1492, he directed a concerted effort to bring Muslims into the Christian fold. Talavera promoted a policy of persuasion, even learning Arabic so that he could communicate the tenets of Catholicism more easily to the Moors. “Doubtful of the merits of the Inquisition” and realizing that “converted Moors would need time to assimilate their new faith,” Talavera even managed to get the Moors exempted from the Inquisition’s investigation for forty years.²⁶ His policy of persuasion brought conversions but at a slower pace than others, including the more rigid Archbishop Cisneros, would have preferred. Cisneros’s arrival in Granada in 1499 would signal a major change.

Isabella nominated Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, a Franciscan, as Archbishop of Toledo. Many found Cisneros a religious hard-liner. To others, he was a religious leader sincere about his faith but necessarily dogmatic for the good of the Church and for the sake of others. The archbishop was a powerful force who enjoyed the full confidence of the queen. Impressed by his reputation for sanctity, Isabella asked Cisneros to be her confessor. He accepted on condition that he not reside at court, lest he become corrupted by life away from his monastery. Forbidding and austere, Cisneros was an ascetic who fasted and denied himself all but the very basic necessities in life, often sleeping on the ground and subsisting on bread and water. Queen Isabella would continue to look to him as a valued adviser.

By the end of the fifteenth century, Cisneros played an active role in the Moorish situation in Granada. Impatient with the pace of conversions, Ferdinand and Isabella ordered Cisneros to help Talavera. In the end, the archbishop convinced the queen that Granada’s Moors had to be given the choice of converting or expulsion just like the Jews. The king and queen hoped their Moorish subjects would eventually convert. In practice, however, the Moors were forced to convert, with few being allowed to leave. By the beginning of the sixteenth century, the moriscos, or Christian Moors, had come into being. In their dealings with the Moorish and Jewish peoples who inhabited their realms, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella remained focused on the centrality of “constructing the Spanish nation-state around the principle of religious homogeneity, or máximo religioso.” This concept was not a novel one. “The máximo religioso has a clear medieval origin: [whereby] Christian doctrine is not an opinion man can choose to support, but rather an eternal truth; one and absolute, it makes whoever possesses it the son of God and inheritor of heaven, and denies the unfaithful eternal salvation.”²⁷ By the early 1500s, Ferdinand and Isabella had clearly done their utmost to implement the concept of máximo religioso, exacting a heavy price in the process. Ferdinand and Isabella’s defense of the faith plus their actions on behalf of the Papacy against King Charles VIII of France had earned them the title the Catholic Kings (Los Reyes Católicos) from Pope Alexander VI in 1496.

Four years before Ferdinand and Isabella received this title, Christopher Columbus discovered a new continent when his expedition arrived at a small island (in what became part of the Bahamas) in October 1492. The discovery delivered a new frontier for Isabella’s cherished Catholicism. During Columbus’s first voyage, he also discovered Cuba and Hispaniola. He named the lands he found Santa María de la Concepción, Fernandino, Isabella, and Juana. Columbus returned to a hero’s welcome and met Ferdinand and Isabella at court in Barcelona in April 1493. The monarchs, accompanied by their son, Prince Juan, were seated in splendor under a gold canopy. In rising to greet Columbus, they bestowed a rare honor, one usually reserved to princes of the blood. The explorer, accompanied by an exotic mix of live parrots and six natives adorned in gold, regaled a rapt audience with stories of his expedition. Impressed by Columbus’s accomplishments, Isabella approved a second expedition, this time involving seventeen vessels and over a thousand men, consisting of adventurers, farmers, soldiers, and priests.

By the mid-1490s, Isabella was the triumphant queen. Spain was recognized internationally as a power to be reckoned with. She accomplished what so many generations of Castile’s monarchs had tried to achieve: the completion of the Reconquista, and in the process Isabella subjugated the Moors. She imposed religious homogeneity, reformed the Spanish Church, raising its moral tone to new heights. She had succeeded in her goal of creating a robust and muscular Roman Catholicism within Castile. And finally, Columbus, whom Isabella had commissioned on his monumental voyage, had discovered new lands beyond the Atlantic. In understanding what Queen Isabella had accomplished to this point, it is important to recall that “when viewed from the depressed position of her early days … the achievements of her reign seem scarcely less than miraculous.”²⁸