In 1501, as newly wedded Katherine traveled with Arthur to Ludlow, her thoughts filled with anticipation and hope for the future, her sister Juana was also making a journey. Together with her husband, Archduke Philip, Juana was returning to Spain.
When she had gone to Burgundy as a bride in 1496, Juana had expected the Low Countries to be her home. As Archduchess of Burgundy and Philip’s empress should he succeed his father as Holy Roman Emperor, there would be no reason for her to set foot on Spanish soil ever again. With one brother and a sister ahead of her in the line of Spanish succession, the idea that she would become her parents’ heir had not occurred to her. Yet, with the series of deaths that so afflicted the Catholic Monarchs, that is what happened. All that was Isabella’s would certainly come to Juana when the great queen died, and in all probability, everything that had once belonged to Ferdinand would be hers as well. Juana’s life had been suddenly transformed.
Juana was no stranger to change, upheaval, and upset. The Juana who returned to Spain was very different from the sixteen-year-old girl who had said goodbye to a weeping Isabella more than five years earlier. Not only had she become a wife and mother, she had discovered that marriage was no guarantee of constant happiness. Almost from her first moments in the Netherlands, Juana had been forced to confront problems that no one had anticipated, and for which her mother’s carefully devised program of study had not prepared her.
It had very quickly dawned on her that the welcome she was receiving from many of her new subjects ranged from ecstatic to hostile. Unlike Katherine, who had never doubted that Henry VII and his court wanted her to marry Arthur, the teenage Juana had soon discovered that her situation was nowhere as clear-cut. While Philip’s father, Maximilian, had advocated the Spanish match as the best way to protect Burgundian interests, many of Philip’s own advisers saw closer ties with France as a better long-term bet, so Juana had been caught in the middle of diplomatic factionalism from the moment she had first arrived. For a teenage princess, totally untutored in the murky world of political intrigue, it had been bewildering.
Isabella, anxious about her daughter, had sent her envoy, Friar Tomás de Matienzo, Sub-Prior of the Convent of Santa Cruz, to the Netherlands to find out what was happening. His detailed reports bear witness to Philip’s systematic campaign to assert his dominance over his inexperienced young wife. Worse, they show just how powerless and demoralized she had started to feel.
For, to her dismay, the Philip with whom she had enjoyed such an electric physical relationship had soon shown his true colors. As her husband, and as Burgundy’s duke, he required her complete surrender to all his commands, and that included controlling the personnel and the running of her own household, an area in which, according to royal protocol, she should have been independent. Philip and his councillors did “not permit her to take part in it,” she told Friar Tomás.
Philip had begun by taking over her finances: he did not give her the annual sum supposed to be allocated to her for her household expenditure, despite contracting to do just that in their joint marriage treaty. Instead, the archduke’s own appointees administered all the money that should have gone to Juana. This meant, the envoy wrote to Isabella, that “she [Juana] is so poor that she has not a maravedi to give alms.” She certainly did not have the money to pay her servants, who began to drift away because they could not “sustain themselves at court.” Within six months of her arrival in Burgundy, eighty of her ninety-eight male servants had left her side. That suited Philip very well. It meant he was able to replace the vast majority of his wife’s Spanish officials with his own nominees; even many of those who loyally remained were bribed to support Philip as master rather than Juana as mistress. And, totally out of her depth, she simply did not know how to react to the man she could see was taking over her life but to whom she was still so physically attracted.
Yet she had tried. On at least one occasion, Friar Tomás noticed that Juana had found the courage to protest. When asked to approve payments already made about which she had known nothing, she signed as she was bid but then said, “Be it so for this year, but next year I desire that they do not make grants without my consent.” As this flash of spirit did not occur until “after they [Philip’s representatives] had left her” wrote Friar Tomás resignedly, “I think it will always be the same thing.” The envoy was right; Juana saw no point in protesting again. And after each battle that he won, Philip cruelly and deftly went a stage further.
Turning his attention to his wife’s private apartments, Philip had insisted that Madame de Hallewin, once his own governess, should become one of Juana’s key ladies-in-waiting. Juana’s desire to have Doña Marina Manuel, whom Isabella also trusted, in that post had been ignored. According to Friar Tomás, Madame de Hallewin, together with Philip’s councillors, “have so much intimidated” Juana “that she dare not raise her head.” If she tried to complain to Philip himself about how she was being treated, Juana confessed to Isabella’s messenger, her husband just told his councillors, and she “receives great injury from it.” Friar Tomás does not tell us what that “injury” was, but he does report on her sadness and her growing realization that she was so very much alone. Luckily for Juana, a handful of her former attendants, including ten of her women, did choose to remain with her, so she retained some links to Spain to alleviate her homesickness. And homesickness was a problem for her in those early years. “She could never think of how far she was from your Highness,” the envoy wrote to Isabella, “without feeling the desire to cry, because she was so far from your Highness for ever.”
If Juana cried, she did so privately. In public, she was the gracious archduchess, just as Philip was every inch the affable archduke. Any friction within the marriage was well hidden. On state occasions, Juana and Philip dined publicly together, the embodiment of marital harmony. Juana was well dressed and bejeweled, Philip saw to that. Appearances mattered, status had to be upheld. He presented Juana with diamonds and pearls that had once graced the delicate neck of his mother, Mary of Burgundy; he made sure that her horses were impressively saddled; he gave her pictures; he gave her religious items such as an image of Saint Margaret, possibly because Saint Margaret was the patron saint of women in childbirth.
In the latter area, the couple certainly did their duty by the state. Juana produced healthy babies with an ease that Katherine would envy. Clearly disappointed that their first child was a girl, Eleanor, Philip required Juana to pay for the infant’s nursemaids and attendants. “The Archduchess may provide for the places in the household of this child because it is a daughter,” Philip asserted. “When God grants us a son I shall provide for his household.” God did grant them a son. Juana gave birth to Charles in March 1500, much to Philip’s joy: fireworks raced across the sky, church bells rang, and Philip gave Juana a magnificent and costly emerald as a reward. Their third child, prudently named Isabella after Juana’s mother, was born in July 1501. Because Juana was pregnant with Isabella when news of Prince Miguel’s death and her subsequent inheritance reached her, she and Philip were unable to start for Spain until the autumn of 1501, a couple of months before her twenty-second birthday.
If Juana had not anticipated inheriting her parents’ kingdoms, the possibility had certainly crossed Philip’s mind. And it had done so from the moment that Isabella’s “angel,” Prince Juan, died. In a move unlikely to endear him to his in-laws, Philip had begun calling himself “Prince of the Asturias,” the title given to the heir to the Castilian throne, and behaving as though the Spanish dominions and their wealth would one day belong to him, even though Princess Isabella, then queen of Portugal, was at that time ahead of Juana by virtue of seniority. With the deaths of the queen of Portugal and of Prince Miguel, Philip’s fantasy became reality. The fact that the heir was Juana and not himself was a mere detail; as her husband, what was hers was his. Thus he was overjoyed at the prospect of accompanying Juana to Spain for the acclamation of the Cortes: by recognizing Juana’s future title, the Cortes was also recognizing his. And he yearned to be a king rather than an archduke.
In light of all of this, the visit was unlikely to be an unmitigated success. As far as the Catholic Monarchs were concerned, it even began badly. In a move that could not fail to annoy Ferdinand and Isabella, who wanted Juana and her husband to come by sea, Philip decided to take the land route, which meant going through France, Spain’s enemy, and meeting the French king, Louis XII, face-to-face. To make matters worse, Louis and Philip agreed that baby Charles should one day marry Louis’ daughter. Juana, of course, was not consulted about the betrothal, nor were Ferdinand and Isabella, even though Charles was, after Juana, their heir.
But Juana was not entirely suppressed. Although forced to accede to her husband’s decision to travel through France, which she knew would upset and worry her parents, Juana deliberately emphasized the country of her birth by ostentatiously wearing Spanish dress. Her refusal to acknowledge Louis’ queen, Anne of Brittany, as anything other than an equal also almost caused a diplomatic incident. And while Juana was excluded from the discussions of her son’s betrothal, she did arrange that her daughter Isabella should one day marry the heir to Navarre, a kingdom on Spain’s northern borders that Ferdinand coveted. Spanish Juana was still alive and defiant, despite Philip.
Inevitably, encounters between Juana and Philip and Ferdinand and Isabella were often strained. Philip was not the obedient son-in-law that the Catholic Monarchs anticipated, eager to earn their approval and happy to pursue a foreign policy in line with their aims. He could be charming when it suited him, and his sporting prowess aroused admiration, but if the Catholic Monarchs had hoped that he would be the Ferdinand to Juana’s Isabella, they were in for a major disappointment. He was personally ambitious, greedy, and vehemently pro-French, none of which boded well for a future king of Spain. For that was what he would become. In theory, he was to be Juana’s consort, accepted as such by the Cortes; in practice, he had already resolved to rule himself when the moment came. Juana would need to be strong if she was to assert her authority. And whether Juana really was strong enough to do that certainly troubled her mother.
Feeling disturbed about Juana was nothing new to Isabella. She had been concerned about her daughter’s welfare almost from Juana’s first months in Burgundy, when disconcerting rumors of Juana’s conduct had led her to believe that the girl had abandoned her heritage in favor of a frivolous, unholy way of life. Hence her decision to send Friar Tomás to report on the situation. And Friar Tomás’s early reports had only heightened the queen’s anxiety. Juana, he wrote in August 1498, “did not confess on the day of the Assumption” and had no interest in anyone in Spain. However, by January 1499, Friar Tomás’s reports had become more reassuring. He had spoken to Juana, he said, after “she had been to mass,” and he stated that “in her house there is as much religion as in a strict convent.” “She has the qualities of a good Christian,” he asserted. Anything other than complete religious orthodoxy was something Isabella could not overlook; suspicion and denunciations were the basis for many an investigation by the Inquisition, and God’s enemies could not be allowed to flourish, no matter who those enemies were.
Juana’s subservience to Philip added to Isabella’s sense of foreboding. Once Juana had realized that her mother had not dispatched Friar Tomás to Burgundy exclusively to spy on her, she had begun to confide in him. But her accounts of the household and financial restraints she had to endure, and of her homesickness, revealed the extent to which she was manipulated by Philip. While this was upsetting to the forthright Isabella, she had to accept that Juana was, after all, only a consort in Burgundy. In Spain, however, Juana would become a queen in her own right; it would be Philip who would be the consort. Yet even before she met him, Isabella had heard enough of Philip’s conduct to think he would never willingly take second place to his wife. Isabella knew it would take all her skill to turn her daughter and errant son-in-law into the responsible rulers that Spain would need after her own death.
So, when at last the couple arrived in Spain for the Cortes’ acclamations, Isabella thought that the best course of action was to persuade both Philip and (particularly) Juana to stay in Spain for the foreseeable future. Then the queen could teach them how to rule the lands that would be theirs. Both started with handicaps: in Philip’s case, he knew nothing of Spain, and Juana, whose training had been geared toward marriage, knew nothing of governing. If the couple stayed in Spain under Isabella’s guidance, those handicaps could be addressed. In the process, Juana would be reexposed to the strict rituals of the Church, would be kept under her mother’s keen eye, and might appreciate the sacred burden of monarchy. The image of Christ standing alone in the Garden of Gethsemane was one that Isabella understood.
But Philip had other ideas. Once the various Cortes had recognized Juana’s claims, he saw no reason to waste his time in Spain. He had no intention of learning Spanish ways and customs, did not want to speak the language, and could not wait to go back to Burgundy. And he made this all too clear. Finally, he announced his departure, leaving without Juana, who was pregnant with their fourth child and unfit to travel. Neither the pleas of his wife nor those of his mother-in-law that he at least wait until Juana was safely delivered had any effect.
With Philip gone, though, the stage was cleared for Isabella. She would have liked to have Charles, the grandson who should one day take over everything from his own parents and from Ferdinand and Isabella herself, in Spain under her control, but he remained in Burgundy with the queen’s former daughter-in-law, Margaret. Still, she had Juana, and from March 1503, she had another grandson, for Juana’s new baby was a boy, named Ferdinand to please his grandfather. All Isabella needed to do now was to persuade Juana to remain.
Pulled in two directions, Juana could not please both her mother and her husband. Philip, uneasy about the pressure Isabella was exerting, wanted Juana with him and well away from Spanish influence; Isabella, equally troubled by Philip’s mastery over her daughter, wanted the opposite. So, for the first time in her life, Juana had a choice, a crucial one.
Until now, she had been subject to the will of others. Her parents had planned her education and negotiated her marriage, her husband had then treated her as a chattel and made his own position as head of the family and head of state abundantly plain. If she obeyed Philip’s summons to return to Burgundy, she would place herself in his power once more. She may have asserted herself somewhat in France, but by allowing him to reduce her role within her own household to little more than a cipher, she had already shown Philip that she would give way to him. He was the dominant partner in their relationship, and he knew it. That she would become a ruler herself when her mother died merely made her a more valuable commodity in his eyes.
Yet yielding to her mother’s entreaties would not necessarily allow the archduchess to determine her own destiny either. The Isabella who had fought the Moors and ignored the screams of the Inquisition’s victims was not about to give free rein to her own daughter. But Isabella was over fifty. Age, the pressures of state affairs, and her own personal griefs were all beginning to tell, and although she tended to make light of her physical ills, the queen was unwell. There was a strong possibility that Juana might succeed to Isabella’s thrones sooner rather than later.
When that happened, Juana would have the opportunity to prove herself her mother’s daughter and not just Philip’s subservient wife. But to do so, she needed to stay in Spain. If Juana’s emotional dependence on Philip decreased (and with two sons and a daughter, she certainly did not need him in the marital bed any longer), if she was resident within the Spanish court, and if she worked to earn the respect and reverence of the Spanish people, her chances of emulating her mother as a sovereign queen who made her own decisions and answered only to God would be dramatically increased.
In a contest between pragmatism and passion, the head and the heart, everything rested on just how much Juana really cared for Philip. Contemporary sources conflict, some telling us that she adored him, others that she was perfectly content without him. But her action surely reveals her true feelings. When offered a chance to escape his clutches, she opted for Philip and not her mother, and she opted for him in spectacular fashion. The queen, although ill, did her utmost to cajole Juana into staying in Spain. She failed. While she was willing to leave Prince Ferdinand in her mother’s care because he was too young to travel, Juana was obdurate. She was leaving and that was that. Facing her daughter’s intransigence, Isabella tried another stratagem, that of proposing a delay, citing the current war with France as an excuse for postponing what, at the best of times, was a dangerous voyage.
Guessing that her mother was trying every trick she could think of to keep her, Juana abandoned pleading and talking. Instead she staged an astonishing display of histrionic, even hysterical, behavior, indulging in tactics she would employ for the rest of her life whenever she was thwarted or powerless. She refused to eat, to talk, or to sleep, she attempted to force a ship’s captain to prepare to sail, she stood in the driving rain and would not take shelter for hours. Even a personal visit from Isabella would not move her. She wanted to go back to the country she now thought of as home, and to the husband she still loved, and she wanted to go immediately.
In the end, her tantrums worked. By May 1504 she was in Burgundy. But the cost was considerable, for her startling antics had alarmed all who witnessed them, including Isabella. Her subsequent demeanor in the Burgundian court caused yet more apprehension. Her longed-for reunion with Philip was a sour disappointment. Finding his ardor directed elsewhere, Juana, feeling desperately unhappy and betrayed, repeated the same tactics that had worn down her mother. Philip, however, was made of even sterner stuff than Isabella. When her carefully calculated displays of tears and temper failed to move him, Juana resorted to a more drastic approach: she physically attacked the woman she believed was her rival. The result was, understandably, a growing reputation for instability. Unwittingly, Juana was providing ammunition that her enemies could use against her in the future if the stakes were high enough.
Once Isabella died, those stakes would become very high indeed. And, in a strange twist of fate, the queen’s death not only changed Juana’s life completely but brought Juana and Katherine together one last time.