On November 26, 1504, in Medina del Campo, with the steadfastness, courage, and calm resignation only to be expected of her, Isabella, “by the grace of God Queen of Castile, of León, of Aragon, of Sicily, of Granada, of Toledo, of Valencia, of Galicia, of the Mallorcas, of Sevilla, of Sardinia, Cordova, Corsica, Murcia, Jahen, of the Algarves, Algeziras, Gibraltar, and the islands of Canaria, Countess of Barcelona, Sovereign Lady of Biscaya and Molina, Duchess of Athens and Neopatria, Countess of Roussillon and Cerdena, Marchioness of Oristan and Goziano,” took her last breath and went to meet her God.
She had asked to be buried, wearing the rough habit of a Franciscan, in the Franciscan monastery that she had founded in a house within the Alhambra, in the city whose conquest she had always seen as one of her greatest triumphs. Her casket was slowly escorted to the Alhambra from Medina del Campo, a journey covering almost two-thirds the length of Spain. Finally, it was carried up the same steep track that Boabdil had used twelve years before. The queen wanted a tomb that was simple and low. And so it was until, in the reign of her grandson, her body was reverently transferred to the specially constructed Royal Chapel in the cathedral at Granada. There she now rests, Ferdinand at her side, beneath a splendid sepulchre that is neither simple nor low. However, visitors to the Alhambra today can still see the tiny chapel, with a plaque on its floor marking the spot where her body lay for just over fifteen years, and where she would have much preferred to stay.
Katherine was taken by surprise when she heard of her mother’s death. Knowing that both of her parents had been ill, she had just written to them. These letters are in her own hand and in her native Spanish. In her note to her father, she said that she was “anxious to hear” from him as she had been told that his health was “suffering” and she had received no letter from him for “the whole of last year.” In fact, Ferdinand had been ill at the same time as Isabella but had recovered within a few weeks. Katherine sounds less worried about her mother. Although she told Isabella that she could not be “satisfied or cheerful” until she heard back from her, the princess said that she had heard from Juana, with whom she was in occasional contact, that “the daily attacks of ague, and the fever which followed upon the ague had disappeared.” Believing Isabella to be improving, the rest of Katherine’s letter, the last one she would ever write to her mother, concerns a domestic matter, the marriage of one of her ladies. The queen never saw her daughter’s missive; sadly, both letters are dated November 26, the very day that Isabella died.
Sorrowful though she was, Katherine overcame her grief, just as she had for Arthur. Somehow Isabella had coped with the deaths of her own mother, her only son, her eldest daughter, and her grandson. If her mother could survive such a burden, Katherine could survive a lesser one. What she did not realize was the effect that the queen’s death would have upon her own prospects and value in the marriage market. As a daughter of the powerful Catholic Monarchs who together ruled over such vast dominions, Katherine was a prize, the living symbol of a useful alliance. With her mother’s death, though, there was a real danger that Spain would disintegrate. If that happened, and there was every indication that it might, then Katherine was far less significant. And Henry, with just one son left, would bestow that son with considerable care and acumen; Katherine might no longer be good enough.
Ferdinand certainly appreciated the impact that Isabella’s death would have upon him. After a marriage of thirty-five years, and despite his numerous infidelities and illegitimate children, Ferdinand had been genuinely fond of his wife. Theirs had been an enviable partnership personally as well as politically. On the day she died, he wrote to tell Henry VII the news. Isabella’s death was, he confided, “the greatest affliction that could have befallen him” because he had lost “the best and most excellent wife that king ever had.” “The grief for her pierces his heart,” he went on. Yet he knew that “she died as holy and catholic as she lived.” He hoped, therefore, that she would be “in glory.” As for himself, he must “conform” to the will of God. But Ferdinand had lost more than a wife: he had lost all her lands. He was king of Aragon yet, but had only ever been king of Castile by virtue of his match with its queen. Now that she was dead, Ferdinand’s hold on Castile had, technically at any rate, died with her. All belonged to Juana. Or it would unless Ferdinand could somehow keep hold of it. And Juana’s temperamental, exhibitionist behavior just might help.
After those heady early days of physical passion, Juana’s marriage to Philip had gone from bad to worse. They had quarreled so much after her return to Burgundy from Spain that gossip said they had even come to blows, Philip’s easy affability fast slipping into domestic tyranny. He had locked Juana in her room, he had sent her favorite Moorish slave girls back to Spain, he had dismissed some of her ladies, he had tried to keep her incommunicado. And he had made sure that Ferdinand and Isabella heard how difficult a time he was having with their headstrong daughter, a woman who he was insinuating was unbalanced.
Isabella had heard, and had listened. Cocooned inside her room at Medina del Campo, a chamber hung with religious tapestries for her contemplation and comfort, she had turned her mind to the unthinkable: What would happen to her lands if left to a daughter who could indulge in hysterical tantrums and was dominated by a son-in-law who was ambitious and cruel? Her own rule in Castile had succeeded because she and Ferdinand had worked together; her husband had not tried to take over her territories for himself, he had supported her, not sidelined her. Such mutual respect and cooperation between husband and wife would not be the case with Juana and Philip. Isabella’s solution, hardly likely to please Philip, lay in the clauses of her will and the last-minute codicils she added to it. Everything, of course, belonged to Juana, but the queen acknowledged that there might be problems:
It may chance that, at the time when our Lord shall call me from this life, the Princess Doña Juana, Archduchess of Austria, Duchess of Burgundy, my very dear and beloved firstborn daughter, heiress and lawful successor to my kingdoms, lands, and signories, may be absent from them, or, after having come to them and stayed in them for some time, may be obliged to leave them again, or that, although being present, she might not like or might be unable to reign and govern. If such were the case, it would be necessary to provide that the government should be nevertheless carried on …
Despite being in the throes of her last illness, Isabella was nothing if not shrewd; this clause, stating as it does that Juana “might not like or might be unable to reign and govern,” deserves close attention because the inference is that the queen was trying to pave the way for her daughter’s exclusion.
An obvious interpretation is that after witnessing the histrionics employed by Juana in her determination to return to Burgundy in 1504, and hearing from Philip that she had behaved just as worryingly with him, Isabella really did fear that Juana had inherited the mental instability the queen had witnessed in her own mother. In that case, Juana would be “unable to reign and govern,” or might “not like” to govern, preferring to live quietly in seclusion. The queen was certainly anxious about her daughter’s health, even asking Philip to treat her kindly. Yet Isabella cannot but have noticed that Juana became irrational only in matters concerning Philip.
Gustav Bergenroth, the great nineteenth-century historian who transcribed and translated so many Spanish royal documents, offered another explanation for the key clause in her will. He suggests that Isabella was considering barring her daughter on religious grounds: that the queen found Juana’s religious views so suspect that she was unwilling to trust her with the strict Catholic state that she herself had been so intent on forming and defending. This is credible, but Isabella’s ambassadors had been at pains to set her mind at rest on this issue even before Juana had journeyed to Spain with Philip to meet the Cortes after Miguel’s death. Her daughter’s religious observances were entirely satisfactory, the queen had been told; she had also become involved with Franciscan nuns and had visited convents of the sisters of St. Clare. And, when she was back in Spain, her religious attendances had been as orthodox as her mother could have wished.
A more recent theory is that Isabella’s main concern was Philip. Having assessed Philip’s character for herself, and seen how tightly he controlled her daughter, the queen could see that Juana would have no capacity for independent action. Castile then, and Aragon too if that passed to Juana on Ferdinand’s death, would be ruled not by the rightful queen but by Philip, a man whose Burgundian outlook and pro-French predilections were alarming. The clause in Isabella’s will certainly fits that situation admirably: Juana “might not be able” to govern because Philip would not let her, or she “might not like” to govern because it would involve her in quarrels and confrontations with him. The carefully worded phrase also provides for the possible absence of Philip and Juana, should he decide that they would go back to Burgundy once “his” inheritance had been secured.
Whatever Isabella’s motives for the insertion of those few but vital words, in her mind there was only one person equipped to carry on her government in these dire circumstances, a man of “greatness … excellence … nobility … eminent virtues” who already had “great experience of the government of the said kingdoms”:
I have directed and ordained in my testimonial and will that in each of the aforementioned cases, the … King my lord shall reign, govern and administer the said kingdoms, lands, and dominions, and have the government and administration of them instead of and in the name of the Princess our daughter, until my grandson, the Infante Don Carlos, first born son and heir of the said Princess and her husband Prince Philip, has attained the age required by law for governing and reigning in these kingdoms, and has at least accomplished his twentieth year.
“Don Carlos,” then four, was being brought up in Burgundy. That had disappointed Isabella, who had yearned for him to spend his formative years in Spain, where he could learn to speak Spanish and to understand the lands that would one day be his. In fact, Isabella never even saw Charles.
In an additional clause of her will, inserted in a move intended to restrict Juana and Philip even should they decide, and be able, to rule, Isabella decreed that they should obey Ferdinand in all things as “good and obedient children” and listen to his advice on all matters pertaining to government. So, as she said goodbye to this world, Isabella hoped that she had thought of everything.
At first it looked as though she had. Ostensibly the good, upright parent, Ferdinand publicly acknowledged Juana’s rights even as Isabella’s corpse grew cold. He went on “the very day on which Queen Isabella died to the marketplace of Medina del Campo,” where he “ascended a platform” and renounced his title as King of Castile in favor of Juana and Philip. He wrote to them at once, asking them “to come to Spain, in order to take upon themselves the government of Castile.” So, as he would self-righteously protest, he had played fair. In fact, he was prepared to do whatever was necessary, be it devious or treacherous, to maintain his tenure of Castile. If he had to abandon his daughter in the process, then so be it.
As she attended requiem Masses for the repose of her mother’s soul, Juana had no conception of the snake pit that had opened before her, or the forces that opposed her. At twenty-six, she had no experience of statecraft; to her, the poisonous intrigues of Spanish politics were a closed book. Nonetheless, all should have been straightforward; the worrying catchall clause of Isabella’s will should have been unnecessary. As Ferdinand had acknowledged, Juana was her mother’s heir, and she should go back to Spain and govern in Isabella’s place, with her husband Philip as her loyal consort. If that occurred, her father must step aside and restrict himself to offering advice. But the crux of Juana’s predicament was that the two men who should have been her most devoted supporters were in fact her most deadly opponents. Both wanted what was by right hers. Philip even sent a letter, supposedly signed by Juana, to Ferdinand’s ambassador in Burgundy saying that she wanted her husband to rule in her place. That was the last thing she wanted; her “signature” has recently been proved a forgery. But the odds against her seizing her birthright were overwhelming.
When she heard that her mother had died, Juana was in Burgundy, where all the cards were held by Philip. Like Ferdinand, he was an established ruler. His ministers were accountable to him; ambassadors visited him and reported to him; foreign kings, including Henry VII, treated with him in international affairs. True, Henry did sometimes write to Juana to get her help, but he did not expect her to act independently of her husband. Gender ensured that it was Philip who made the decisions. Juana was largely isolated; she had no power in Burgundy and no influential supporters. Once she reached Spain, it might be different. Then it would be she who was on home ground, and she would have the opportunity to show that God had spoken and she was a worthy successor to Isabella the Catholic. Perhaps. But making arrangements for the journey to Spain was a slow business, and in the meantime she remained in Philip’s power. And he was saying that she was out of her wits.
However, despite the rumors Philip was assiduously circulating about her mental state, she continued to behave perfectly on public occasions, casting doubt on her husband’s claims. She could be composed, dignified, and regal, as she was when her father-in-law, Maximilian, visited Brussels in 1505. After an audience with her in her chamber on this occasion, the Venetian ambassador reported that “her bearing” was “that of a sensible and discreet woman.” She listened to his address and “made a loving reply.” The ambassador gave no indication that she was anything other than normal. He did remark on a “late illness” she had had, but went on to say that she looked “very well.” And she was well enough to watch a torchlight joust in which Philip, happy to bask in any available admiration, competed alongside Maximilian. The joust, which went on until four in the morning, was followed by a “sumptuous banquet” so that “well nigh the whole night” was “passed in dancing and other amusements.” Juana sat through it all, the gracious archduchess and queen.
Yet she could still play right into Philip’s hands. Though their marriage was unhappy and tempestuous, the couple were still sleeping together, and sharing him was still anathema to her. She could not bring herself to accept Philip’s infidelities and ignore them, as her mother largely had with those of Ferdinand and as most queens managed to do. Despite being bullied and ill-treated, Juana was jealous of any woman upon whom his mere glance might fall. Rashly, she surrendered to her emotions again, making a huge fuss just as she and Philip prepared for their voyage to Spain to claim the throne: she ordered a ship with women attendants on board not to sail with her because she suspected that Philip would bed them. Her actions were noted and repeated to the Venetian ambassador, who then of course repeated them himself—wonderful ammunition for Philip’s propaganda. Unfortunately for Juana, it was ammunition for her father too.
By the time Juana and Philip eventually did set sail for Spain, more than fifteen months had elapsed since Isabella had been lowered into the earth of her beloved Alhambra. No one had been idle, however. Juana, largely isolated from events in Spain, had given birth to her fifth child, a daughter, whom she named Maria. The widowed Henry VII had spent the time scouring Europe for a new bride for himself; he had also considered whether he might find a more suitable one for his son than Katherine, and wondered whether he could procure the capture of the Earl of Suffolk, that leftover Yorkist claimant from the Wars of the Roses, who had taken refuge in the lands of Maximilian and Philip. And the betrayal of Juana had begun.
Ferdinand clinically started the process of disinheriting his daughter. At the Council of Toro in 1505, he secured what amounted to a regency over Castilian lands. To do so, he presented evidence to the councillors that Juana was unfit to govern herself, thus invoking Isabella’s will. Having deliberated, they played right into Ferdinand’s hands by affirming that because of Juana’s “infirmity,” they considered that “by right as well as according to the laws of these kingdoms the lawful guardianship and administration of these kingdoms and dominions is due and belong to the said Lord, King Ferdinand.” The honest, if duped, councillors drew a polite veil over the precise nature of Juana’s “infirmity” except to say that they had been “privately informed” of it and they agreed that it was “notorious that the said infirmity” rendered it impossible for her to rule herself.
It was a promising beginning for Ferdinand. Juana’s “infirmity” was now well publicized and he had authority within Castile again, authority that had lapsed when Isabella died. For all that he was wily and shrewd, the perfect model for Machiavelli’s The Prince, Ferdinand did care about the security and prosperity of his realms. Since his marriage to Isabella he had worked to forge a unity of sorts within their joint dominions. Perhaps he genuinely saw Juana, and especially Philip, as threatening all that he had achieved and likely to bring “affliction” to Spain and its peoples; perhaps he considered himself to be simply keeping an eye on Castile as his wife had wished; or, more probably, he could not bear the thought of relinquishing the power that he had so enjoyed wielding. Whatever his motivation, Ferdinand was clearly determined to remain at the center of Spanish politics.
Ever a realist, he understood that his gains at Toro could prove only temporary. Philip and Juana might yet oust him, for he was not popular within Castile. Castilian grandees might prefer the possibly malleable Philip, eager to win their favor and ready to make concessions, to a skillful, efficient monarch like himself. Therefore Ferdinand did the unthinkable: he allied with France and was betrothed to Louis XII’s niece, Germaine de Foix. That would muddy the waters nicely. If Germaine had a child, at the very least Aragon was safe from Philip’s clutches, because that child would inherit it instead of Juana; and there was always a chance that a child who brought Aragon back into a union could be very attractive to Castilian interests. Possibly. But, to cover all bases, Ferdinand was ready to negotiate with Philip as well. Perfidy became them both.
For Philip, too, had been busy in the lull between hearing of Isabella’s death and sailing to Spain. He finished off a minor war, negotiated with the French himself, corresponded with Henry VII, and, more important, built up his support in Castile, mainly on the simple premise that he was not Ferdinand. He even managed to embroil Katherine in his squalid machinations, taking advantage of her genuine desire to see her sister. And more treacherously, he schemed to betray his wife, not in dalliance in the bedroom with his latest amour, but far more insidiously and cruelly: as a first step toward assuming total power himself, he strove to ally himself with Ferdinand. By the time his ship left port, Philip had gone partway to achieving his goal. He had haggled with Ferdinand until they reached agreement that the government of Castile should be undertaken by Juana, Ferdinand, and Philip in a tripartite system.
Thus, before she had put one foot on Spanish soil again, the rights that should have been Juana’s alone were now shared with her husband and her father. And neither Ferdinand nor Philip would willingly surrender them.