by Andrew Rowen
“You must succeed Alfonso immediately,” advised Carillo. “Crown yourself as he did. Continue the contest to unseat Enrique.”
“My lord, the odds of prevailing seem slim,” she responded. “The few queens in our history have risen to the throne upon the deaths of their husbands—reigning kings. I’m a maiden.”
“You need not be. King Juan of Aragón has offered Fernando in marriage if you pursue the rebellion.”
“You shouldn’t attempt to continue Alfonso’s rebellion,” others cautioned. “You’ll never win. You’re a woman alone, and Alfonso wouldn’t have won anyway. You should strike a deal with Enrique instead, recognizing his rule so long as he recognizes you as his successor and disinherits the bastard Juana.”
“But will Enrique honor the bargain?” Isabel asked. “Or will he wait for our loyalists to disband and then marry me outside the kingdom when there’s no one left to object?”
Isabel had always followed Carrillo’s advice, but she now felt confident to decide her actions alone as the Lord guided her, having witnessed years of court intrigue. She despaired that her advisers, supporters, and friends—together with her detractors, absolutely everyone!—denied her ability to make decisions as a ruler simply because she was a woman, regardless of her native acumen and accumulating experience. Few perceived or appreciated her ambition and resolve—traits admired in princes, not princesses.
Isabel reflected some weeks and then received word Brother Enrique desired a truce and would absolve her and others of treason. She shuddered to wage war against a brother duly anointed at their father’s direction. Few to whom she had written had responded to offer support, and she recognized most of them doubted her ability to unseat Enrique and would, as a matter of political calculation, accept his amnesty. Rejecting Carrillo’s advice, she authorized her advisers to negotiate a truce recognizing herself as Enrique’s successor, perceiving it the surest route to achieve her ambition to rule as queen over a kingdom controlled through history by men.
To Isabel’s delight, there were now rumors that Queen Juana had been unfaithful again and was pregnant, and Isabel’s advisers worked tirelessly to ensure the rumors spread throughout the kingdom, casting further doubt on little Juana’s legitimacy and building consensus that Isabel’s succession could never be usurped. Isabel reflected that her own purity and abstinence, and her devotion, offered a clear alternative to the depravity of her brother’s rule, and that she must adhere to and publicly display that purity and devotion always.
Fernando, prince of Aragón and king of Sicily, was in Catalonia leading his father’s troops in battle against Catalan rebels and their French supporters when he received word of the death of King Alfonso, whom he had never met. The rumor was that one of Alfonso’s champions had poisoned him, secretly remaining loyal to Enrique. Fernando brooded that Alfonso had been forced to rely on insincere noblemen, lacking the father and mother’s protection and tutelage that Fernando had enjoyed since birth.
At sixteen, Fernando was of modest height, with brown eyes, dark hair worn to the collar, and a nimble, athletic frame. His royal stature was forthrightly proclaimed by clothing of unsurpassed quality and elegance, including a bejeweled jerkin and fine leather boots, and a sword at his hip inherited from predecessor kings of Aragón. When but ten, he had been recognized by the Catalans as heir to Catalonia in one moment and then disclaimed the next, to be entrapped, besieged, and assaulted for weeks with Mother—Queen Juana Enríquez of Aragón—in Gerona’s fortress deep within Catalonia. He had beheld the bloodshed, suffering, and deaths of their defenders, only to be rescued by then-allied French troops because Father—King Juan II of Aragón—did not have the wealth or army to rescue them himself.
Fernando had fought with Father and Mother since then to subjugate Catalonia, hunting, battling, incarcerating, and executing rebels against Father’s rule, and learning many lessons, some rude or unpleasant. Alliances and pledges of allegiance couldn’t be trusted. Retreat sometimes was the best course of action, regardless of humiliation. The glory of the Crown of Aragón and the righteousness of its causes themselves were not sufficient for military victory. Justice should be brutal, vindictive, and exemplary. Mother had died that winter, and Fernando now grimly understood the Catalan rebellion hadn’t been crushed but had grown stronger. The rebels had elected the French king’s surrogate as their ruler,11 and, were the French to provide the rebels greater support, Catalonia could be lost and Aragón’s interests in its Mediterranean possessions, including his Sicily, jeopardized. Aragón desperately needed an alliance with Castile to defend its interests.
As Isabel reposed in Ávila’s monastery, Fernando speculated what she would decide. He had never met her either. She hadn’t been involved in any political or military action he knew of and appeared simply to be waiting for marriage. Would she name herself queen and seek a husband to fight and defeat Enrique? Father had offered himself to her in marriage many times, and now offered marriage and troops precisely to that end—regardless of the desperate need for troops in Catalonia. By mid-September, Father’s spies and frequent communications with Archbishop Carrillo provided the disappointing answer.
As King Enrique and Isabel prepared to meet to seal their truce, Fernando met Father at Cardona in Catalonia to review their military situation and Castile. Fernando listened as Father intently revealed his next move, aware that Father—then seventy and close to blind— never gave up.
“Isabel has been weak or misinformed by her advisers,” Father began. “Enrique will never honor the promise that she succeed him, and he’ll rid her from Castile by arranging a marriage that takes her to live with a foreign prince. To become queen, Isabel needs a husband who lives in Castile and is fit to replace Enrique as king, either now or later. That’s you.” Juan studied his teenage son. “Isabel’s supporters still need us, and they know it. Do you understand the marriage terms we must offer them to secure her hand?”
Fernando waited deferentially for Father to continue.
“Carrillo and the others will demand that we agree that she, you, and your children of her live in Castile. That’s how she rules when she becomes queen and how Carrillo and the others derive their future power. They’ll fear diminished influence if she moves to Aragón, and they won’t tolerate rule from afar.” Juan paused to gauge and invite his son’s reaction.
“If—or may I say, when—I inherit Aragón, I’ll need to rule it from afar.”
Father pondered silently for a moment, and Fernando worried that Father perceived him as presumptuous.
“You’ll also have to agree to recognize Enrique, just as Isabel intends,” Father continued. “Thereafter, you’ll have to tread carefully between obedience to Enrique and ensuring Isabel becomes queen. If she doesn’t, you won’t become king of Castile through her.” Father slapped Fernando on the knee to emphasize the point. “And assuming she does become queen, her Castilian supporters won’t allow you the full power of a king in Castile. I don’t know what they’ll demand in the marriage contract at this time, but they’ll want to retain through Isabel, and perhaps directly themselves, constraints on your authority in Castile in favor of their own.”
“We could promise Carrillo and others important positions when I rule,” Fernando interjected.
“Which you will have to live with for some time, perhaps forever.” Juan frowned. “Perhaps not.”
Fernando puzzled over whether he as husband would dominate Isabel to eviscerate these constraints.
Juan was ahead of his son. “You’ll dominate her as husband to wife, but that wouldn’t free you entirely from the noblemen’s constraints. Remember, now that young Alfonso has died, I and then you have our own claim to the Castilian throne on Enrique’s death— as Enrique’s closest living male heir.12 This isn’t the time to argue this point—if we so much as mention it, the Castilian noblemen won’t marry her to you in the first place! But—remember this—the time to assert it is on Enrique’s death.”
; Father asked Fernando to embrace him, and they dined on roasted wild boar.
In the morning, Fernando rode back to fight the rebellion. Before departing, he knelt in filial obedience before Father, seated on the Aragonese throne. Father made certain his son understood the intended result of the marriage. “When you inherit Aragón, Aragón will rule Castile from Castile.”
In September, Isabel met Enrique to agree upon the truce, relinquishing her claims to the throne until Enrique’s death in return for recognition as his successor. The truce terms provided that both Enrique’s and Isabel’s consents would be required for her marriage. Enrique’s marriage to Queen Juana would be dissolved, and the queen and her daughter sent back to Portugal. But, yet again, Enrique did not concede that little Juana was not his daughter.
Isabel went with Enrique’s court to live in Ocaña and soon confessed to herself she had been wrong to trust her brother. Enrique failed to dispatch the queen and little Juana back to Portugal. He formulated terms for Isabel’s marriage to Portugal’s Afonso V, which Isabel rejected, but Afonso V sent representatives to Ocaña to negotiate the marriage, regardless.
Isabel had already grasped the singular merits of marriage to Fernando, and her informants had confirmed his valor. He was already a king, a general, and prince to the remainder of Hispania except Portugal. His throne and future thrones were of lesser wealth and power than her own rightful throne, so her own resources and power would exceed his. They were the same age, and he was well proportioned, healthy, and athletic. It was said he was devoted and worshipped daily, well spoken to whomever he addressed, and compassionate to those in need. He drank little. He also was experienced and potent in bed—there were two women who shortly would bear him children. Isabel was not shocked or dismayed. Most every bishop or prelate she knew, and every king or prince except Enrique, had fathered children outside wedlock. She knew she desperately needed not only a king to achieve the throne but a son to maintain it.
In November, Juan II dispatched his principal minister to Ocaña to seek Enrique’s consent for Isabel’s marriage to Fernando, knowing full well that it would be denied. The true purpose of the mission was to negotiate Isabel’s marriage terms with Carrillo and other noblemen loyal to her. Isabel waited nervously alone as the minister conducted these negotiations secretly with her counselors at night, after excusing himself from court.
By February, the negotiations achieved marriage terms acceptable to Juan II and the Castilian nobility loyal to Isabel, which recognized Isabel as heir to Castile and by which Fernando made various capitulations. Fernando would obey King Enrique until his death. He would respect the Castilian bishops and nobility and their privileges, including Carrillo. He and any children from Isabel would live in Castile. Castilians alone would be appointed to office, and he would honor Isabel’s choices. They would sign orders as prince and princess jointly. He would not conduct war in Castile or with his father without Isabel’s consent, and, when he became king, he would prosecute the war against the infidels to reclaim the remainder of Hispania for Castile. Upon consummation of the marriage, Isabel would receive 100,000 gold florins and the revenues of various towns in Sicily and Aragón. Fernando himself would give Isabel his mother’s ruby-and-pearl necklace worth 40,000 gold ducats and an additional 20,000 gold florins.
For their support and treason, a number of Isabel’s counselors would receive titles to townships or public offices, as well as gold payments. Papal approval was required for the marriage because Fernando and Isabel were second cousins,13 and the prelate who conferred the papal dispensation would receive, in addition to gold, a bishopric.
Isabel anguished that Fernando would find his capitulation demeaning and think she had chosen all its terms, which she had not. She wrote him a short note, responding to a note he had sent and her first communication to him. She ended the note indicating it came from the hand that would do that which Fernando ordered.
In March, Fernando received Isabel’s note and the agreed capitulation, which he signed. Alfonso, his first known illegitimate son, had been born sometime before. Given the meager state of Aragón’s treasury and the need to finance the Catalan war, the monetary payments were a steep burden. He studied the last sentence of her note carefully. Was it merely a feminine pleasantry? Was she indicating she would assume the traditional role of a queen as wife? Did she mean she didn’t embrace his capitulation and would provide her own interpretation?
Fernando reflected that he knew nothing of Isabel’s character. While his life had been led in battles and Cortes for all to see, hers had been close to invisible. He understood she was of medium height, with a cheerful face, pink cheeks, and blue-green eyes, plump and healthy, and that she was as proficient with a horse as any man. It was said she enjoyed the company of the devout, never drank, cared for the victims of brutality, and longed for the Reconquista’s completion. But there was little else to indicate how she would rule as a queen.
Juan II also signed Fernando’s capitulations but refused to make any monetary payments or forward his wife’s necklace until he saw Isabel was truly committed, which he indicated meant she had to break from Enrique and leave Ocaña. Isabel anguished.
Enrique left Ocaña for Andalusia in May and, before departing, again asked Isabel to marry Afonso V. She again refused, exulting that her deception remained undiscovered and trembling that it remain so. Furious, he indicated that, on his return, he would arrange another marriage, but he forbade her leaving Ocaña or entering marriage commitments before then.
With trepidation, Isabel realized there were no compromises left to pursue with Enrique. One night, she prayed to the Lord, no longer for guidance, nor for blessing of just her treason, but for her very safety and, with two counselors, mounted on horseback and stole from Ocaña. She had never felt such fear or exhilaration. As they rode, and as her escape proved undetected, the Lord again revealed to her that he was with her. She went to live with her mother in Madrigal.
Enrique by then had sought her marriage to King Louis XI’s brother, and threatened Madrigal’s officials if they permitted Isabel to marry another. Juan II received word of Isabel’s flight and dispatched the necklace and 20,000 gold florins. Isabel was charmed to wear the necklace, and she and Carrillo dispensed some of the florins to Madrigal’s officials.
In August, Isabel entered Valladolid, safely within the territory of her supporters. Confident in prevailing, she publicly wrote Enrique explaining that she would marry Fernando, justifying her actions, and seeking his consent. Enrique did not respond and began to return north with troops. In October, disguised as a muleteer, Fernando and a few advisers stole from Aragón into Castile north of Valladolid, escaping entrapment by noblemen loyal to Enrique.
Isabel, then eighteen, and Fernando, then seventeen, met for the first time at about midnight on October 14 in the home of Juan de Vivero, the husband of Carrillo’s niece. Carrillo was present with other counselors. Isabel’s supporters advised that Fernando be required to kiss her hand in deference to her greater stature as heir to a greater throne. She rejected that as unfitting both a king and a husband.
Before Fernando was ushered in, Isabel’s heart pounded with excitement and anticipation, having awaited this moment her entire life. She wanted to please Fernando, for him to love her, and for their marriage to be happy and blessed with at least a son. She also wanted him to respect her authority. She agonized how to balance the two desires. She was eager to see the man she would sleep and share her life with. She prayed that the meeting would go well and resolved to keep it personal, not involving sovereign matters. At this moment, those matters were for Carrillo.
Before he entered, Fernando felt a tension in his chest almost as keen as when he prepared for battle. He had won the hand of the princess of Castile. But he knew close to nothing of her, and he had wondered for months what the last sentence of her note really meant. He was anxious that he not appear proud, overbearing, or arrogant, but he feared acting in any way subservient
or revealing the weakness of Aragón. He would not act learned or wise, for she may have been far better schooled. He would show his stature simply, for he was proven in battle, court, and the bedroom. He wanted her to love and obey him. He, too, resolved to avoid sovereign matters.
Carrillo ushered Fernando in and the teenagers met. They looked into each other’s eyes for the first time, and, after a lifetime of frequently contemplated or proposed marriage, cheerfully greeted each other. With calmness and authority, Isabel asked Carrillo and advisers to sit apart as she spoke to Fernando, which had been his intent regardless. Fernando was confident to lead a dignified flirtation with any woman, and Isabel gaily acquiesced.
Two hours later, Fernando left. Isabel was enthralled with him and their rapport, which she judged genuine. She could not sleep. She thought he was handsome and was delighted she would share her bed with a husband her own age. As he rode away, Fernando was flush with accomplishment. She was charming, astute, clever, and worthy in every respect. He thought she was feminine and attractive. He could not yet determine the meaning of her note.
The wedding ceremonies and festivities lasted several days. When it came time to join them in marriage in Vivero’s home, the papal dispensation of consanguinity had not been obtained. The pope had already granted one for Isabel’s marriage to Alfonso V, and Enrique had warned him not to approve another for marriage to Fernando. Archbishop Carrillo falsely proclaimed the dispensation in hand and married them regardless. Isabel’s supporters were jubilant. Then followed an afternoon and evening of music, dance, jousting, and other celebration, soaked with wine and other spirits.
As the evening wore on, Fernando and Isabel went to the bridal chamber on a floor above the raucous revelers and, with witnesses at the chamber door, Fernando and Isabel consummated their marriage as the revelers cheerfully waited. Fernando then gave the bloodstained sheets to the witnesses, who displayed them to the revelers—who offered thunderous applause above the blare of trumpets and pound of kettledrums.