Isabella of Castile

by Giles Tremlett

  The sadness did not last. Nor did the mourning rags. An open-sided wooden stage had been hastily erected in the city’s Plaza Mayor. The following day, after a return visit to the cathedral, Isabella appeared on it in full, regal glory. Palencia claimed that she had changed after leaving the cathedral, swapping the black for ‘a rich outfit, adorned with glittering jewels of gold and precious stones that heightened her magnificent beauty’. She had clearly dressed for maximum impact, to create the awe she now needed to inspire. There, in front of a crowd of Segovians braving the December cold, she was proclaimed queen regnant of Castile. She swore to protect her people, respect the church and make her kingdoms prosper. She also pledged to ‘respect the privileges and freedoms that the hidalgos, cities and other places enjoy’ while maintaining her kingdoms undivided and her people free from the yoke of others. Isabella’s bold plans for Castile were already being dressed up in her favoured language of tradition.

  Trumpets, bugles and other instruments rang out as drums were banged loudly.2 Pennants and flags were hoisted to cries of ‘Castile! Castile! Castile! For our queen and lady, Queen Isabella, and for King Ferdinand as her legitimate husband!’ It was then that Isabella truly shocked some onlookers. She processed through the streets in her robes, preceded by something few could have imagined. ‘Before her went a single gentleman, Gutierre de Cárdenas, who held in his right-hand a bare sword held by the point, with the hilt upwards, in the Spanish fashion, so that all, including those furthest away, could see that she who approached could punish the guilty on Royal authority,’ Palencia reported. ‘Some of those in the crowd muttered that they had never seen such a thing.’3

  The eager crowd of onlookers must also have commented on the paucity of Grandees and bishops attending such a momentous event. Apart from Andrés de Cabrera – the man who controlled the Alcázar and royal treasure – and her own staff, few of these were present. The amazement quickly turned to grumbling among traditionalists. No woman had ever assumed, yet alone dared to display, such absolute authority or the symbols of violent intent. That Isabella did this while married, thereby ignoring her husband’s masculine authority, was even worse. ‘It seemed to them a terrible thing for a woman to show off the attributes that belong to her husband,’4 said Palencia, who shared their concerns. Others muttered about ‘certain laws that avowed women had no right to carry justice’, Valera confirmed.

  There was another, even bigger problem. Isabella was not the real heiress to Enrique’s kingdoms. That honour lay with Juana la Beltraneja – the twelve-year-old girl whom he had declared, just four years earlier, to be his ‘natural daughter’. Evidence about his dying wishes, however untrustworthy and partial the sources, only points to Juana as the chosen one. ‘On his death-bed the father [Enrique] called to him a considerable number of Grandees and men of all classes and, with them present, ordered that his final wish was that he be succeeded in all his kingdoms by his daughter,’ Portugal’s King Afonso V claimed in a letter to France’s Louis XI six weeks later. ‘Having first confessed … he told me that he considered his only daughter to be his legitimate, natural and universal heiress and successor in these kingdoms and lands of Castile and León,’5 Enrique’s royal secretary Juan de Oviedo would write four months later.

  Isabella had received news of Enrique’s death from a knight called Rodrigo de Ulloa, who rode through the freezing December night from Madrid to Segovia. He had requested, on behalf of Enrique’s junta of nobles, that she do nothing. She should not declare herself queen, but first let a decision be made about who was the rightful monarch. But Enrique had been sick for a long time and Isabella must have had her plan ready. She would move first and fast, forcing Enrique’s nobles and anyone who thought Juana la Beltraneja was the rightful heiress on to the back foot. (Indeed, she seems to have moved with such unseemly haste that her paid-for chroniclers felt obliged to invent the scene of her mourning her brother in the cathedral – an event that only happens several days later in Segovia’s municipal records.) After the ceremony in Segovia, Isabella wrote to Castile’s cities as if there had been nothing untoward in the oaths and pledges she had just received. ‘Recognising the allegiance and loyalty that these kingdoms of mine and that city [of Segovia] owe me as their queen and natural mistress and as the sister and legitimate, universal heiress to my brother the king, they swore obedience to me and pledged fidelity in the usual solemn ceremonies required by the laws of my kingdom,’6 she wrote. It all sounded straightforward.

  She now demanded that other cities do the same. ‘I order you to raise flags for me, recognising me as your Queen and natural mistress and also to the high and mighty prince, King Ferdinand … as my legitimate husband,’ she said. The message was clear in its reference to Ferdinand. He was king consort. She was the legitimate, rightful ruler. That is what the people in Segovia had proclaimed. The news she sent out came with a threat. In her letters she ordered both the cities and the commanders of fortresses in them to send representatives to swear allegiance to her. ‘Otherwise you will fall foul of the penalties contained in our laws,’7 she added.

  Isabella was a usurper. Her proclamation was a pre-emptive strike against the rightful heiress which made civil war inevitable. Despite the tension and chaos during his reign, Enrique had devoted much of his energy to avoiding war, but Isabella must have seen that this was now inescapable and knew that she needed to move quickly to establish her authority over as much of the country as possible. An unstable Castile would, once more, become a prize in the wider game of European politics as its neighbours – France, Portugal and Aragon – sought to control the demographic heart and economic powerhouse of Iberia. The absence of Grandees and senior churchmen at Isabella’s proclamation was a sign of weakness, and Juana la Beltraneja was now in the hands of Pacheco’s son, Diego López Pacheco, who had taken over as head of the family. He had inherited his father’s taste for mischief and was already reinforcing his castles and fortresses.8 Isabella’s rival was still too young to exercise her own authority.

  No absence in Segovia was quite as glaring as that of Isabella’s husband. Ferdinand was in Zaragoza, trying to help correct a disastrous Aragonese campaign against the French in Roussillon. Palencia, who would hear the details of Isabella’s proclamation second-hand, was with him, lobbying for one of his clients – the Duke of Medina Sidonia – who wanted to be the new master of the Santiago order. Isabella’s proclamation of herself as ruler and her husband as consort put her on collision course with those who assumed that he, not she, would rule Castile. Among them was the mighty and troublesome archbishop of Toledo, who continued to complain that Isabella mistreated him.9 Five years earlier she had used her self-proclaimed independence to choose a husband. Now the usurper queen had to make sure her husband stayed loyal, that the Grandees, bishops and cities backed her and that her independence did not suddenly disappear.

  11

  And King!

  Zaragoza, 14 December 1474

  Gonzalo Albornoz threw himself at Ferdinand’s feet in his palace in Zaragoza, took his right hand and delivered the dramatic news. ‘Today I kiss this hand one hundred and one times, because it is now that of my king and master,’ he said.1 Ferdinand was shocked by the abrupt, theatrical appearance of the Castilian gentleman, who still showed signs of having ridden hard from Madrid. ‘So, does that mean the king is dead?’ he asked. ‘The letters will inform you of that,’ said Albornoz, handing over the message given to him by his master, the archbishop of Toledo. Alfonso de Palencia was present to witness the scene and said that Ferdinand reacted with a mixture of sadness and relief at the death of a man he viewed as his, and his father’s, rival.

  Ferdinand was annoyed, however, that the messenger bearing such historic news had come from the archbishop rather than from his wife. ‘He expressed to me his surprise that he had not received a letter from the queen on such an important matter,’ commented Palencia. Ferdinand had to wait three days before receiving a letter from Isabella. Palencia repor
ted its tepid contents: ‘The presence of the Prince would not be useless, but he must do whatever he thinks best given the circumstances, because she does not know well enough the state of things in Aragon.’ It was a half-hearted invitation to join her, or so it seemed to those in Zaragoza, though it also took into account the possibility that Ferdinand might have to save his own future kingdom first, before attending to hers. Isabella knew that the French were pressing hard and that the situation in Roussillon was going from bad to worse. Once her letter had arrived, he gave his final instructions about what should be done to save Roussillon and set out slowly through the pouring winter rain for Segovia.2

  In the snake’s nest that was the Castilian succession, Ferdinand was a major rival to his wife. On one hand he could claim to be de facto ruler, if he believed his wife’s sex made it impossible for her to govern. Castilian history, his counsellors insisted, showed that that was a husband’s job. Isabella had herself already recognised that he could also make a direct claim of his own, on the grounds that he was now one of the senior surviving males in the Trastámara family, though she placed him immediately behind herself in the line of succession. Others saw Aragon’s King Juan the Great as the senior Trastámara male and proper heir, with his son able to govern in his name. Either way, a long list of people now expected Ferdinand to govern Castile. It included his own father, the archbishop of Toledo and Palencia. The latter already looked upon the events in Segovia with deep suspicion. Isabella was receiving ‘bad advice from her counsellors who, from the very first days of their marriage, had been plotting so that the queen should enjoy first place in the government of the kingdom’, he sniffed. He was crystal clear about what he himself thought ought to be happening. ‘Upon his death don Enrique … was succeeded in the kingdoms of Castile and Leon by the prince of Aragon, don Ferdinand, according to his hereditary rights as husband of the queen, doña Isabella,’ he stated.3

  Ferdinand appeared to concur, even if the wedding agreements he had signed said something very different. Her tardiness in writing to him had already upset the young prince. Some of those surrounding Ferdinand were even more disturbed, especially when they heard that the royal sword had been held before Isabella as she processed through Segovia. ‘We were sorry to hear about it and certain that it would cause future rivalries,’ said Palencia. Ferdinand’s own counsellor, Alfonso de Cavallería, warned Juan the Great that the problem threatened to snowball. ‘The first thing you should do is intervene with his highness [Ferdinand] and the queen, his wife, so that they should love [the idea of] agreement and union between them and the benefits that this will bring. You should condemn and denounce the discord and differences between them and the unfortunate damage that might result.’4 That discord had been sown long ago, but had been suppressed by the young couple’s fight for survival in their first few years together. Now that the prize was within reach, it blew to the surface.

  Three days later at Calatayud, on the road to Castile, Isabella’s messengers brought him a longer letter, and full details of the Segovia ceremonies. Palencia claims Ferdinand expressed shock on reading confirmation that his wife had processed through the city’s streets with the upside-down royal sword before her, attributing to herself the right to mete out violent justice. ‘I want Alfonso de Cavallería, as an expert in laws, and you Palencia, who has read so much history, to tell me whether in the past there has been a precedent of a queen who has ordered that she be preceded by the symbol of punishment of their vassals. We all know that [this right] belongs to kings, but I do not know of any woman who has ever usurped this manly attribute. Perhaps I am ignorant because I have seen little and read much less.’ Palencia told Ferdinand that Isabella had acted against Castilian tradition. ‘The young king expressed his astonishment, time and again, at such unheard of events,’5 Palencia insisted, worrying that this would provide the Grandees with ammunition to cause trouble.

  Not everyone thought like Palencia. Martín de Córdoba, a distinguished Augustinian friar, disagreed strongly. In a book he wrote to guide Isabella in the exercise of authority, The Garden of Noble Ladies, he claimed that it was ignorant or old-fashioned to ‘believe it evil when some kingdom or other polity falls to a woman’s government … I, as I will declare, hold the contrary opinion.’ There had been plenty of learned women, including princesses and saints, in the past ‘especially in letters. So why is it that now, in this our century, women do not give themselves to the study of liberal arts and other sciences; rather it appears to be prohibited?’6

  Ferdinand did not spend Christmas with his wife. He progressed slowly through the bitter cold towards Segovia, building up a large retinue as he went. By Christmas Day he had made it only as far as Almazán, a town in the power of the Mendozas. He seemed both determined to impress and in need of time to think through the new situation. Palencia poured poison into his ear. ‘Most of that [Christmas] day he spent secretly talking to me, given that the way events had gone made him pay greater attention to my repeated warnings about … the perfidious advice being given by the queen’s adulators,’ he said.7

  Archbishop Carrillo also stirred the pot of marital strife. He had already reached Segovia, demanding the best rooms in the palace and swearing allegiance to Isabella. But he made little secret of the fact that his plan was to follow the king, not the queen. Palencia blamed Cardinal Mendoza, the archbishop’s great rival and now becoming one of Isabella’s main advisers, while ‘various of the principal knights continually encouraged the petulance that they had begun to introduce into the Queen’s womanly spirit’. As Ferdinand made his way towards Segovia, the cardinal and his brothers had already signed up to a confederation of nobles who pledged to protect Isabella’s supposed right to the throne. They would support ‘the queen, our mistress doña Isabella, as queen and natural mistress of these kingdoms, and King don Ferdinand, her legitimate husband, our master’. Once more, they put him in second place as consort. The Mendoza clan placed itself under Isabella’s command, telling her that ‘Your Highness must order us to do whatever best serves you.’ Palencia explained that fear of the Aragonese yoke had spread rapidly through the Castilian court. ‘Those ideas moved the queen who, after all, is only a woman, and quickly caused others who had previously been against the queen’s arrogance and high-handedness to change their minds,’ he said.8

  The Aragonese, meanwhile, openly rejoiced at what some saw as a bloodless takeover of Castile, referring to it as ‘our happy succession in those our [new] kingdoms’. The city of Barcelona, for example, wrote to congratulate Isabella, but put her second behind her husband, with Enrique’s heirs given as ‘the king [Ferdinand] and you’. In other correspondence Aragonese officials failed to mention Isabella at all, while talking about Ferdinand as ‘successor to the kingdom of Castile’. His father announced that Castile ‘has been passed to the illustrious prince’.9

  It took Ferdinand a further week to reach Turégano – just two leguas, or riding hours, from Segovia. It was New Year’s Eve, and Segovia was busy celebrating the change of year. Ferdinand was asked to wait before entering the city. In the meantime, a stream of senior nobles left Segovia to visit him. On 2 January 1475, Ferdinand made his formal entry. Those watching could be forgiven for believing that the relationship between Isabella and Ferdinand was perfectly harmonious. She, and the city, laid on a stunning reception. The nobles who had assembled in Segovia waited for him outside the walls. He wore a long black cloak, to mourn Enrique, which was ceremoniously removed to reveal a shiny outfit embroidered in gold and lined with the fur of pine martens. A canopy was held above him as he walked to Segovia’s San Martín gate and there swore to respect the privileges and rights of the city. A torchlight procession then led him through the dusk to the cathedral to pray and swear his oaths. It was only then that he went to see Isabella, who waited in the outer courtyard of the Alcázar.10 Much had changed since they last saw one another, eight months earlier. Now, instead of confronting adversity together, they had to confront one
another. Castile, and the nobles gathered in Segovia, wanted to know how they planned to govern a kingdom that Isabella had claimed as hers.

  While courtiers on both side schemed and argued, Isabella and Ferdinand kept their heads. The latter thought that a generous dose of husbandly love would soften his wife up. He told those who thought he was being too gentle with her to wait. ‘He replied that he was confident of overcoming the situation with patience and that he was sure of triumphing by assiduously satisfying the demands of conjugal love, which would undoubtedly soften the harsh intransigence that wicked men had placed in the queen’s heart,’ recorded Palencia. After the feast that followed Ferdinand’s proclamation as king, the young couple slipped away.11

  Palencia was so disgusted that he marched off, cursing Isabella’s pride. Even the archbishop of Toledo, now fully under Alarcón’s spell, seemed to him to have gone mad. In fact, the situation was resolved with ease. Ferdinand accepted that the archbishop, a pro-male traditionalist, and Mendoza, an Isabella supporter, should be the arbiters. The two rivals did their job efficiently. Within two weeks a document was drawn up and signed. It did not differ greatly from the original marriage accord signed at Cervera in 1469, though it made some concessions to Ferdinand. As ‘legitimate successor and proprietor of these kingdoms’, Isabella would receive the pledges of loyalty, name officials (though both could name corregidores, the representatives of royal power in the cities), give grants and sign off on Castile’s accounts, with money first going to cover administration costs. Ferdinand’s name would go first on their joint documents and coins, but her shield had precedence. Both could administer justice, jointly or apart. Pulgar claimed that Isabella won her husband over by pointing out that, if he insisted that only men could inherit the crown, he was putting their own daughter Isabella – still their only child – in a situation where she, too, would be prevented from ruling. He also claimed that the two monarchs realised that much of the advice they were receiving was self-interested and that they had already decided not to let the Grandees divide them. A key understanding, mostly stuck to over the years, underpinned their power-sharing alliance: they would never, even when apart, override each other’s decisions.12 A unique alliance was being formed between two people who were not just husband and wife but also political partners representing their own different interests. All would depend on how this compact worked in practice, and how they both behaved.