Isabella of Castile

by Giles Tremlett

  The Portuguese king now made a strategic mistake by heading straight for the heartland of Castile when an attack on the south, where unstable Seville was an important prize, would have provided a relatively simple victory. To the north, the city of Burgos – where his supporters held the castle – might have been another good objective. It was one of the main gateways of Old Castile and was on the path that the King of France, who had pledged to add his troops to those of Portugal (in what he hoped would be a two-way division of the booty to be obtained in both Castile and Aragon), would probably take. But Afonso headed for Arévalo, taking La Beltraneja with him and hoping that her presence would generate the enthusiasm of loyal – or legalistic – Castilians wherever they went. López Pacheco joined him with 500 men, but soon had to travel east back to his own lands in the southern meseta of New Castile to quell pro-Isabella rebellions and attacks from neighbouring Aragon. Ferdinand boasted that he could easily deal with the threat. ‘Within a few days I will have brought together such a force that there will be no reason to fear the King of Portugal,’ he wrote to his father from Valladolid in mid-May.25

  In geographical terms Isabella’s party now controlled most of Old Castile, in the north, with important exceptions like Toro, Arévalo and, especially, the fortress at Burgos. In a civil war where the main strategic aim was to win possession of cities, these sometimes found themselves opposed by their own fortresses or even by individual commanders in control of turrets, gateways, bridges or anywhere else sufficiently fortified to lock themselves away and use thick, high walls to their advantage. So it was that while the town of Toro and the fortress at Burgos sided with La Beltraneja, the fortress at Toro and the city of Burgos sided with Isabella. Support also stretched north from there, via the Basques, to the French border and the sea, while the north-western region of Galicia mostly stood aside as local nobles fought their own petty battles. Andalusia was also in a volatile state of disarray as nobles there squabbled among themselves. The lands bordering the northern half of Portugal were now mostly backing La Beltraneja. New Castile, dominated by López Pacheco and the archbishop of Toledo, was a distinct problem for Isabella, with the city of Toledo her most important possession. But the Portuguese king chose to stay in Old Castile, moving his army north to the relatively safe haven of Toro as Isabella and Ferdinand gathered armies on either side of him.26

  Three days before Ferdinand set off towards Toro to do battle against King Afonso, he wrote a will. It displayed absolute trust in Isabella, asking her to care for his bastard children Alfonso (his favourite and a future archbishop of Zaragoza) and Juana and their mothers. ‘I trust that your royal highness will look after them as well as, or better than, I myself would,’ he said. The will also contained a sincere declaration of love from Isabella’s twenty-three-year-old husband, who asked to be buried beside her. ‘This is so that, just as we have had a singular love and marriage in this world, so we will not be separated in death,’ he said.27

  An extraordinary section of the will reveals just how far he and Isabella had already travelled in their ambition for a united Spain. Ferdinand wrote that his daughter, the four-year-old Isabella, should be his heiress, despite Aragonese laws that blocked women from ruling.

  I appoint my dear and beloved daughter Princess Isabella as my universal heir in all my goods and lands. In particular, I make her my heir and legitimate successor in the kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily, regardless of any laws, charters, instructions or customs of those kingdoms that state that a daughter cannot succeed. I beg the king, my lord [and father], to cancel and annul those laws in this case. And as soon as I can, I myself will cancel and annul those laws in this case. I do not do this out of ambition … but because of the great profit that our kingdoms would gain from it and so that, in this union with Castile and León, one royal person be lord and monarch of all of them.28

  The will was remarkable not only for its explicit request that Juan the Great break Aragon’s long traditions (unlike in Castile, and despite occasional debate, it had long been established practice that the heir to the Aragonese crown be male) and accept a woman as heir should his son die, but also for the scale of Isabella and Ferdinand’s ambition. They now consciously sought, through their offspring, to bring together Castile and Aragon under a single crown in order to create, in effect, Spain. With that, Ferdinand set off for Toro with his army of Basques, mountain folk and excited nobles. Isabella gave them a final, morale-boosting harangue.29 It was time to do battle.

  14

  Though I Am Just a Woman

  Tordesillas, June–August 1475

  Isabella was finding war, and the challenges it presented, stimulating. It was also hard physical work, especially in a country of rugged mountain ranges and poor roads like Castile, where co-ordinating her forces meant continually climbing on and off mules or horses and riding for days at a time. She had lost her baby as she travelled back towards Ferdinand from Toledo and was now resting for a month in Avila. Even from her sickbed, however, Isabella could not stop herself from taking an active part in events. She had written again to loyal nobles around the country, ordering them to make war on La Beltraneja’s supporters. ‘You can freely wound or kill them without suffering punishment of any kind, and capture and imprison people on your own authority,’ she said.1 The war was to include, if necessary, the razing of buildings, burning of crops, destruction of food and wine stores and chopping down of olive or fruit trees. All this, she told them, was permitted because it was a ‘just war’.

  Her reaction surprised some, who thought she would leave warfare to her husband. It was during these troubled early days of her reign that commentators began to attribute to her certain manly qualities. This was the only way they could find to explain such a dynamic, warlike and assertive spirit in a woman. ‘When the queen saw how, in such a short space of her reign, they no longer allowed her to impart justice in the way that she so liked and as she realised that wickedness was spreading more avidly than ever, she took upon her own soul, more like a vigorous man than a woman, the weight of correcting matters,’ wrote an anonymous chronicler who seems to have been present as she gathered her armies.2 It was a sign that Isabella had stepped outside the limits of traditional womanly behaviour, provoking both perplexity and admiration. Castilians were waking up to her forceful personality and firm hand – obliging them to rethink exactly what a woman or, at least, a queen might be capable of. For the moment it was easiest to think, quite simply, that she was behaving like a man.

  Isabella moved north from Avila towards Tordesillas with the large army she had gathered there and from neighbouring Segovia. Isabella’s own batalla, or regiment, of 1,500 men, led by senior members of her household, carried her flag with her personal symbol that many would have seen for the first time, the sheaf of arrows. It was now July 1475 and only a month after the loss of her baby, but Isabella was vigorously, excitedly involved in war preparations. Along the way, she met up with the Duke of Alba and his private army. She was delighted to see he had primitive lombarda cannon for attacking walled fortresses along with some 8,000 footsoldiers and 1,200 cavalry. These she took to Tordesillas, along with troops raised by other nobles. The reunion between the two spouses was spectacular, because of the number of troops each brought with them. Some 28,000 men met at Tordesillas on 12 July, forming a classic feudal host that was a hotch-potch of forces. They ranged from peones, inexperienced footsoldiers on day wages who made up the bulk of the forces, to well-armed cavalry lanças, elaborately armoured mounted nobles and hombres de armas, or men-at-arms. The greatest Grandees and churchmen brought personal armies of more than 1,000 horsemen apiece, plus accompanying footsoldiers. Isabella’s chief counsellor, Cardinal Mendoza, led a force of 500 lancers of his own. Dressed in their finest cloaks and jewels, the Grandees competed to outdo each other in both firepower and fashion. Alfonso de Fonseca, señor of Coca, was deemed to have outdressed the rest with an Italian cape dripping with pearls and precious stones, while his horse w
as caparisoned to match. The city militias arrived, as did the bold Basques and the rustic men from the towering mountain ranges that loomed above the Cantabrian coastline, often in family groups. Some of those present had, quite recently, been at war with one another and there was a lingering mistrust of the nobles among the militias. The latter saw them – not without reason – as a group of unreliable schemers. The army had to wait another ten days while last-minute negotiations were carried out to ensure the presence of several Grandees, including Beltrán de la Cueva – none other than the alleged father of Isabella’s rival, La Beltraneja. There were now some thirty-five different batallas, and ‘so many tents and provisions that it seemed like the whole world was there’. Isabella herself wanted to move with the army to Toro, but eventually it was decided that Ferdinand would lead this mass of troops west towards the Portuguese king’s army while she stayed with the reserves twenty-one miles away in Tordesillas. It was one of those occasions in which Isabella bent to the opinion that this was not really women’s work.3

  News reached them on 16 July that Zamora, only twenty miles further west along the broad River Duero from Toro, had also declared for La Beltraneja and her Portuguese fiancé. Isabella and Ferdinand were struck by the enormity of Zamora’s decision to back their enemy since this now gave King Afonso’s army a clear path to and from the Portuguese border, making him extremely difficult to dislodge. Their large army moved sluggishly and ran into resistance the very same day it left Tordesillas, with a small river fort on an island in the River Duero refusing to surrender. Ferdinand’s men attacked, with the young king himself at the forefront and the hardy Basques doing much of the close-up fighting. A hail of missiles and arrows rained on the fort from the Duke of Alba’s siege machines and twice the defenders raised a flag asking to talk, but Ferdinand refused and they were eventually dragged from its walls. Those not immediately lanced to death by a furious group of Basques seeking revenge for relatives killed in combat were hung from the walls. ‘Nobody who was there had ever seen so many people hung together,’ said the anonymous chronicler. ‘That night they were stripped by some of the poorer men and they were left [hanging] there for many days which, given the heat, was an appalling thing to witness and, with them naked, it seemed like hell itself.’4

  It was a small and particularly vicious triumph, but Isabella was overjoyed. Military victories, it soon became obvious, thrilled her tremendously. They were not only a source of glorious revenge, but also proof that God was on her side. The arrival of the Count of Benavente with 800 well-armed cavalry lifted Isabella’s spirits further and she immediately sent them on to Ferdinand. Benavente’s own horse, its armour covered with long black-and-white spikes, was a spectacle that one onlooker compared to a giant porcupine.5 ‘No one dared approach that horse in battle, as, even on its own, it could do so much damage,’ said the anonymous chronicler.

  Ferdinand had set off full of confidence, ready to storm Toro or lure the Portuguese into an open battle. The fall of Zamora, however, made him change his mind. It was too close to Toro and meant that the Portuguese and La Beltraneja’s other supporters could easily harry his men. Instead, Ferdinand issued a personal demand for man-to-man combat with King Afonso. Neither man seems to have taken the idea seriously, but honour codes obliged them to pretend by negotiating conditions. Afonso demanded that Isabella be handed over to him in exchange for Juana la Beltraneja while the duel was being fought. Ferdinand refused and the whole affair ended in farce when a Portuguese royal herald was attacked by the uncontrollable Friar Alonso de Burgos who, enraged by the sight of him carrying the royal symbols of Castile and forgetting the norms of chivalry and diplomatic immunity, knocked him off his mule. It was such an affront that Ferdinand had to load the poor messenger with personal gifts to recompense him. To the fury of the Basques and the men from the northern mountains, Ferdinand eventually decided to turn back. The angry northerners, fuelled by strong wine, stormed into his camp, claiming that the king must be being held captive by cowardly or treasonous nobles. Ferdinand had to calm the mutiny personally before giving the order for this vast army – which had required Isabella to raid the treasure kept at Segovia’s alcázar and hand over their daughter Isabella to Cabrera and his wife Beatriz de Bobadilla as surety6 – to turn back to Tordesillas.

  The troops returned in a thunderous mood, but no one was as angry as Isabella. She left Tordesillas at the head of a small cavalry force of her own as soon as she saw the first soldiers returning. The livid queen rode frantically backwards and forwards to stop what she thought must be a routed army in retreat. ‘She ordered that the first horses to appear be turned back at lance-point, saying words that seemed more to come from an energetic man than a frightened woman,’ the anonymous chronicler said. When Ferdinand and the nobles appeared, she delivered a furious, public dressing down. ‘All that night the queen spoke to the Grandees in words charged with great rage and irritation, complaining about them and their inadequate assistance and bad advice, as one does when impassioned, and likewise, with great daring, she spoke frankly to the king about it all,’ said the chronicler. Isabella was so enraged that the council meeting at which they had planned to debate the matter that night had to be postponed. She was still boiling when they met the following day. The chronicler who passed on – or, possibly, invented – her speech as it was recalled by those present had her spit sarcasm at the assembled men. ‘Even if women lack the discretion for knowledge, the energy for daring and sometimes the language for speaking, I have found that we do have eyes to see with,’ she said. ‘And what is certain is that I saw such a huge force leave Tordesillas that I myself, as a woman, would have dared take on any challenge in the world with it.’7

  ‘What sort of danger could they possibly meet that would take away the sense of daring and commitment that usually grows in the hearts of men?’ she asked.

  Because if there were danger, it would be better to take it, like medicine, and for it to be over in an hour rather than have to suffer a prolonged illness … And if you tell me that women, as they don’t put themselves in danger, shouldn’t talk about this because the people who always talk most bravely are those who don’t place themselves in battle, I will answer that I don’t see who else could be risking more, given that I offer the king my lord, whom I love more than myself or anything else in the world, and I offer so many fine gentlemen and people and so much wealth that, if lost, would also be lost to this kingdom.8

  ‘Although I am just a weak woman, I would find out whether fortune was on my side, or not, before fleeing the enemy without putting it to the test,’ she added. ‘From now on we should lose ourselves to fury rather than allow moderation to triumph, because war needs the counsel of the brave rather than that of letrados [university-trained lawyers]; things are only achieved by action.’ And with that she apologised, as a woman, for daring to be so frank, but declared that she felt much better for saying it.9

  The nobles were left speechless, not daring to answer their sovereign. Only the king himself replied, claiming they had been right to retreat but had probably not explained their reasons well enough. Afonso had many well-armed men, he said, and the Portuguese were good fighters. He also had the town walls, turrets and gateways of Toro. Ferdinand insisted that he would have defeated him in open warfare, but that trying to dislodge him from such a well-defended town which could be reinforced from Zamora was pointless. Wisdom, in this case, was better than valour. ‘We mustn’t fall into traps, but rather be lords of the open country,’ he said.

  In wars where there is not [good] counsel, the fury that takes hold of one’s head later falls at one’s feet; time and effort are what win victory. Madness, in my world, must be lashed down … If things are looked upon lightly, then the falls are heavy – as we have all seen and read – and if we did not test our luck [this time], well we hope it will be on our side in more equal contests, because it is obvious that in this instance, even if we had had faith in victory, we know it was impossible and
would not have come.10

  Those present were left with little doubt that behind Isabella’s normally calm and regal façade lay a strong, uncompromising and, when roused, passionately demanding character. Some nobles were clearly worried that they had pledged allegiance to a war-crazed queen. The chronicler, reflecting this opinion, had Ferdinand publicly rebuke his wife with barbed words. ‘The person who is able to keep you content has yet to be born,’ he said.11

  15

  The Turning Point

  Burgos, December 1475–February 1476

  Despite the freezing January weather, there were dances and children sang as Isabella rode into the city of Burgos. The young queen had ridden for six days through snowstorms and biting winds, but the journey was worth it. She was here to oversee one of the first major victories in her war against Juana la Beltraneja and her supporters. The city’s fortress had given up the unequal fight after nine months under siege. Many of its defenders were wounded, others were long dead. Food was running scarce and siege machines were slowly battering down the fortress’s thick walls. Isabella herself, now accompanied almost everywhere by Cardinal Mendoza, oversaw the final negotiations that brought the surrender of those inside. The glory of victory was hers alone to savour, as Ferdinand was busy elsewhere. By 2 February 1476, she was able to walk through the half-destroyed interior of the fortress, the loyal people of Burgos following along behind her.1