Isabella of Castile

by Giles Tremlett

  By taking possession of the fortress Isabella had secured one of the principal cities of Castile and done much to block the path of the king of France if he stuck to his pledge to join the battle against her. This was a wealthy, busy city that wore its reputation for experiencing ‘ten months of winter, and two of hell’ lightly.2 Burgos’s dark, narrow streets bustled with activity and its well-travelled wool traders were among the most worldly people in Castile. No monarch could hope to control the kingdom without the city’s help.

  It had become a slow-moving, diffuse war, with the two major armies occasionally manoeuvring, but mostly not engaging. Cities, towns and fortresses held out for one or other side – and both success and failure were measured by the capture, or loss, of these strategic outposts. The young monarchs had set new objectives after the troops that turned back from Toro marched off angrily and chaotically for home. The Burgos fortress was a priority and Ferdinand’s illegitimate half-brother Alfonso of Aragon – already famous for his capture of the Catalan castle of Ampurdán – appeared with skilled siege engineers at the end of November 1475. His know-how, tactics and hardware brought a quick victory. Tunnelling under the castle to cut its water supply was the most effective measure. The defenders gave up ten days later, requesting the customary two-month period of grace to either be rescued or surrender. Her brother-in-law’s presence was part of Isabella’s reward for her alliance with Aragon, whose experienced soldiers were also harrying López Pacheco’s properties in New Castile.3 If ever there was a moment to reflect on the rightness of her choice of husband, and ally, this was it.

  Isabella played an important part in the military manoeuvres that won her the Burgos fortress by preventing the Portuguese army from coming to its rescue. ‘Since she knew that the King of Portugal was awaiting more people in Peñafiel in order to carry out the rescue [of the Burgos fortress], she ordered that the footsoldiers and cavalry with her be distributed across various spots near Peñafiel and that they should harry the King of Portugal on all sides, cutting his supplies,’ Pulgar reported. Isabella’s troops kept the Portuguese king busy and he eventually turned back to Zamora, leaving those in the fortress at Burgos with no hope of succour.4

  Isabella continued to shadow the Portuguese king, now moving herself to Valladolid to be closer to the latter’s base at Zamora. ‘In this war they were always careful that either the king, the queen or, on their orders, their captains were as close to the King of Portugal as was possible,’ said Pulgar. The methods used for winning over fortresses and towns were not always orthodox. The contest at Valencia de Don Juan, for example, was won when the Isabella-supporting Juan de Robles hurled his Juana-supporting brother-in-law, the Duke of Valencia, off the walls of his own castle.5 This unchivalrous act of murder went without punishment, prompting observers to assume that the perpetrator must have sought the permission of the young monarchs first. Both Isabella and King Afonso used dirty tricks, secretly trying to create or buy up turncoats. When Isabella heard that the alcaide, or captain, of the fortress in the city of León had been in negotiations with La Beltraneja’s supporters, she rode swiftly off to the city herself. In a face-to-face confrontation outside the fortress walls, she forbade the alcaide from going back inside until control had been handed over to a replacement she had brought with her. ‘You must not move from my side until I have control of the fortress,’ she instructed him.6

  She also oversaw potentially crucial negotiations with her own secret supporters in the pro-Juana cities of Zamora and Toro. These finally bore fruit at Zamora in December. Isabella’s supporters were prepared to open the city gates secretly so that it could be stormed. She immediately sent for Ferdinand and set about raising an extra 2,000 lanzas to add to the army of more than 4,000 cavalry that was already prepared. She told Ferdinand to fake illness and then steal out of Burgos without anyone knowing. He was able to leave his brother in charge and ride secretly away, meeting Isabella in Valladolid. Two clandestine Isabella supporters who were senior officers in Zamora, Francisco de Valdés and Pedro de Mazariegos, were prepared to let him cross a fortified bridge which was under their command and led straight into the city. It was a golden opportunity to capture La Beltraneja, but someone tipped the Portuguese king off and he sent his men to storm the bridge. When that failed, Archbishop Carrillo – one of Portugal’s principal Castilian allies – warned that they were in imminent danger. ‘I know the king and queen of Sicily,’ he said, refusing to refer to Isabella as queen of Castile. ‘Either one of them will arrive here soon, or they will send such a force that they will push back the people you have ready to fight … And it is not advisable to fight in the streets of Zamora, where all of the neighbours are our enemies.’7 The Portuguese king realised that there was no time to waste and ordered his troops to evacuate the city and head for Toro before the Isabelline army arrived. By the time Ferdinand reached the city, Zamora was already theirs, though the pro-Juana fortress garrison locked its gates and vowed to hold on until it was reconquered once more. The fact that the people of Zamora supported Isabella was a further sign of the natural confluence of interests between the queen and city-folk. The latter wanted to shake off the yoke of the bullying nobles, while Isabella wanted to augment royal control in every way she could. In Burgos, this confluence of interests had been even more apparent. Before agreeing to the surrender, Isabella signed a document promising the city that the fortress would remain under royal command and would not be returned to the Stúñiga family that had held it for four generations and which had long been at the forefront of rebellions against established royal authority.8

  These were two important victories, but they did not tilt the balance of the war definitively. In fact, the scales began to move in the opposite direction as two large new armies prepared to invade Castile from abroad in the spring of 1476. In France, Louis had been busy with the English over the previous summer, but he had won that war and was now ready to take on Castile.9 In Portugal, meanwhile, the king’s son João was preparing a new army to come to his father’s aid. Together they presented a considerable threat to Isabella’s still weak grasp on Castile’s crown.

  Isabella busied herself once more raising troops while Ferdinand prepared to do battle with the Portuguese reinforcements. ‘It is well known that the prince of Portugal is gathering troops to enter these kingdoms and that is why the king, my lord, wants to wait for him rather than leave Zamora,’10 she wrote to her father-in-law from Valladolid on 30 December 1475. ‘From this town I myself am gathering as many people as I can so that I can send them to the king if necessary and so that I can supply whatever else is needed.’ Isabella and Ferdinand were establishing a military relationship that, once more, was based on intelligent division of labour and would last them through more than one war. Ferdinand led the army while Isabella raised troops, looked after the reserves and acted as the army’s quartermaster general, keeping it armed and fed. Wider strategy on how to pursue the war was agreed jointly and, when necessary, Isabella would also manoeuvre with a small army of her own.

  A second opportunity to catch La Beltraneja and her Portuguese fiancé almost came at Toro, thanks to a deal similar to that struck with Isabella’s secret supporters in Zamora. Spies in Ferdinand’s army informed the Portuguese about the plot however, and when the time came the town’s gates were not opened. The Isabelline conspirators were, instead, caught, tortured and hanged. Ferdinand was then unable to prevent Prince João crossing the frontier and making it to Toro on 8 February 1476. The Portuguese army was now big enough to risk open battle and Isabella, who had moved near by to Tordesillas, continued to raise troops as a full-frontal confrontation loomed. Her father-in-law Juan the Great counselled prudence, urging them to avoid direct battle and concentrate, instead, on winning over the Grandees who were on Juana’s side. Perhaps he was thinking of Pedro de Stúñiga, who tried to persuade Isabella that his father, the Count of Plasencia, was too old to make decisions and had chosen to follow La Beltraneja on the instructi
ons of his stepmother, Leonor Pimentel. Pedro had stayed loyal to Isabella in what appeared to be a family strategy to play on bothsides. If Isabella could forgive her father, Pedro now told her, he would switch sides with the rest of the family. Isabella found it notoriously difficult to forgive people, Pulgar observed, and in this case she was dealing with the man whose family had taken possession of her mother’s lands in Arévalo. Sense, however, prevailed. Isabella acquiesced and the Stúñigas gave up the title of counts of Arévalo.11 It was the first major transfer of loyalty towards her among the enemy Grandees, and the whole family, including Leonor Pimentel, became important allies.12

  By this stage, King Afonso had told Isabella that he could be bought off, though the price would be high. He wanted Toro, Zamora and the ancient kingdom of Galicia, the Castilian lands that stretched from Portugal’s northern boundary to the Cantabrian Sea. Others would have seen this as a tempting offer. If a French army invaded while they were still fighting the Portuguese, Isabella and Ferdinand’s forces could well be overwhelmed. But neither had come this far only to start giving away lands that had belonged to Castile for centuries. ‘The queen, on hearing the Portuguese king’s demands, replied that … she would rather put it all in the hands of God so that he decided what should be done with them than, during her lifetime, permit a single battlement to be taken,’ wrote Pulgar.13

  The Portuguese king and his son now set off with their army from Toro towards nearby Zamora. Their aim was to besiege the city and relieve the fortress, which was still in the hands of their supporters. But when Isabella sent part of her army to menace his supply lines, the Portuguese king decided he was too exposed and set out back towards Toro. After a late start, Ferdinand began to chase them. He eventually caught up with the enemy an hour’s march from Toro at a place known as Peleagonzalo. The Castilian troops harassed the rearguard, forcing the Portuguese army to turn and take a stand. Ferdinand’s exhausted troops had ridden hard, leaving many of his footsoldiers behind. There was debate about whether they were really prepared for a set-piece battle, but eventually the order to attack was given. Among the reasons Ferdinand later gave for attacking was: ‘Faith in the justice that I and my very dear and very beloved wife the Queen have in these kingdoms’. It was already late in the day and, though Ferdinand’s forces captured the Portuguese king’s royal pennant and drove the centre and one wing of his army back to Toro, the other wing – commanded by Prince João – stood firm and beat off its enemies. Ferdinand’s men chased those who fled, including the archbishop of Toledo’s men, back to the bridge into Toro where there was close fighting. ‘The figure of the archbishop, so large in the previous battles that he took part in, was now reduced to very little,’ commented his former friend Palencia.14 The latter claimed, on no discernible grounds, that the Portuguese had lost 500 men to just five on Ferdinand’s side. But the lengthening shadows, impending rainstorm, lack of footsoldiers and his troops’ undisciplined desire to stop and loot anything the Portuguese left behind meant this could never be a full rout. Keeping control of his troops became increasingly difficult and Ferdinand, at one stage, found himself riding with just three men. At night-time both sides withdrew, and both would later claim victory, though this belonged, narrowly, to the Castilians. The Portuguese king was said to have hidden himself at the fortress in Castronuño, not far from Toro, with his panicked men unsure of his whereabouts until the morning. ‘We were in the field, and in control of it, for three or four hours, and then I returned back here to Zamora victorious, arriving at one o’clock in the morning,’ Ferdinand claimed when he wrote to his father.15

  Isabella waited nervously in Tordesillas, on the far side of Toro. It was a rainy and – for the queen – very long night. The next morning a messenger arrived from Ferdinand, announcing victory. ‘I must inform you that news has arrived this hour that yesterday, on Friday the first day of this month [of March 1476] … the king won and the adversary and his men were scattered,’ she immediately wrote in a letter to be sent urgently around her kingdoms. That night she set out, barefoot, to walk to the monastery of San Pablo in the company of the town’s clergy to give thanks. ‘It is impossible to describe the queen’s delight,’ said Palencia. A few days later she joined her husband in Zamora, where the defenders of the city’s fortress soon also surrendered. It was neither a great nor an absolute victory – but it proved decisive. In a world where military victories were seen as proof of God’s approval, it could also be taken as a sign that Isabella’s claim to the crown was not just valid but divinely sanctioned. A usurper’s claim, in other words, could be made good by the blood of her opponents. Isabella made sure that her slanted version of what had happened – that the battle had been an outright defeat of her enemies – was spread quickly. She needed not just victory on the battlefield, but also to win the war of propaganda and persuade Castilians that this was proof that God had chosen her to rule over them. Celebrations were organised around her kingdoms, while a new church and monastery in Toledo would become monuments to the victory.16

  This triumph was accompanied, almost immediately, by further fine news. The Basques had halted a French invasion, turning it into a siege of the fortress at Fuenterrabía, just across the mouth of the River Bidasoa from France. Louis XI had, crucially, waited to see whether Charles the Bold, the Duke of Burgundy, would respect a peace treaty, or attack him. That had allowed Isabella and Ferdinand to secure three important victories – at Burgos, Zamora and Peleagonzalo – which freed them up to help the Basques organise their defence of the relatively narrow Castilian frontier with France. The siege of Fuenterrabía was lifted after two months, and although King Afonso later travelled to France to try to persuade Louis XI to invade again, the latter was no longer interested. Isabella and her supporters had, in effect, seen off the threat from outside Castile. That, undoubtedly, was a relief. But this was also a civil war, and it would not be over until enemies like López Pacheco and the archbishop of Toledo recognised Isabella as queen. And after decades of weak rule chaotic Castile itself had yet to be tamed.17

  16

  Degrading the Grandees

  Madrigal de Las Altas Torres, 6 May 1476

  The origins of the argument between husband and wife were simple enough. With the Portuguese army in disarray and victory in sight, Ferdinand needed to take a break in order to help fight the French on his father’s borders. Isabella was clearly unhappy about this, but if she was to be left in command of the army, then she would at least give the orders. Ferdinand had organised a ceasefire at the besieged pro-Beltraneja town of Cantalapiedra for while he was away, but an impatient Isabella now decided otherwise. One of Juan the Great’s agents at the royal court was there when the plans were suddenly, and controversially, changed overnight. As he waited to see Ferdinand, the agent was surprised to hear the strident and bellicose Friar Alfonso de Burgos, one of Isabella’s closest advisers, loudly informing a group of people that the queen had decided the siege must continue. ‘The queen knows that by taking Cantalapiedra the king of Portugal will be destroyed,’ Burgos said. ‘And so the monarchs do not want any of it [the agreement] carried out, but instead that the siege continue, and the fighting go on until it is taken.’ Isabella was a bigger risk-taker than Ferdinand and had found an ally in their siege-master, his half-brother Alfonso of Aragon. The latter stormed into Ferdinand’s rooms, insisting he would not abandon Cantalapiedra until it had fallen. An angry Ferdinand found a sudden need to go hawking with some of the 120 falconers that thecouple employed. Isabella, meanwhile, shut herself up in her rooms, refusing to receive people. She had imposed her will, but at a price to her usually smooth relationship with her husband.1 It was, perhaps, also a glimpse of who normally won their arguments – even when they were out of sight.

  Isabella had yet to sign a peace, but it already looked very much as if she had won a war. Burgos and Zamora were hers. The French invasion had only inched its way into her lands before being stopped by the Basques, and the Portuguese had
been forced into an ignominious retreat outside Toro. Ninety years earlier, Castile had been humiliated on the battlefield by Portugal at Aljubarrota. Now revenge, a God-given gift, had come her way. King Afonso V of Portugal left Castile on 13 June 1476, taking Juana la Beltraneja with him, but leaving his troops garrisoned in Toro and neighbouring forts.2 Isabella was in a strong position to start negotiating a peace deal, but was much too ambitious for that. Already she was seeing her reign in historic, messianic terms as that of the woman who would return to Castile the greatness it deserved, making it feared and respected by others. She wanted a clear-cut, absolute victory, rather than some ambiguous peace which might leave cities like Toro or Zamora being squabbled over for decades to come. That meant evicting the Portuguese definitively and quashing the pro-Juana Grandees.

  Soon after Afonso left, Isabella ordered an assault on Toro itself. Her captains had told her that there were now only 300 Portuguese troops in the city. This was a chance for her to achieve what Ferdinand had failed to do when he had turned his enormous feudal host back from Toro, to her immense fury, a year earlier. An attack was launched, but the city walls were high enough and thick enough for the Portuguese to see off the Castilians, who retired with their dead and injured after four hours of fighting.3 Isabella had tasted defeat, but remained determined to take both Toro and Cantalapiedra at the first opportunity.