Isabella of Castile

by Giles Tremlett

  By now court poets, when not encumbering Isabella with masculine attributes to explain her ascendancy over them, had turned instead to the forlorn language of courtly love – a rare outlet for men to express inferiority to or fear of a woman.

  Help me, I am dying

  and everybody knows

  that you are the cure

  for this, my fierce torment,

  wrote one, who found himself either struck dumb or babbling incoherently before her.

  If I wish to speak, I dare not,

  if I try to stay silent, I cannot.

  Like a fearful child

  before a stern father

  I am overcome by fear of you.

  Just as clemency is begged for

  by those condemned for crime

  So with great reverence

  before your presence

  My every sense trembles,

  he said. Fear, admiration and loyalty were difficult to express,especially as they came together. ‘It is worth noting’, wrote another, apparently surprised, court poet, ‘that fear and love can exist together.’21 Isabella did not seem to mind. These were, after all, exactly the emotions that a successful sovereign was meant to provoke. Faced with the famous question later posed by Machiavelli, about whether it was better to be loved than feared or feared than loved, Isabella had clearly reached the conclusion that, while it was obviously better to enjoy both, being feared was the most useful of the two.

  Isabella’s long stay in Seville was not all about the rigours of imparting justice or forcing fractious nobles to accept their authority. Ferdinand had arrived on 13 September 1477. Popular obsession with the queen’s pregnancies was such that one letter-writer to Isabella claimed, just two days after Ferdinand’s arrival, that she must be pregnant already. He was not far off. Years had passed since her last pregnancy, and she had sought the advice of a Jewish doctor, Lorenzo Badoç. Ferdinand would put this new pregnancy down, in part, to his help. Now everyone was waiting to see what would happen, a full eight years after she had given birth to Isabella. ‘One single hope for the future shone brightly in the hearts of Castilians, the long-desired delivery of Queen Isabella’s child,’ wrote Palencia, who said Isabella hoped for a son. Ferdinand, conscious that he would soon be king of Aragon, also prayed hard for a son – but he worried more about his wife. ‘As the pregnancy looked as if it might run the danger of a miscarriage, the king was especially anguished, moved by his indescribable love for his wife, preferring above all outcomes that she should emerge safely from the experience.’ Others might have put the birth of a male heir first. Perhaps Ferdinand was frightened by the size of Isabella’s expanding womb and the dangers that pregnancy and childbirth brought to her. A rumour spread that he had ordered the beheading of a man who had joked that the Queen would ‘either give birth or explode’.22

  18

  Adiós Beltraneja

  Seville, 30 June 1478

  A midwife from Seville, known as ‘La Herradera’, delivered the child in the queen’s rooms in the Alcázar, in front of a clutch of city officials. She may have had the ‘thin hands and long fingers’ that were deemed necessary for her profession. It was 30 June 1478, exactly nine months and seventeen days after Ferdinand’s arrival. This time it was a son, named Juan. Nine days later a grand procession wound its way through the city’s streets to the Santa María la Mayor cathedral. The baby boy was carried by his governess, while bishops and Grandees walked or rode alongside to the sound of trumpets, pipes and sackbuts. Crosses from the city’s churches were paraded in front of them.1 A cardinal and the papal nuncio were on hand to oversee the baptism of a boy apparently destined to become one of the most powerful kings in Europe. Joy – and relief – spread quickly across both Castile and Aragon.

  The child was named after his two grandfathers, though some warned that Castile’s previous King Juans had brought bad fortune. He was greeted with predictions of messianic glory, as if he was a cross between John the Baptist and the long-awaited Lion King of legend. ‘The queen has paid off the debt of providing this kingdom with a male heir,’ observed Pulgar, who now decided that the birth was final proof that God had chosen Isabella above both of her brothers to raise Spain back to glory. ‘He chose not from the tribe of Alfonso nor, because he rejected the tabernacle of God, from Enrique. He chose instead the tribe of Elisabeth [meaning Isabella], which he loved.’2 The reaction was, in part, explained by the fact that Spain now had a prince whose expected destiny, as future king of both Castile and Aragon, was to rule most of Iberia – from the Atlantic ports of western Castile to the Mediterranean coast of Catalonia and Valencia. ‘This is the union of kingdoms,’ wrote the enthusiastic councillors of Barcelona.3 A writer from Toledo was so delighted that he thought he knew exactly what effect the birth must have had on Isabella. ‘The queen, our lady, was very pleased that she was now free from the danger inherent in childbirth and for the birth of the señor prince because, as the words from the New Testament say: “Women, when they give birth, are sad; but once they give birth to a son, they forget the anguish because of the pleasure it gives them, since the newborn is both man and prince.” ’4 Isabella may, or may not, have experienced the anguish, but she must have felt that this auspicious birth crowned the glory of her first few successful years as queen. Castile was, barring a few troublesome spots, under her control. Isabella was a traditionalist and had no interest in changing the rules of inheritance to favour women, or balance their rights against those of men. She ruled Castile as queen, with help from her husband, but that rule was clearly enhanced by the existence of a male heir who could avoid future bickering about women sitting on thrones. Now she must make sure that the heir had something stable, pure, wholesome and grand to inherit.

  Isabella did not reappear in public for a month, when she put on a silk dress studded with pearls and rode a white horse, its saddle decorated in gold, to church while little Juan was carried by his governess, once more, on a mule. The only event to spoil the celebrations was an eclipse which blotted out the sun so thoroughly that the stars came out. ‘It was the worst anyone could remember,’ reported the chronicler Andrés Bernáldez. Isabella’s subjects were Christians, but they were also deeply superstitious and some must have muttered about harbingers of bad luck. In Aragon, Juan the Great fretted about leaving his precious grandson in Castile. Two generations of Castilian kings had been captured and groomed by privados in their infancy, turning them into weak pawns. The king of Aragon did not want Isabella’s officials doing the same to little Juan. The great families who now clustered around his mother, vying for positions and participating in the baptism service were proof that the danger still existed. ‘As soon as possible and as cautiously as you can, move him to my kingdoms and believe me that the health of your estate and deeds depends on it,’ he told Ferdinand. The increasingly ancient Aragonese king also appeared to stick to his belief that Ferdinand, not Isabella, was the true monarch of Castile – and assumed that an heir would inherit the kingdom’s crown only once both parents were dead.5 He was wrong on both counts.

  Isabella was not about to hand her precious son over to anyone else. Juan, instead, was installed with his wet nurse María de Guzmán in Isabella’s court. With her baby son settled safely close to her, she could turn once more to affairs of state. Castile was still, at least nominally, at war with Portugal. A few obstinate outposts of pro-Beltraneja rebellion remained – especially in Extremadura. One of the most important figures there was a bastard daughter of Juan Pacheco, the Countess of Medellín, who had inherited her father’s thirst for power and, thanks to a legend about her locking up her young son in a castle tower for five years, his reputation for ruthlessness.6

  In October 1478 Isabella moved away from Seville towards the frontier, initially with her husband, as they plotted their own attacks on Portugal. By Christmas they were in one of Isabella’s favourite places, the sanctuary at Guadalupe. Hieronymus Münzer would arrive here as he rode south from Salamanca towa
rds Seville through country that he described as ‘mountainous, full of wild beasts, with sudden, steep-sided valleys, in the middle of which, as if in the centre of a circle, the monastery lies beside the little River Guadalupejo.’ Nestled against well-watered mountains and looking out over a plain, Guadalupe was surrounded by vines and olive trees which, to Münzer’s surprise, were still populated by singing birds in January. Visitors had taken to leaving exotic gifts as thanks for answered prayers. A Portuguese king had brought a crocodile skin, while an enormous turtle shell and an elephant tusk had also come from Africa. With its 200 priests and monks, gardens, kitchens, hospital, smithy, sewing and cobblers workshops, the monastery was a small town in itself. ‘The queen loves this monastery, and when she is here says that she is in paradise,’ noted Münzer.7 ‘She attends all the prayers in her splendid private oratory above the choir.’

  Isabella was still here when she and Ferdinand finally settled the peace with France on 10 January 1479, gaining an explicit promise not to side with Portugal while leaving the future of the contested lands with Aragon (Roussillon and Cerdagne) up in the air. This was an example of Ferdinand putting Castile first, presumably to the chagrin of his aged father. It was here, too, that the archbishop of Toledo finally accepted a humiliating peace deal. The inveterate schemer had been encouraging Afonso V of Portugal to launch a fresh invasion. Several Grandees had also pledged to back the Portuguese king if he took his relationship with La Beltraneja further by finalising a marriage which, otherwise, would be easily undone. ‘They would do this if I were married and completely tied to her,’ Afonso admitted. But Isabella and Ferdinand struck first, occupying the archbishop’s fortresses and taking away almost all his temporal powers.8 Castile’s biggest troublemaker, the last of a generation of swaggering Grandees, was now out of the way. A new Portuguese invasion, launched with the support of the Countess of Medellín – mistress of an impressive castle overlooking the River Guadiana – and a handful of other nobles in Extremadura was short lived. A single battle, on the banks of the River Albuera on 24 February, was enough to end Portuguese dreams of conquest and annexation.9

  The new year had barely got off to a start before news that was both tragic and historic arrived from Barcelona. Juan the Great had died on 20 January 1479, at the grand old age of eighty. Ferdinand was now king of Aragon. The couple toyed with the idea of entitling themselves ‘kings of Spain’, but instead opted to add all their new kingdoms to the already long list, including those – like the dukedom of Athens – that reflected Aragon’s once mighty Mediterranean empire. That also meant that they were respecting Aragon’s traditional composition as a mosaic of kingdoms under one crown, rather than as a more unified Castilian-type state. The mighty alliance between the two great Spanish kingdoms had become a domestic reality in Isabella’s nomadic home – and her new-born son was heir to it all. A new and powerful, if loose-knit, political entity known simply as ‘Spain’ was being born.

  With his French alliance in tatters and his army defeated, the Portuguese king finally recognised that his Castilian endeavour had been a disaster. The peace, it soon became apparent, was to be negotiated by two women. Isabella’s Portuguese aunt, the infanta Beatriz of Braganza – who was also sister-in-law to the Portuguese king – made the first approach. She and the king’s son and heir, João, had lobbied hard for peace and she now urged Isabella to meet her in the frontier town of Alcántara, so that they could start talks.10 Isabella went without Ferdinand and waited as her sickly aunt was carried slowly towards the border. Aware that she had the upper hand, Castile’s emboldened queen demanded proposals in writing before they met. Isabella now had to consider what price she was prepared to pay in order to rid her – and her descendants – of the stigma of her dubious claim to the throne, of which La Beltraneja was such a painful reminder. Isabella saw her victories at war as proof that ‘divine providence chose to demonstrate the justice of my cause’,11 but that was no guarantee that La Beltraneja might not reappear with a husband and an army some time in the future. Aside from peace, Isabella had a single obsessive objective. She wanted La Beltraneja erased as a rival for ever.

  Isabella and her aunt talked over three days, their conversations stretching long into the night.12 Beatriz began by demanding a pardon for La Beltraneja’s Castilian supporters and an agreement that Castile would pay the expenses of war. She also proposed the engagement of little Prince Juan and La Beltraneja while demanding that Isabella publicly recognise her rival’s right to be called princess.13 A parallel engagement would see the queen’s daughter Isabella betrothed to Prince Afonso, the four-year-old son of João, Portugal’s crown prince. Both girls would live as semi-prisoners in a frontier castle, watched over by Beatriz, until the peace conditions were met.14 But Isabella wanted La Beltraneja under much tighter control than that. In fact, she wanted her handed over – either to await marriage or to be sent straight into a convent as a cloistered nun, which was another form of prison. ‘The queen insisted strongly that she enter a Castilian convent,’ according to an official report on proceedings that carefully ignored the question of La Beltraneja’s paternity by referring to her as ‘the daughter of the queen [Juana]’. She might consider a marriage deal, but would rather go back to war than recognise La Beltraneja’s right to any sort of Castilian title of her own – whether as infanta or princess. ‘Giving her that title is to confess that she is the daughter of a king and a queen. And the queen [Isabella] thinks that … this in itself is sufficient reason to stop talking about peace,’ her officials observed.

  Isabella’s principal aim was prevent Juana from retaining the slightest hint of legitimacy in her claim to the crown that she herself had now so successfully won by force of arms. This was what she most fretted about during the negotiations. She certainly did not want to pay the war costs, but was prepared to share them. And she might pardon the nobles who had backed Portugal but, rather sneakily, asked to be provided with a list first. The Portuguese king then kept Beatriz waiting for further instructions, until Isabella’s patience snapped. ‘I take these next few days as a deadline to know your decision and your will on whether you want war or peace,’ she said.15 ‘I place before you all the deaths, robberies, fires, wickedness and damage that are caused by war; and if these are even worse than they have been so far, well that will be your fault, for having given up on making peace.’

  The negotiations were tough, lasting six months.16 Isabella was grateful to her aunt, whose heart was genuinely for peace,17 and blamed King Afonso for all the delays. She stayed waiting for her aunt’s replies, first in Alcántara and then in Trujillo, and ignored warnings that rebel outposts in Mérida, Medellín and elsewhere placed her in personal danger. ‘I have decided to stay here until we win this war, or reach a peace,’ she said, according to Pulgar.18 Instead, she busied herself issuing daily instructions about how to besiege the same places. Isabella eventually appointed representatives to negotiate a deal with two separate but intimately connected parts – a peace treaty and an agreement on the question of what to do with La Beltraneja. She continued to oversee obsessively the negotiations about the latter’s future, scribbling angrily on the margins of official documents wherever she saw La Beltraneja being treated too benevolently. The final agreement was generous to Portugal, but relentlessly hard on La Beltraneja. Both monarchies agreed to drop their claims on the other, while Castile also recognised Portugal’s possessions of the Azores, Cape Verde, Madeira and its growing list of west African properties, including Portuguese Guinea, the valuable mineral trading port of Mina de Oro (today Elmina in Ghana), and undertook not to explore further south than Cape Bojador, a point on the African coast just south of the Canary Islands. The latter islands were the only significant lands in or along the Atlantic, where both nations were now competing in exploration and conquest, that the Portuguese recognised as belonging to Castile. Portugal also received financial recompense via the enormous dowry that accompanied little Isabella’s engagement to Prince Afo
nso, which sealed the peace deal by tying the royal families together in future generations.19

  Isabella was generous, too, to those rebels – like the Countess of Medellín – who had stuck with Portugal to the bitter end. They were pardoned. ‘As your queen and natural lady, who does not recognise any superior in the temporal world, I pardon … all things, whatever their nature or gravity, that they committed against the king my lord and myself after the death of my brother, the king don Enrique,’20 she pledged. Isabella was naturally given to flexing her power and to vengeance against her enemies. But she had other priorities. If this was the part of the price of lasting peace and the end of La Beltraneja as a challenger, so be it.

  The final agreement, at first sight, gave the impression that Portugal had forced Castile into accepting humiliating conditions. Isabella both paid off the losing side and agreed not to drive home her advantages, instead respecting Portugal’s borders and gifting it as yet undiscovered lands in Africa. In return, she insisted that La Beltraneja either accept an engagement to her infant son (which he could renege on at fourteen, if he wanted) and spend more than a decade in semi-confinement while she waited for him, or take a nun’s vows and entered a cloistered Portuguese convent. The eighteen-year-old chose the lesser evil of life in a convent, though she would prove a rebellious nun who occasionally escaped – initially with the excuse of fleeing an epidemic – to the palace of the Countess of Abrantes. Isabella also ensured that her rival could not flee to a third country. ‘If Juana was free to leave Portugal we would end up at war with whichever place she went to,’ Isabella argued.21 She was prepared to make a sacrifice of her own to ensure that La Beltraneja was sidelined for ever. Her own ten-year-old daughter Isabella would live in tercería – basically as a privileged, carefully cared-for captive and guarantee that the peace terms would be met – in the Portuguese town of Moura for more than two years. On 4 September 1479, with Ferdinand still not present, Isabella (now seven months pregnant with a daughter, to be named Juana) approved an agreement that settled the dispute with Portugal, but gave her little else except the final political annihilation of La Beltraneja.