Isabella: The Warrior Queen

by Kirstin Downey

  News of the confrontation spread across the south of the peninsula. Criminals and miscreants took advantage of the leadership vacuum to duplicate what had happened in Córdoba, but now with no provocation at all and no goal other than murder and theft. Atrocities occurred in a number of cities, according to the Israeli historian Benzion Netanyahu, including Montoro, La Rambla, and Santaella.2 In Almodóvar, Jerez, and Écija, it took stern measures by local officials to prevent similar violence.

  In Seville, thousands of conversos mobilized to defend themselves, raising fears among longtime Christians there that they would engage in revenge killing for what conversos elsewhere had suffered. Then a converso stabbed a longtime Christian, and a mob began sacking a converso neighborhood. But this time a coalition of longtime Christians, armed conversos, and city authorities held back the rioters and restored peace.

  This religious violence further destabilized a kingdom already riven by war and civic breakdown. It erupted just as conditions were rapidly worsening overseas. The Muslim Turks continued their aggressive march into Europe. Building on their victories in Constantinople and Greece, Muslim troops invaded the Serbian empire, the lands later known as Albania and Yugoslavia. A letter from the Count of Brotardi to the Spanish court in February 1474 warned that a “formidable” army was advancing toward Italy, “preparing for the ruin of Europe… and Christianity.”3

  Later that year the Albanian fortress city of Scutari, just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy and part of the Venetian Empire, was besieged by the Turks and narrowly avoided being taken in September, though three thousand residents died of starvation or thirst before the Turks departed. Italian humanist George Merula, an eyewitness, warned that the Turks had retreated to Constantinople only temporarily, where they were “constructing a great fleet” to make another assault. Their ultimate goal, he wrote, was western Europe.4

  In October 1474 word came from Italy that the Turks were indeed preparing additional attacks on Christian cities in the Balkans, and ambassadors advised Spanish officials that Serbians and Italians were living in great fear that another invasion was looming.5 These reports frightened people living all along the Mediterranean coast, particularly in Sicily, where Ferdinand’s domains were likely to feel the first attack if the Turks decided to move against the Italian peninsula.

  Isabella became increasingly convinced that Castile’s future was at stake, that it was her destiny to rule, and that only she could provide the strong hand that would protect her kingdom. King Enrique seemed too passive to mount an effective defense if one were needed. It became even more imperative to Isabella that she win his blessing and persuade him to name her once again his heir. She turned for help to her childhood playmate, Beatriz de Bobadilla, now an influential young matron living in Segovia.

  Isabella had been a good friend to Beatriz when she had been in the position to help her. With Isabella’s assistance, Beatriz had married Andrés de Cabrera, the man who had custody of the royal treasury at the Alcázar and who was the mayor of Segovia. It was an affectionate match; the couple already had several children. Beatriz had developed into an attractive and intelligent woman who was respected by other men of the court, including the amorous Cardinal Mendoza and King Enrique himself. During a time when Andrés de Cabrera had fallen ill, Beatriz had served in her husband’s place, ruling the city and guarding the Alcázar. Now Beatriz was ideally placed to return the favor and help Isabella in her time of need.

  Beatriz was a highly admirable woman. A contemporary described her as the very picture of “noble lineage in her conduct, in which prudence, virtue and bravery were combined.”6 A woodcut depiction of her suggests she was slim, with a straight nose and full lips; she was also physically strong, like Isabella, bearing up well under a constant string of pregnancies, producing nine children in all, including seven sons and two daughters. She brought to Isabella’s sphere not just a friendship but a friendly dynasty.

  Her husband, Andrés de Cabrera, was also described as handsome in body and spirit. He was a charming courtier, a bit taller than average, with blue eyes, regular features, and straight chestnut hair. He was one of Enrique’s most trusted officials, having started his career with Enrique as chief chamberlain, managing the king’s household from the time Enrique took the throne. Later he became responsible for the king’s primary base in Segovia, managing his treasury. In a court that was widely criticized for corruption, Cabrera, a converso, stood out for his moral rectitude, his dedication to work, and his effectiveness.

  Beatriz convinced her husband that they needed to look to the future, and that aligning themselves with Isabella was a wise move. Her husband, meanwhile, had had an unpleasant run-in with Juan Pacheco and was prepared to make a shift of allegiance. On June 15, 1473, Isabella signed an agreement with Andrés de Cabrera, promising him that if she became queen, he would be named Marquess de Moya, a town near Cuenca and near his birthplace.7

  Isabella’s chief negotiator in this agreement was Alfonso de Quintanilla, her chief accountant, who shuttled back and forth between the court at Segovia and Alcalá de Henares, where Isabella was living with Archbishop Carrillo. In addition to his strategizing with Beatriz and Andrés de Cabrera, Isabella instructed Quintanilla to do everything he could to restore peace between herself and her older brother. This meant that Isabella had constant and close links to the court. Beatriz and Cabrera whispered privately to the king that it was time to reconcile with his sister.

  Eventually Beatriz decided to bring the issue to a head. She took Enrique aside in a quiet room in the Alcázar palace in Segovia and spoke frankly, even harshly, to him about conditions in the kingdom, according to a chronicler who wrote about the exchange decades later. Beatriz reminded him of the treachery he had experienced at the hands of Juan Pacheco and pointed out that Isabella had been both loyal and loving to him over her lifetime. She urged him to break his emotional chains to Juan Pacheco and reach out to Isabella, to make her his heir, and to restore the nation’s strength. If he made peace with Isabella and allowed her to come home, she told him, the kingdom would turn from being “a dead tree” and instead “bloom green buds.”8

  The melancholy king acknowledged that much of what she said was true, and said he felt he was to blame for it all, his answer reflecting his deep depression and sadness. Betrayed by so many people he had loved, he had little faith in the ones remaining in his life. “The great destruction… of my realms and my people,” he told her, “are, as you have said, the result of my sins; my great errors have brought me disgrace before God.”9 He had felt so beleaguered and beaten down by the disappointments and psychological assaults that he sometimes had ignored “good advice” and persisted in a path of self-destruction.

  The situation, he said, was hopeless: “Not even if I embrace the prince and the princess, as you ask, will there be any remedy for these realms, as lost as they are. The confusion and disorder in the kingdom have reached such a point that no living person could repair it. Although I know that reconciling with my sister would be the best road I could follow for the best outcome, there is nothing that can repair the damage.”

  But Enrique at last agreed to meet with Isabella, whom he had not seen in person for four years, and a rendezvous was arranged for the Christmas holidays, in Segovia. Beatriz de Bobadilla and Archbishop Carrillo rode together to Alcalá de Henares to give Isabella the invitation. Ferdinand was already there, having recently arrived from Aragon. The princess was advised to leave quickly for Segovia but to travel with only a few attendants to avoid alarming anyone.10 She chose to take one in particular—Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba—and prepared for a speedy departure. She told Ferdinand to follow them at a short distance, to keep an eye on events, and to prevent both of them from being captured. She decided to leave her daughter behind in case the mood soured completely.

  Isabella and her companions rode through the night on horseback, galloping across the arid plains along the crumbling road system built by the Romans a thous
and years earlier, and arrived in Segovia at daybreak on December 29, 1473. Isabella was fearless in the face of danger, with Gonzalo riding at her side. It was entirely possible that the mercurial King Enrique would have changed his mind by the time Isabella arrived, and with prodding from Juan Pacheco, he would have been capable of doing her harm. Ferdinand kept close at hand, lodging in the town of Sepúlveda, some thirty-five miles from Segovia, and awaited further word. Everyone watched anxiously to see what would happen. Four long years had passed since brother and sister had been together, and many unresolved grievances had accumulated.

  But when at last the reunion between Enrique and Isabella occurred, the angry feelings dissipated in moments. Despite all the animosity of the previous years, the brother and sister were genuinely pleased to see each other. Enrique was in a happy mood, having just returned from a hunting trip, and she was waiting for him at the Alcázar, where she welcomed him “with grave humility.” He greeted her with delight and “embraced her lovingly.”11 The two wandered off to a nearby room, where they sat down together. She swore her loyalty, apologized for having offended him, and asked him to please consider the “good consequences” for Castile of her marriage to Ferdinand.12

  His initial reaction was pleasant but noncommittal. That night they dined together at the Alcázar, and he even gave her a choice of any bauble she might want from the treasury. Then they turned to music, as had been their custom in earlier years, with Enrique singing and Isabella dancing. In the following days they strolled through the city together and rode out side by side, and Segovians noticed the harmony in their interactions.

  Things went so well, in fact, and Enrique and Isabella were so happy in each other’s company, that soon Ferdinand was invited to join them. He arrived on New Year’s Day, and the two men—Isabella’s brother and her husband—met in person for the first time. It was friendly and cordial. Over the next week, they enjoyed holiday festivities together.

  Then on January 9 the three of them joined Beatriz de Bobadilla and Andrés de Cabrera for dinner.13 Before the evening was out, Enrique suddenly doubled over, stricken by a stomach complaint. He was rushed home to the Alcázar, as Isabella and Ferdinand waited anxiously outside his bedchamber for reports on his health. Soon Juan Pacheco appeared and voiced the suspicion that by now was in everyone’s mind: had King Enrique been poisoned? Nobody knew for sure. Pacheco urged the king to arrest Isabella, something he declined to do, but relations between Isabella and her brother cooled very quickly. The debilitated king soon left Segovia for the perceived safety of Madrid. Isabella and Ferdinand remained, determined not to flee again. Whatever happened, Isabella had decided she would stay in Segovia. She even had her daughter brought to her side. She was staking her claim as the king’s successor.

  Over the next year, Enrique’s health deteriorated, and Isabella’s power grew. But these months were unsettling for the realm, as is always the case in a kingdom as power changes hands. Courtiers were forced once again to pick sides. Those who chose wrongly could become victims. They had reason to have faith in the young couple: Isabella and Ferdinand offered freshness, strength, and hope for the future. On the other hand, King Enrique was only forty-eight and was likely to recover. He had made mistakes, but he was not a bad person and had tried to rule well.

  Even Andrés de Cabrera and Beatriz de Bobadilla were caught up in the conflicting loyalties in the court. Two longtime allies of the king, the Count of Benavente and Cardinal Mendoza, asked them to persuade Isabella to give the custody of her daughter to them as insurance they would be treated well if Isabella became queen. Isabella initially resisted but in the end reluctantly agreed.14

  Notwithstanding her agreement, however, Count Benavente then became part of a plot to kidnap Isabella, according to court chronicler Alonso de Palencia, who reported that he overheard a group of conspirators, including Benavente, discussing their plans. When Isabella heard about it, she urged Ferdinand to flee, reasoning that he was in danger but that she was relatively safe because of her blood ties to Enrique. Ferdinand left, ostensibly to go hunting, and young Isabel was indeed moved, but to a safer location in Sepúlveda, in the care of Ferdinand’s Castilian grandfather.15 And in August, Ferdinand left Castile for Aragon, to once more help his father on the border with France. During the following months, Isabella was again alone, in a perilous place.

  Living in Segovia, Isabella grew closer to Cardinal Mendoza, which proved to be a new irritation to his longtime rival Carrillo, the jealous archbishop of Toledo. Isabella and the cardinal did much to placate Archbishop Carrillo, arranging an advantageous marriage for one of his nieces and a bishopric in Pamplona for his nephew, but the archbishop continued to brood on the slight he had received in being passed over for the cardinalship. The simmering animosity flared into outright hostility over a relatively minor provocation. Archbishop Carrillo was interested in the field of alchemy and employed a charlatan and necromancer who had told him he could manufacture gold. Isabella’s religious confessor, Friar Alonso de Burgos, argued with the alchemist, and the dispute turned to fisticuffs. Isabella thought alchemy was nonsense and threw the alchemist out of the palace in Segovia.16 Carrillo, insulted, stormed out of the city.

  For Archbishop Carrillo, it was the last straw. In a dramatic shift of allegiance, he broke with Ferdinand and Isabella and rushed to King Enrique’s side, urging him to name little Juana his heir. The rift between brother and sister reopened. Soon violence erupted, as the rival partisans of Enrique and Isabella squared off in towns around the kingdom.17

  Then King Enrique was dealt a serious psychological and emotional blow. On October 4, 1474, Juan Pacheco suddenly and unexpectedly died, falling victim to a throat ailment, in circumstances oddly similar to the malady that had taken the life of his brother, Pedro Girón. His servants promptly stole his possessions and hid his body among some wine vats.18 It was a major setback for Enrique, for though Juan Pacheco had been treacherous and grasping, he had nevertheless been Enrique’s most important sounding board, lifelong colleague, and the most powerful man in Castile after himself. Enrique had known little love in his life. His relationship with his father had been combative; his mother had died suddenly, probably from poison administered by an enemy; and his relationships with his two wives had been tragic and lonely. Juan Pacheco had been the single most constant figure in his life, and his death seemed to strip from the king even the will to live. As hard as it is to understand, Enrique seemed to have loved Pacheco.

  King Enrique forlornly lamented that Pacheco had been as a father to him. As a favor to Pacheco’s son, he promptly named him master of Santiago, giving him the coveted position controlling the powerful religious order and its extensive landholdings. Isabella had wanted the mastership conveyed back to the crown, as a possession of the royal family, as her father had intended, but with this action, Enrique created another important rival for power in Castile in Pacheco’s son, the new Marquess of Villena.19

  Emotional blows often lead to physical deterioration. Enrique became even more dispirited and his health continued to erode. Isabella’s strength and power, however, were still growing. As support swung increasingly in her favor, she changed her tone, becoming even more conciliatory. She reassured Enrique’s allies that she would not take revenge on them for opposing her. She wrote to the Count of Haro, for example, asking him to meet and confer with her. She took pains to stress that he need have no fear of her, or Ferdinand, or the archbishop of Toledo, and that she swore that oath “to God, to Holy Mary, making the sign of the cross with my right hand.”20

  Enrique continued on a downward health spiral, now vomiting blood. He traveled to Madrid, “where he hoped rest would allow him to recover,”21 but he grew light-headed soon after his arrival when he was taking a stroll in the autumn air. Then he collapsed in his bedchamber. By December he was too weak to ride a horse to his hunting lodge outside the city. A week into that month, King Enrique’s condition deteriorated so sharply that he realized he was
dying. Over ten hours on his last day, he lapsed in and out of consciousness. A friar was called to hear his confession, and the two men spoke together for a long hour. The king told him that he was leaving his affairs in the hands of Cardinal Mendoza, the youthful new Marquess of Villena, and a handful of other officials. He asked that his jewels and possessions be used to pay off his debts, and that he be buried next to his mother at the Church of Santa María de Guadalupe, the scene of a famous miracle where a statue of the Virgin Mary had been found, in a rocky, mountainous area in Extremadura.

  He breathed his last at about two a.m. on December 11, 1474, at the age of forty-nine. At his deathbed were Cardinal Mendoza, the Count of Benavente, the new Marquess of Villena, and other council members.22 A swift horseman delivered the news to Isabella, who had taken Enrique’s place in the Alcázar in Segovia from the time he had fallen ill at Christmas a year earlier.

  Reports about what actually happened at Enrique’s bedside as he died were mixed.23 Chronicler Palencia said that Enrique declared his daughter to be his heir, but he left no will, or at least no will was found. Some witnesses and other historians claimed there had been a will but that it had been stolen, hidden, or destroyed. Indeed it was hard to believe that King Enrique had made no specific provision for little Juana, for he was fond of the child, who was only thirteen, and although she was not living with him, he had written notes to friends inquiring solicitously about her health.24 It was also hard to believe that after all that had happened, the king had neglected to make plans for the succession.