Isabella: The Warrior Queen

by Kirstin Downey

  Isabella and Ferdinand were again in Medina del Campo for the winter, four hundred miles away, and Isabella was once again pregnant. But nevertheless they quickly prepared to lead a force to rescue the besieged Spaniards. The king left almost immediately, and the queen made plans to follow him to Córdoba within a few weeks. The wife of the Marquess of Cádiz, meanwhile, turned to her husband’s longtime rival, the Duke of Medina-Sidonia, begging him to rush to the fray as well. The duke responded readily, setting aside his longtime enmity, and he was the first on the scene in defense of the Christians. The two men embraced when they saw each other on the field, and an important new alliance was formed, with long-lasting consequences.

  As the Spanish reinforcements arrived, the Muslims besieging Alhama realized that they would soon be outnumbered and decided to withdraw. But they made it clear they intended to one day return and retake the town. In the meantime, they went on the attack throughout the south of Castile, taking whatever transient opportunities presented themselves to kill Castilians, claim land, and seize captives.

  Isabella and Ferdinand convened in Córdoba, establishing the austere and foreboding fortress of the Alcazaba there as their military headquarters, and together they deliberated with the Andalusian nobility about how best to proceed. The queen was adamant that no retreat would be acceptable. She and the others took courage from the successful reconquest of Otranto, where circumstances had permitted Christian forces to eventually drive out the Turks, the chronicler Palencia recalled.14 The Spanish had sent seventy ships to the aid of the Neapolitans,15 who had combined with troops sent from Portugal and Hungary and rallied to expel the Turks. They were aided in their efforts by internal turmoil within the Ottoman Empire—Mehmed had unexpectedly died, setting off a succession battle, which induced the Ottoman forces to withdraw from southern Italy. Although Otranto was now largely depopulated, its recovery was an important symbol of Christians’ ability to rally in self-defense. Queen Isabella referred to Otranto pointedly as she urged her troops into battle.

  The queen’s resolution and involvement were so great that she was engaged in a war council when she went into labor with her fourth child. She excused herself and gave birth to a daughter, the one they named María. Little María, named for the mother of Christ, was actually one of twins—as we have seen, the other infant died stillborn. The Castilians took that death as an omen—being as superstitious as the Muslims—and as a bad signal from the heavens. The court traveled in procession to Córdoba’s main cathedral, convening for a ceremony that mixed celebration, sorrow, and anguished spiritual reflection.16

  The service was held in the glorious former mosque of Córdoba, with its lofty ceilings and an interior forest of stately columns; it had been converted to use as a cathedral after the city was taken in 1236, in an earlier phase of the Reconquest. The Muslim mosque had been built on the site of the former Visigothic church of St. Vincent, which in turn had displaced a Roman temple that once stood on the site. The mosque’s lovely columns had been constructed from structural elements stripped from the church and the temple.

  The death of the second twin baby was indeed a bad omen, for much death and bloodshed was on its way. The success at Otranto turned out to have been a rare speedy victory for Christian forces. The reconquest of Granada would last ten long years, with terrible casualties and losses on both sides. The Castilians would require intense concentration to win, for the Granadans were great warriors and resolute in opposition to the Christians. For both sides, it was unrelenting agony. “The war was so wild and so cruel that there was no place in the realm that was not bloodied from it, from the deaths of the victors and the vanquished,” wrote the chronicler Zurita.17

  The terrain was as difficult a challenge as the adversary’s military skill. Just to march from the north of the peninsula to the south, to reach the field of battle, was an extraordinary venture, requiring the Castilians to cross parched and arid plains, and to drag men, matériel, and cannons up and over steep mountains. The war would require painstaking mobilization and much financial sacrifice, for the kingdom’s entire resources would have to be focused on this one vast enterprise. The outcome was “in doubt until quite late in the 1480s,” writes the historian L. P. Harvey.18

  Not until 1489 did Isabella become confident of success. In that year she commissioned the first of a series of artworks to memorialize each victory of the Reconquest. Initially choosing twenty events to be immortalized, she placed an order with the wood sculptor Rodrigo Alemán for twenty relief carvings, designed to serve as the seat backs in the choir stall of the great Cathedral of Toledo, the most important church in Spain since Visigothic times. As the years wore on, she ordered twenty more seats because there had been twenty more significant battles or individual surrenders. The number of events deemed worthy of remembrance eventually totaled fifty-four. The relief carvings, a form of early military photojournalism, provide eyewitness records of tumultuous events that have otherwise slipped from historical memory. They are, writes the Spanish historian Juan de Mata Carriazo y Arroquia, “a work of immense historic and archaeological value.”19 Dying soldiers, grieving Muslims, devastated castles, and daring feats of heroism on both sides are depicted over and over in this remarkable series of tableaux.

  The sovereigns spent much of the next ten years in their two Andalusian bases of Seville and Córdoba, orchestrating the campaign. Isabella was preoccupied with the war, Ferdinand less so, being frequently distracted by events in his own Kingdom of Aragon and by his continuing disputes with the French over the northern provinces. But each time his energy flagged, Isabella would exhort him to greater efforts. It became, as historian Peggy Liss describes it, “The Queen’s War.”20

  The sovereigns were not initially ready for a war of this kind, however, and the first few years brought them nothing but disappointment. In the summer of 1482, King Ferdinand and the Marquess of Cádiz impulsively decided to attack Loja, a fortress redoubt on the mountainous western edge of the Kingdom of Granada. The Muslims sent a large army against them, both sides fought fiercely, and the Castilians were thrown back. One of the king’s key lieutenants, moreover, Don Rodrigo Téllez Girón, master of one of the three knightly orders, Calatrava, died when he was shot with a poisoned arrow. The Count of Haro and the Count of Tendilla were both badly wounded. “The Castilians withdrew in confusion, leaving behind, on the field of battle, artillery and siege equipment,” writes Harvey. “This was a disaster for King Ferdinand, who was forced to take the long road back to Córdoba to begin to build up his forces anew.”21 Queen Isabella, awaiting his arrival in Córdoba, was mortified by the loss and by the casualties inflicted on her troops. To both sovereigns, the defeat underscored the need for better strategic planning.

  A second defeat then drove home the need to respect the strength, resilience, and ingenuity of their opponents. The king had been called away to Galicia to deal with problems of civil unrest there, and in his absence, and seeking to avenge their losses at Loja, the Castilians of Andalusia pulled together their own major foray against Granada. The cream of the Andalusian nobility convened for the venture, wearing resplendent coats of armor. Merchants leading packhorses trailed along in anticipation of a rich haul of booty. This force set off toward the seaport of Málaga, traveling through an area known as the Axarquía, a rich agricultural valley lined with steep mountains, confident in the strength of their numbers and in their fine and elegant armaments. They dreamed that their conquest of Málaga, Granada’s most important seaport, would be a quick and decisive blow against the Muslims. The Marquess of Cádiz, chastened by his prior wartime experiences, urged caution but was overruled.

  But an army on the march, strung out so that the different parts can’t support one another, is always vulnerable to attack. The men rode through the countryside of Granada, burning crops and pillaging, then moved into the mountain passes north of Málaga. The people of Málaga could see the plumes of smoke rising from the places the Castilians had set on fi
re. Abu al-Hasan sent out two of his top commanders, who coordinated a very effective ambush. As the long, fragile column of Castilian soldiers entered the last valley leading to the coast, the Muslims were waiting on the high ground on each side of a place where the valley narrowed. From those positions, they attacked the Christian line of march.

  Loaded down as they were, and ill prepared for the ferocity of the Muslim attack, the Castilians were trapped and slaughtered. Thousands were killed. Some soldiers stumbled into a rocky ravine in the dark, where they were picked off one by one by skilled marksmen. The Marquess of Cádiz, who had opposed the expedition, narrowly survived, but many of his relatives died. His brothers Diego and Beltrán were killed, as were two of his nephews. More than eight hundred horsemen were killed, and fifteen hundred were taken prisoner. The Count of Cifuentes was captured. Castilian soldiers were found stumbling around, dazed. Some were reportedly so demoralized that they allowed Muslim women to lead them into captivity.

  It was a total victory for the Muslims. This successful enterprise “put much dread into the Christians and much spirit into the Muslims,” Arab sources exulted.22 For the Christians, it was another complete and humiliating rout. The queen was in Madrid when the bad news arrived. If the loss at Loja had taught the need for good planning, the crushing defeat at Axarquía showed the risk of hubris. The Muslims were proving to be valiant and resourceful soldiers who knew the local terrain and used all their advantages in what they were coming to view as a struggle to preserve their homes and way of life.

  From this point on, the king and queen began to work more and more effectively as a team. Ferdinand led the troops into battle, while Isabella handled the provisioning and supplies and made sure camp hospitals were ready to receive the injured, tend them, and return them to battle. For both, raising money for expenses was a constant challenge. Ferdinand was more frequently the person at hand for each victory; Isabella was waiting and watching nearby, noting with meticulous attention to detail episodes in which the troops had not achieved all she had hoped or maximized each opportunity that presented itself.

  And in consequence, they conquered Granada in a bit over a decade, “partly through force, partly through surrender, partly through prudence, and partly through gold and silver.” With the latter they bribed local government administrators, who accepted the payments and immigrated to North Africa or the Ottoman Empire, leaving the residents in the citadels to fend for themselves.23 The Castilians also used a process of slow starvation, as they cut off supply ships from arriving and destroyed crops and harvests.

  For the Muslims, the two important early victories should have taught the lessons that they could defeat the Castilians as long as they used their resources wisely, bided their time, seized opportunities that arose, and presented a unified front. Both Ferdinand and Isabella had weaknesses that could be exploited. Ferdinand sometimes rushed headlong into danger; Isabella hated to see people on either side die unnecessarily, a characteristic at odds with the imperative ruthlessness of war. Moreover, the long supply lines left the Castilians at a marked disadvantage. Having to carry food and munitions made them vulnerable every time they moved from one place to another.

  But the Muslim victories did not have the beneficial effects that they should have had. Instead, the Granadans began fighting among themselves, for they had their own problems at home.

  Abu al-Hasan, the fierce sultan who had provoked the war with his threats, now found his personal life interfering with his own effectiveness. His regime had been well ordered and militarily successful as long as he stayed focused on the work at hand. His primary wife, Fatima, had been his lover, friend, supporter, and adviser. But polygamy presents a number of thorny logistical and romantic challenges, and such complexities brought Abu al-Hasan low when he began showing preference for a pretty young Christian woman in his harem. The “two very beautiful women in his harem that he loved more than the others,” according to Arab sources, became embroiled in a deadly competition. The more powerful of the two wives was Fatima, who was Abu al-Hasan’s cousin and mother of the prince Abu Abd Allah, known to Spaniards as Boabdil. The other was Isabel de Solís, the daughter of the mayor of Martos, a town near Jaén, who had been captured in a Muslim raid some years before; she had converted to Islam and went under the name Zoraya. The king had become badly smitten with Zoraya, and together they had two children whom he favored over the others. But the sultana, mother of the prince Boabdil, “not only hated to death the mother of the children, but also tried to kill her and kill them.”24

  This nasty family spat soon spread. Fatima was the daughter of a former sultan and had many influential friends, and she urged her son Boabdil to try to unseat his father. Abu al-Hasan’s reputation suffered. Where he had formerly been viewed as a mighty warrior in defense of Islam, he now came to be seen as “hard and cruel,” according to the Arab sources, and his son Boabdil came to be perceived as the courtly one, “affable and graciously mannered.”25

  So instead of being free to crush the Spanish forces in these years while they were still getting organized, Abu al-Hasan had to return to Granada to try to put down what Arab historians called “a terrible rebellion that split open the souls of the Granadans.”26 According to the Arab chronicler Nubdhat Al-Asr, the family strife broke into the open on the very day of the Muslim victory at Loja. Fatima soon led her sons, including Boabdil, to the town of Guadix, “where they were hailed by the people as rulers, and then they were acclaimed in Granada itself.”27

  The internal dissensions broke into physical fighting. The people of Granada took sides against each other. Some supported Abu al-Hasan, who was backed by his competent brother Abdalah El Zagal, a respected military veteran. Others supported Abu al-Hasan’s son Boabdil. The young man was eager to prove his mettle on the battlefield to show up his father and uncle, a poor decision that would eventually spell his ruin.

  In 1483 King Ferdinand took to the battlefield again. Up until now the tides of war had run against the Castilians. But a simple twist of fate changed the balance of power. Seeking a victory that would inspire universal admiration, Boabdil decided to lead an attack on the town of Lucena, well inside Castile. The battle quickly devolved into fierce hand-to-hand combat. Queen Isabella’s commissioned carving of this scene depicts a crush of horses and human beings struggling for survival in the fields outside a fortress, brandishing medieval weaponry—swords, crossbows, and pikes. Several of Granada’s most celebrated military leaders were killed in the battle, including Boabdil’s father-in-law, the bold mayor who had led the defense of Loja. In the tableau, he crashes to the ground, nobly and with dignity, in a posture reminiscent of the famous Dying Gaul of Greek art. During the battle, the prince’s exhausted horse fell into a river, and Boabdil, fearful that he would be killed, surrendered and was taken prisoner by the Castilians.

  This was a major turn of events. With Boabdil’s fortuitous capture, the most valuable of all possible war prizes had fallen into the hands of the dumbfounded Castilians. But what was the most strategic way to take advantage of this extraordinary opportunity?

  King Ferdinand urgently consulted his advisers, who were divided about what to do. Some wanted the young prince to be kept captive, others to release him so he could return home to continue to foment rebellion. Queen Isabella cast the deciding vote. “The advice, which was most astute and fatal for the Muslims,” was followed by the king of Castile, Arab sources wrote. They noted with amazement that Ferdinand subsequently treated Boabdil with elaborate respect, speaking to him “very honorably and with much love, and would not allow him to kiss his hand, but instead embraced him and called him his friend.”28

  Here King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella again demonstrated their unique ability to bend or win other people to their will. Boabdil had been treated badly by his father, but Ferdinand treated the spoiled young prince with exquisite politeness. To secure his release, Boabdil’s mother Fatima sent “a great treasure” in ransom money to Ferdinand, whi
ch he accepted. For himself, Boabdil pledged his vassalage to Isabella and Ferdinand and promised to make large tribute payments to them yearly. He also agreed to return three hundred captive Christians.29

  News of the prince’s capture and ransoming was received in Granada with both joy and misgivings. The charming young prince returned home, but his people now wondered about his loyalty to them and their cause. His father, meanwhile, was contemptuous that his son had accepted vassalage to save his life. Internal warfare again broke out on all sides.

  But Abu al-Hasan was ailing and soon became ill enough to have to step aside as ruler, passing the throne to his brother, the respected El Zagal. Abu al-Hasan left Granada and went into retirement, taking with him his young wife and their children, and he died soon thereafter. Zoraya soon took back her childhood name, Isabel, converted back to Christianity, and changed her sons’ names to Ferdinand of Granada, to honor King Ferdinand, and Juan of Granada, to honor the prince. Within a few years, the three of them were living in comfort at Queen Isabella’s court, participating in Christian religious services.

  Abu al-Hasan’s death, however, left El Zagal and his nephew Boabdil in unmediated competition with each other in Granada. This succession crisis weakened the emirate. With its leadership in continuing disarray, new developments from then on favored the Christians rather than the Muslims. Isabella achieved a steady string of successes, although many of the advances came at a steep cost, both in money and in lives.

  In June 1484 the Castilians conquered the town of Alora. Alemán’s woodcarving of that event shows that the Spanish were growing more adept at the art of war. The walls of the fortress are depicted as having been badly damaged by cannon bombardment. Heavy artillery was becoming a more important part of their offensive tactics. Once the walls collapsed, all the defenders could do was surrender. The carving commemorates the moment when the commander of the fortress kneels in submission to Ferdinand, presenting him with the key to the town. The Muslims appear dazed, while the Spaniards look somber.