Isabella: The Warrior Queen

by Kirstin Downey

  The marriage processions took a good bit of logistical planning. Juana, seventeen in 1496, would wed Philip first. A fleet would accompany her north to Flanders and would then return, bringing Margaret to Castile for her own marriage to Juan.

  As the day approached for Juana’s departure, the queen indicated that she had misgivings about the trip and perhaps also about Juana’s ability to handle her new responsibilities. A long and risky sea route was necessary because hostilities had erupted across Europe as a result of France’s invasion of Italy to seize Naples. But the journey from Castile to Flanders would take them along the coast of France. Isabella worried about what might happen to Juana if she were captured by the French and became a prisoner of war. The queen organized a fleet of 110 ships, with about ten thousand sailors and soldiers, to accompany her daughter. If bad weather hit, they would be unable to seek shelter in France and would be forced to sail west, farther out into the Atlantic Ocean, to try to reach England. Fearing the worst, Isabella accompanied Juana to her place of departure, the port city of Laredo, on the northern coast, and spent two nights aboard the ship with her daughter. She was very sad to see her go. When Juana finally left, Isabella remained behind watching from land and “bewailed her daughter a little,”37 Peter Martyr wrote, before returning home to Burgos.

  Queen Isabella sent at least four letters to the English court and King Henry VII, begging them to take care of Juana if by chance her ship should be driven onto English shores. In one letter she asked her ambassador to ensure that Juana would be given a “cordial reception” if she landed there. In another she asked King Henry VII to treat Juana as lovingly as he would treat his own daughter if she arrived in his lands.

  Queen Isabella was “greatly distressed about her daughter,” wrote Peter Martyr,

  because it was uncertain what mad winds, what the huge rocks of the stormy sea, what in fine the various dangers of the sea may have brought to her child, a weak girl . . . She turned over in her mind not only those things which are wont to happen to those sailing through this Spanish sea, but agitated with sighs she feared whatever might happen. She had with her day and night sailors skilled in this immense ocean and constantly inquired what winds blew, what they thought was the cause of the delay, lamenting her lot that she had been forced to send her daughter to the farthest Beglee [Belgium] at this season when the sea is almost impassable on account of the approaching winter and the land on account of the French enmity is precluded from having plenty of messengers.38

  Juana was Isabella’s first child to go so far away, but her mother’s level of concern seemed out of the ordinary for her. Juana seemed ready to make the transition from home and was described as eager and happy to go. She wasn’t going to be a king or ruler herself, and so she hadn’t received quite the same education as her brother, but she was prepared well enough. Juana and her sisters and their mother had studied Latin with a young woman who had been a scholar at the University of Salamanca, Beatriz Galindo. Beatriz had an excellent command of Latin, and people were impressed with Juana’s adept facility with the language of diplomacy. Juana was even able to compose verse in Latin, which drew some favorable comment.

  Nor had Juana received quite the same coaching in statecraft as her brother Juan and older sister Isabel. For while the older children frequently accompanied their parents at state events, learning from early ages how to handle the necessary protocol and court etiquette, Juana, Catherine, and María were frequently left behind. Now, however, Queen Isabella seemed reluctant to let Juana out of her sight. She seemed to detect some sort of vulnerability in this girl, her middle child.

  Queen Isabella was also off her stride because of other sad news she had received. Her mother, who had been living all these years in Arévalo, had finally died, in mid-August. This news hit the queen hard. Her mother had lived in seclusion, “worn out and enfeebled by age,”39 in Martyr’s words; but Isabella had visited her once or twice a year, traveling on horseback across the kingdom to do so, and spending time with her. She had customarily waited on her mother personally during these visits. The death was a shock to her, for her mother was the last remaining member of Isabella’s own original family. When Isabella at last left the coast for Burgos, she was also going to take charge of her mother’s interment.

  Just days after Juana departed, and while Isabella was still dealing with the melancholy of watching her daughter leave, she turned to the duties of arranging for her mother’s funeral procession and burial. She wanted to make sure that her mother, so long forgotten in public life, was nevertheless “carried honorably as became a Queen,” wrote Martyr. Queen Isabella ordered her mother’s body transported to a Carthusian monastery near Burgos, “where she laid her to rest near her father King Juan and her brother Alfonso, who had died so young himself.”40

  They were placed together in death in a Gothic monastery at Miraflores, located on the Santiago de Compostela pilgrimage trail, close to the burial places of several other kings and queens of Castile. The abbey had been founded by her father, and it was there that he had placed his prized altarpiece painted by Rogier van der Weyden. A Flemish-born sculptor, Gil de Siloé, designed their alabaster sepulchre. Its base is an eight-pointed star, a sacred symbol to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. It is extremely elaborate, densely textured and exuberantly three-dimensional, with a plethora of free-standing figures of saints and apostles guarding them in death. Isabella had wanted to make sure her parents were laid to rest together in a place they loved, near art objects they admired.

  Meanwhile Juana arrived safely in Flanders on September 8, 1496, after a terrible seventeen-day voyage. As her mother had suspected, the ship had briefly landed in England before continuing on its way. Juana had lost many attendants and the bulk of her wedding presents when one of the ships accompanying her sank in a storm. And in the end, Philip was not there to greet her; he was in Austria’s Tyrol with his father. He did not arrive to meet Juana for more than a month. Instead his sister Margaret, age sixteen, greeted Juana as the representative of the family.

  Juana was temporarily lodging at a monastery, where “sixteen noble ladies and a matron clothed in cloth of gold” formed her entourage.41 She and Margaret traveled together to Lille, to await Philip’s arrival. Philip finally reached her on October 12. The long and embarrassing delay no doubt filled Juana with dismay. She had had five weeks to wonder whether she was being left at the altar, something that had in fact happened to her new sister-in-law Margaret.

  But once in Philip’s presence, all doubt disappeared. Juana and Philip had an immediate attraction to each other. All the reports about his looks and charm turned out to be accurate, and she was soon deeply smitten by her new husband. Six days later they received the blessing of Juana’s chaplain for their marriage, and they consummated it immediately. They had their official wedding ceremony on October 20. Together they made a splendid appearance. “God turned out to be a good matchmaker when he gave that wife to that husband, and that husband to that wife,” said Philip’s father, Maximilian, basking in paternal pride.42

  With the nuptial ceremonies concluded, Juana became Archduchess of Burgundy through her marriage to Philip, who was the Archduke of Burgundy. He ruled the land essentially as king, but his title was archduke because of an historical anomaly in how the confederation of states it represented had come together—as a duchy designated by a French king for rule by his son, a duke. This realm was composed of a crescent-shaped set of provinces that included Holland, Belgium, and areas of northern France, particularly the Burgundy region. To the east was the Holy Roman Empire, which was ruled by Philip’s father and grandfather, but to the west and south was France, which was a powerful and dangerous ally. France cast envious eyes at Burgundy’s wealth and its cultural flowering, which actually preceded similar Renaissance developments in Italy.

  Together Philip and Juana toured their domains with a large entourage, in what became a sort of grand tour of Burgundy and its important cities of Brus
sels, Ghent, Lille, Antwerp, and Bruges. They were enthusiastically greeted along the way as the duchy’s new ruling family. Not a lot of news came back from Flanders, but of course it was a long trip, and the weather had been stormy. But eventually word arrived in Castile that Juana had been warmly received by her subjects, and Queen Isabella’s concerns were laid to rest.

  One chronicler was giddy with enthusiasm, describing Juana’s triumphal entry into Antwerp, with trumpeters and other musicians celebrating her arrival:

  This very illustrious and virtuous lady… of handsome bearing and gracious manner, the most richly adorned ever seen before in the lands of monsignor the archduke, rode a mule in the Spanish fashion with her head uncovered, accompanied by sixteen young noble ladies and one matron who followed her, dressed in golden cloth and mounted in the same manner, having pages with rich adornments.43

  The archduchess was feted with great pageantry, in city after city, in an event known as a “joyous entry.” Local officials would present the keys to the city. Feasts, balls, and tournaments were held everyplace, and each city sought to outdo the other with innovative and entertaining new kinds of revelries.

  In the Great Square of Brussels, for example, a series of living tableaux, with actors representing fictitious, mythological, and historical figures, were presented for Juana’s education and entertainment. One tableau depicted Juana in the guise of the biblical Judith, killing Holofernes to free her people. Similar scenes also showed women as heroines defying male authority. The exploits of Queen Isabella, Juana’s mother, seemed to have attracted attention everywhere as representing a new model of woman as warrior, and clearly Juana’s new subjects expected her to do more of the same in Flanders.

  These scenes, tableaux, and amusements were considered so remarkable that an effort was made to preserve their memory. They were re-created in a special illuminated manuscript, called The Joyous Entry of Joanna of Aragon-Castile, which became a model for artworks of its kind. The extravagance of the court is unmistakable.

  The illuminated manuscript makes it clear that the naïve and reserved young princess, who had been raised in a modest and chaste atmosphere, was seriously over her head in a sensuous and pleasure-loving court, where regular bribes from the French king had made the Flemish courtiers more loyal to the flamboyant French royal family than to Philip and Juana. Some of the living tableau scenes, for example, were subtly or overtly hostile to Juana and to her family.

  In one scene, a richly dressed princess, portrayed as a dark-skinned Ethiopian, is depicted astride a horse, surrounded by strangely garbed companions, who are wearing hairy body suits and carrying clubs.44 Racist northern Europeans commonly described Spaniards as being closely related to Africans, and this outlandish scene was insulting. In another tableau, Juana’s mother Isabella is depicted taking the crown of Boabdil of Granada, who kneels before her. This presentation has a double edge: it acknowledges Isabella as having led the battle of reconquest against Granada, but a woman with a man kneeling before her, not in courtship but in subjugation, raises uncomfortable questions about gender dynamics.

  Other scenes added a risqué twist. In a scene labeled “The Judgment of Paris,” the three goddesses are depicted dancing nude, something that was not commonly portrayed in conservative Spanish art. A picture of the Flemish court, meanwhile, shows what appear to be many open displays of sexual activity between men and women while a male figure, perhaps the archduke, appears to be passed out in a drunken stupor on the edge of the revelry.

  Meanwhile, in Castile, there seemed to be some trouble getting correspondence back and forth from Flanders. Juana didn’t write home much and gave excuses for not responding to letters. Isabella and Ferdinand learned she was expecting a child, which was happy news for the grandparents-to-be. In August 1498 a Spanish cleric sent as an envoy said he had seen her in July and gave an encouraging account. “She is very handsome and stout,” the cleric wrote. “Her pregnancy is much advanced.”45

  A few months after Juana’s arrival, Margaret, Juan’s bride, was sent on her way to Spain. The weather was again stormy, and the loss of the ship from Juana’s fleet had made everyone a bit fearful about stepping on board, but eventually Margaret set out for Spain. She experienced the same kind of harrowing journey Juana had had; at one point, conditions aboard the ship seemed so perilous that the spunky princess put pen to paper and composed a poem in French about her plight: Cy gist Margot la gentil Damoiselle, Qu’ ha deuz marys et encore pucelle. (Here lies Margaret, a gentle mademoiselle, two times married and a virgin still.)

  But the fleet made it safely to the port of Santander, and Prince Juan and his father dashed out to meet her. She tried to kiss their hands to show respect in the traditional manner, but they instead welcomed her warmly and lovingly and conducted her to Burgos. There she met the queen, who was splendidly attired and embraced the girl upon meeting her.

  Margaret charmed everyone and gathered crowds everywhere she went: “If you were to see her you would think that you beheld Venus herself,” Peter Martyr gushed to a Spanish cardinal in Rome.”46 The apparent future queen of Spain and its possessions was welcomed with joy; the wedding ceremony took place on Palm Sunday, April 3, 1497. She was given a huge array of valuable gifts.

  The marriage turned out to be one of those fortuitous situations where everyone in the family was instantly compatible. Even if they had not been related by marriage, it seemed they all would have been friends. Ferdinand praised the girl’s “genteel, happy,” and “benign” temperament.47 Margaret turned out to share many of Isabella’s interests. She was devout, like Isabella, and spent much time doing spiritual exercises from her Book of Hours, but she was also very active intellectually and was fascinated by art, as Isabella was.

  Both women loved fine tapestries, which were expensive luxury items at the time. Particularly valuable ones, woven from silk or wool, sometimes with golden or silver thread, could cost as much as a warship and took teams of weavers up to a year to complete. Isabella had one of the finest tapestry collections in Europe, eventually numbering some 370; Margaret showed up in Spain with seventeen in her possession, and soon Isabella gave her more.48

  They also liked paintings that featured women as the focal points. Scenes of women from the Bible were favorite subjects of Isabella’s, and in time they proved to be a key part of Margaret’s collection practices as well. One such painting, owned by Isabella and commissioned around the time Margaret arrived, somewhere between 1496 and 1499, shows Salome coolly displaying the severed head of John the Baptist to King Herod and her mother, Herodias. It was painted by one of Isabella’s favorite artists, Juan de Flandes, or John of Flanders, whom Margaret also admired.49 Isabella had wooed him to Castile from Flanders, and he was one of her court painters, paid a regular salary.

  In these years, Isabella was also putting together the set of paintings illustrating Christ’s life, which were painted by Juan de Flandes while Margaret was at court. One scene is believed to depict Margaret as the bride in the Wedding at Cana. As it turned out, Margaret particularly appreciated these paintings and recognized their merit.

  Isabella took joy in giving Margaret presents. The young woman loved flowers and was given many pieces of jewelry that featured botanical designs. Some included daisies, a play on the French version of her name, Marguerite, or Daisy. Isabella kept to this theme in a gift of a piece of jewelry for Margaret designed to look like a white rose. It was made of gold covered with white enamel.50

  The only problem was that there was a little awkwardness between the Flemings and the Spaniards. The Flemings were put off by the stiff formality of the Spanish and their elaborate and courtly rituals and customs. They thought the Spanish were priggish and inhibited. The Spanish felt the Flemings were lax, sloppy, and undisciplined. But the happy couple seemed to get along just fine.

  Prince Juan frankly adored and idolized his wife. In fact, court doctors became concerned that he was so in love that he was wearing himself out and c
utting into his sleep with his ardent lovemaking. According to Peter Martyr, physicians urged the queen to separate Juan and Margaret to give the prince some rest from his apparent new obsession with “frequent copulation,” but Isabella was happy to see her son in love and chose not to intervene, adding that she believed that “it does not become men to separate those whom God has joined in the nuptial marriage bond.”51

  Juan and his bride took up residence in the university city of Salamanca, where the professors and students rejoiced at the prospect of increased patronage for their intellectual and artistic endeavors. The University of Salamanca was one of the greatest and oldest universities in Europe, and Queen Isabella supported scholarship there. She was encouraging higher education by employing scores of the school’s students, or letrados, as bureaucrats to staff the growing governmental apparatus. She was also commissioning other new buildings similar to her parents’ tomb that featured her signature architecture style, called Isabelline, which was ornately Gothic but with Flemish and Islamic influences and a great deal of surface decoration. The facade of the main building of the University of Salamanca was soon constructed in such a style, garnished with floral designs, fantastic creatures, and heraldic devices, all emphasizing the grandeur of the empire that Spain was becoming. The fact that the crown prince was establishing his home in Salamanca further burnished the civic luster. Adding to everyone’s joy, Margaret learned she was pregnant.

  This period—the spring and summer of 1497—was the high point of Isabella’s personal life. She had defeated the Muslims at Granada and restored peace in Castile. Columbus had brought back exciting news of the lands he had reached on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, and future prosperity for Spain seemed increasingly assured. Juan was happily, even blissfully, married; the reports from Flanders were more mixed, but Juana had unquestionably made a very good match. Princess Isabel was back at home, which was a comfort to the queen, and María and Catherine were growing into lovely and respected young ladies who were a pleasure to their parents. Catherine was preparing for her eventual departure to England.