In September Ferdinand set out from Aragon to join Isabella. Disguised as a servant, he rode in a small party of six to avoid attracting unwanted attention. Four days later, Isabella and Ferdinand were wed. The marriage was duly consummated on the following day, in a nuptial chamber shared with a select group of witnesses. Official chroniclers presented their meeting as love at first sight, but both partners had a shared political interest in the marriage and practical reasons for making it work.
In this case, Ferdinand and Isabella were second cousins. According to canon law, they required papal authorization to get married. Concerned by the consequences the marriage could have for the territories of Castile and Aragon, Pope Paul II refused to grant it. See also: This Renaissance warrior woman defied powerful popes to defend her lands.
In Isabella's time, the Spanish people associated masculinity with authority and power, a custom that shaped Isabella's life from the start. When the wedding took place in October , the archbishop of Toledo had presented a forged papal bull, of which the couple were no doubt aware. They repeatedly requested dispensation from Rome but did not obtain it until December.
By the time she was pardoned, she had already given birth to her first child—a daughter, also named Isabella—in He rightly regarded Isabella as having infringed their pact and immediately decided to cancel her right of succession and return it to his daughter, Joanna.
Isabella was not surprised by his reaction and might have even welcomed it. She never forgave Henry for cruelly separating her from her mother all those years ago; however, she did not directly challenge her brother for the throne while he lived. Instead, Isabella kept a cool head and bided her time. The following day Isabella solemnly proclaimed herself queen of Castile and demanded obedience from the main cities of the kingdom.
Weeks later Joanna also proclaimed herself queen. Isabella would spend the first four years of her reign fighting a bloody civil war against Joanna and Portugal for the Castilian throne. It was during this conflict that her marriage to Ferdinand began to change.
When they were engaged, Isabella held the political power, but war would place the couple on more even ground. Over time the marriage strengthened and grew into one of mutual respect. This partnership served them well, and by the two had defeated Joanna and Afonso. Joanna chose the nunnery. The two kingdoms would be united, laying the groundwork for a united Spain in years to come. She and Ferdinand completed the Reconquista, the centuries-long movement to end Muslim rule in Iberia.
Granada, the last Muslim stronghold, fell in January , and Iberia returned to full Christian control. This expedition would lay the foundations for the Spanish Empire in the New World, making Spain a dominant player on the world stage.
See the year-old map used by Columbus. The Spanish Inquisition began under her rule around , persecuting Muslims and Jews who would not convert to Catholicism. The Catholic Monarchs ventured down a dark path to unity through the terror and pain of others, a move that still casts dark shadows over Spanish history.
After 35 years of marriage, the union of Isabella and Ferdinand came to an end in Isabella died at the age of Her tomb is suited to a queen of her stature, and Ferdinand would join her there 11 years later. All rights reserved. History Magazine. To seize power in Spain, Queen Isabella had to play it smart Bold, strategic, and steady, Isabella of Castile navigated an unlikely rise to the throne and ushered in a golden age for Spain.
The Queen's Artist. Please be respectful of copyright. Unauthorized use is prohibited. Isabella the Catholic by John of Flanders, circa Prado Museum, Madrid. She and her husband are responsible for the unification of Spain, reducing crime and debt and struggle; funded the voyages of Christopher Columbus.
When she was three, her father died, making her half-brother, Henry IV, King. Henry later named Isabella his successor, but withdrew his support when she married Ferdinand II of Aragon in Her husband, Ferdinand, had already become King of Aragon, and together they ruled both, unifying Spain.
Isabella and Ferdinand organized the Spanish Inquisition with the goal of ridding Spain of Jews and Muslims primarily, along with heretics who rejected Catholicism. It would unite the two kingdoms and make one nation of their peoples, who were of the same race, spoke the same language and had similar customs, religions and laws.
United, their strength would equal that of any European power, while, separated, they must remain inferior. A favorable answer was sent to the Court of Aragon, and was received with joy by the king and the Prince Ferdinand. In a letter remarkable for the sense it displayed Isabella asked the consent of her brother to her marriage with Ferdinand. Henry did not even answer the letter. Isabella asked the help of the bishop of Toledo, who had always been her friend and disliked the king.
Protected by him she defied her brother and signed the articles of agreement for her marriage with Ferdinand on January 4, By this contract her rights to the crown of Castile were absolutely secured to her and Ferdinand promised to continue the war against the infidels.
A few days before the wedding, which occurred on the 18th of October, Ferdinand went secretly to the palace to see Isabella. In this interview, which lasted two hours, the beauty and spirit of the Princess delighted Ferdinand, and Isabella admired equally well the manly bearing and affable manners of the Prince who, although but seventeen years old had already acquired a soldierly reputation. Henry IV.
She was then in Segovia, and it was in the cathedral of that [Page ] city that she took the oath to serve her country faithfully and well. The first seven years of her reign were disturbed by a war in which she was made to defend her rights against the followers of Jane, the natural daughter of the Queen whose dissolute life had disgraced the Court of Henry IV.
In these years of warfare, Isabella displayed the devotion to her country and to the duties of her position which was distinctive of her life. She was constantly in the saddle, devoted her nights to official business, risked her health, and, when her friends begged her not to expose herself to such dangers, answered their entreaties by saying: "It is not for me to calculate perils or fatigues in my own cause, or by unreasonable timidity to dishearten those who share these dangers and fatigues.
When the war was ended Isabella walked with naked feet through the streets of Tordesillas, to the church where she offered thanks for the victory and praises for the valor that had won it. In the death of Ferdinand's father united the crowns of Castile and Aragon and the escutcheon of Spain now carried the lions of Castile and the towers of Aragon on one shield. Ferdinand was occupied with the cares of his kingdom, for he ruled Aragon with undivided authority, as Isabella governed Castile, and to her alone were confided the reforms in government and the condition of her people.
She found the royal authority overshadowed and weakened by the power of the clergy and the nobles. The nobles lived in magnificence on their vast estates like petty sovereigns, and their privileges equaled their wealth. The people, instead of being subjects of the crown, had become vassals of their lords and were subject to his tyranny and caprice; and Isabella was convinced that force, united with stern and unyielding justice, could alone restore order and security, and to aid her in this task she employed the league known as the Santa Hermanadad.
This brotherhood had been organized by the middle class in the larger cities of Castile for self-protection; but, accustomed to the authority of the feudal lord, they had often answered his call and had helped him in acts of rebellion against the crown. Isabella convened them at Madrigal and changed their office and their work.
She gave them royal authority to preserve public order, and remained the central power which supported the association. In this way she taught the peasant and the citizen to take arms in the name of the queen instead of obeying the call of his feudal chief, convinced them at the same time that the noble was a subject like himself, and must be made to yield to royal authority. In a few years the Santa Hermanadad became a strong support to the throne, and cost the treasury nothing, being maintained by a tax levied in each district upon those who had property to protect.
Isabella also restored estates to the crown, and annulled pensions that had been granted by her brother to his favorites, and immediately distributed one-half the sum thus obtained among the widows and orphans of those who had died in the war since her accession. The nobles, who saw with dismay their powers and privileges gradually lessened, addressed a remonstrance and threatened to retire to their estates and rise in rebellion if these measures and the authority of the Hermanadad were not changed.
They also demanded that they alone should be chosen as members of the privy council. Isabella answered their threats by saying, "You can do as you choose, but as long as God permits us to keep the rank to which He has called us we will never become a plaything in the hands of the nobility, who, when made powerful, seek to destroy the throne.
We are accountable to God alone for the measures we take for the peace and happiness of our people. The Marquis of Villena, one of the most powerful and defiant, when told reproachfully by a vassal that his father would never have yielded to a king of Castile, replied: "King Henry no longer reigns in Castile.
By convincing the Pope that it was imperative for the safety of her kingdom that she should appoint the bishops of the church in Spain, Isabella restored to the crown power over the church benefices. When a bishop died the Queen took care that his [Page ] chair should be filled by a priest who was obedient to lawful authority and devoted to his religious duties, with no ambition for worldly honors.
She thus made it impossible for any dignitary of the church to threaten her, as the Bishop of Toledo did when angered, that "he would replace the distaff in the hands to which he had given the sceptre. Isabella also reorganized the legal code of Spain.
Among the best reforms she introduced were a change in the government of prisons, the right given to everyone to appeal for justice to the royal council, and the appointment of an officer called the advocate of the poor, who was paid from the public funds to plead the cause of those unable to pay for their own defense.
The Queen's interest in all intellectual pursuits was very great, and her plans for the education of the young nobles of her kingdom showed a spirit far in advance of her age. She asked Peter Martyr, a learned Italian, to open a school in Toledo for the young men of her court, and paid him from her private purse a liberal salary for his services. To make his lectures fashionable she sent her son to attend them, and in six months the success of the school was assured.
Another Italian scholar, Marineo, was encouraged to give lectures on classical learning, and the Queen saw with pleasure crowds of students filling the halls where the professors spoke. She carefully watched the young girls of noble families who lived in the palace, and, with her own daughters, gave them equal advantages of education with the young men.
Loyal to her own sex, she helped women to larger opportunity whenever she saw them possess ability and ambition. She chose for her own teacher in Latin a lady who was called from her attainments "La Latina," and through her influence two women were appointed to professorships in Spanish universities; one filled the chair of rhetoric at Alcala, and the other taught the Latin classics at Salamanca.
Isabella encouraged the art of printing in Spain, granting to a German printer who came to Castile to pursue his calling freedom from taxation, and gave him several orders for books for herself. She also allowed foreign books of every description to enter Spain free of duty. By her own example she made purity of manners and morality the rule of conduct in her court, and her conversation was generally on serious subjects.
She had no local prejudices, and could adapt herself with ease to the customs and habits of the people in whose province she might be, for Spain, even in her reign, was more like a union of provinces than a nation.
The three great events of Isabella's reign were the establishment of the Inquisition in Spain, the conquest of Granada, and the protection of Christopher Columbus, which led to the discovery of America. The Inquisition had existed in Spain since the thirteenth century, but, with Ferdinand and Isabella's consent, its power was increased until it became a terrible agent in the hands of men whose avarice or fanaticism made them merciless.
It is only just to the religion which permitted the atrocities of the Inquisition, to recall the brighter pages of its history, illumined by the deeds of men devoted to their church and humanity.
One of the noblest among them was Talavera, whose charity, when bishop of Granada, was so universal and benignant that the Moors called him the holy priest of the Christians and declared that a halo surrounded his head when he spoke to them of eternal and spiritual truths.
With all his humility Talavera had a profound sense of the dignity of his office. Appointed confessor to the Queen, he heard her first confession seated; when reminded by her that it was customary for her confessor to kneel with her, he replied: "This is God's tribunal; I act as his minister, and it is right that I should remain seated while your majesty kneels before me.
We must also recall Aimenes, the great cardinal, whose life of purity and charity gave him the name of Saint Augustine in devotion, a Saint Jerome in austerity and a Saint Ambrose in zeal and generosity. His great intellect made him supreme in council and in government, but he lived in his palace the simple, austere life of a monk, [Page ] and in the midst of power could find time and opportunity for acts of kindness to all who needed charity and help.
In the conquest of Granada Isabella finished a work begun by her ancestors. From the foot of the mountains that separate it from Castile, the valleys and plains of Granada extended to the Mediterranean.
It bristled with fortresses, some built to guard the frontiers, on mountain peaks far above the flight of birds or drift of clouds; others near the cities, to protect the homes and industries of the citizens. The Moors, loving Granada with patriotic passion, believed that the paradise of Mahomet was placed in the heavens that overhung it.
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