Joanna of Castile
Joanna | |
---|---|
Queen of Castile and León | |
Reign | 26 November 1504 – 12 April 1555 |
Predecessors | Isabella I and Ferdinand V |
Successor | Charles I |
Co-monarchs | Philip I (1506) Charles I (from 1516) |
Regents | See
|
Charles I | |
Co-monarch | Charles I |
Born | 6 November 1479 Toledo, Castile |
Died | 12 April 1555 Tordesillas, Castile | (aged 75)
Burial | , Granada, Castile |
Spouse | |
Issue | |
Roman Catholicism | |
Signature |
Joanna (6 November 1479 – 12 April 1555), historically known as Joanna the Mad (Spanish: Juana la Loca), was the nominal
In 1506, Joanna's husband Philip became king of Castile
Early life
Joanna was born on 6 November 1479 in the city of Toledo in the Kingdom of Castile. She was the fourth but third surviving child and the second daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, both members of the House of Trastámara.
She had a fair complexion and brown eyes, and her hair colour was between strawberry-blonde and auburn, like her mother and her sister Catherine. Her siblings were Isabella, Queen of Portugal; John, Prince of Asturias; Maria, Queen of Portugal; and Catherine, Queen of England.[4]
Education
Joanna was educated and formally trained for a significant marriage that, as a royal family alliance, would extend the kingdom's power and security as well as its influence and peaceful relations with other ruling powers. As an
Joanna's academic education consisted of canon and civil law, genealogy and heraldry, grammar, history, languages, mathematics, philosophy, reading, spelling and writing.: 61
In the Castilian court Joanna's main tutors were the
Marriage
In 1496, 16-year-old Joanna was betrothed to 18-year-old Philip of
Joanna entered a
Joanna began her journey to Flanders in the Low Countries, which consisted of parts of the present day Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and Germany, on 22 August 1496. The formal marriage took place on 20 October 1496 in Lier,[1] north of present-day Brussels. Between 1498 and 1507, she gave birth to six children, two boys and four girls, all of whom grew up to be either emperors or queens.[6]
Princess of Castile
The death of Joanna's brother
In 1502, the Castilian Cortes of Toro
In 1502, Philip, Joanna and a large part of their court traveled to Toledo for Joanna to receive fealty from the
Reign
Queen of Castile
Succession
Upon the death of her mother in November 1504, Joanna became queen regnant of Castile and her husband jure uxoris its king in 1506. Joanna's father, Ferdinand II, lost his monarchical status in Castile although his wife's will permitted him to govern in Joanna's absence or, if Joanna was unwilling to rule herself, until Joanna's heir reached the age of 20.[11]
Ferdinand refused to accept this; he
Joanna's husband, Philip, was unwilling to accept any threat to his chances of ruling Castile and also minted coins in the name of "Philip and Joanna, King and Queen of Castile, Léon and Archdukes of Austria, etc."
In the Low Countries, Joanna was kept in confinement, but when her father-in-law Maximilian (in semi-secrecy) visited them on 24 August 1505 she was released to welcome him. Maximilian tried to comfort Joanna with festivities and she spent weeks accompanying him in public events, during which she acted like a wise, prudent queen, as noted by the Venetian ambassador.[a] To entertain Joanna, Philip and Maximilian (who was dressed incognito) jousted against each other at night, under torchlight. Maximilian told Philip that he could only succeed as a monarch if husband and wife were "una cosa medesima" (one and the same). After this, the couple reconciled somewhat. When Philip tried to gain support from Castilian nobles and prelates against Ferdinand though, Joanna firmly refused to act against her father.[14][15][16]
Ferdinand's remarriage merely strengthened support for Philip and Joanna in Castile, and in late 1505 the pair decided to travel to Castile. Before they boarded the ship, Joanna forbade a ship with female attendants to join the trip, fearing that Philip would have illicit relationships with them. This action played right into Philip's and Ferdinand's propaganda against her. Leaving Flanders on 10 January 1506, their ships were wrecked on the English coast and the couple were guests of Henry, Prince of Wales (later Henry VIII), and Joanna's sister Catherine of Aragon at Windsor Castle. They weren't able to leave until 21 April, by which time civil war was looming in Castile.
Philip apparently considered landing in Andalusia and summoning the nobles to take up arms against Ferdinand in Aragon. Instead, he and Joanna landed at A Coruña on 26 April, whereupon the Castilian nobility abandoned Ferdinand en masse. Ferdinand met Philip at Villafáfila on 27 June 1506 for a private interview in the village church. To the general surprise, Ferdinand had unexpectedly handed over the government of Castile to his "most beloved children", promising to retire to Aragon. Philip and Ferdinand then signed the Treaty of Villafáfila secretly, agreeing that Joanna's "infirmities and sufferings" made her incapable of ruling and promising to exclude her from government and deprive the Queen of crown and freedom.
Ferdinand promptly repudiated the second agreement the same afternoon, declaring that Joanna should never be deprived of her rights as Queen Proprietress of Castile. A fortnight later, having come to no fresh agreement with Philip, and thus effectively retaining his right to interfere if he considered his daughter's rights to have been infringed upon, he abandoned Castile for Aragon, leaving Philip to govern in Joanna's stead.[12]: 139
Philip's death
By virtue of the agreement of Villafáfila, the
On 25 September 1506, Philip died after a five-day illness in the city of Burgos in Castile. The probable cause of death was typhoid fever[17] but there were rumors that his father-in-law, Ferdinand II, had poisoned him.[18] Joanna was pregnant with their sixth child, a daughter named Catherine (1507–1578), who later became Queen of Portugal.
By 20 December 1506, Joanna was in the village of Torquemada in Castile, attempting to exercise her rights to rule alone in her own name as Queen of Castile. The country fell into disorder. Her son and heir-apparent Charles, later Charles I, was a six-year-old child being raised in his aunt's care in northern European Flanders; her father, Ferdinand II, remained in Aragon, allowing the crisis to grow.
A
Father's regency
Ferdinand II and Joanna met at Hornillos, Castile, on 30 July 1507. Ferdinand then constrained her to yield her power over the Kingdom of Castile and León to himself. On 17 August 1507, three members of the royal council were summoned – supposedly in her name – and ordered to inform the grandees of her father Ferdinand II's return to power: "That they should go to receive his highness and serve him as they would her person and more." However, she made it evident that this was against her will, by refusing to sign the instructions and issuing a statement that as queen regnant she did not endorse the surrender of her own royal powers.
Nonetheless, she was thereafter queen in name only, and all documents, though issued in her name, were signed with Ferdinand's signature, "I the King". He was named administrator of the kingdom by the Cortes of Castile in 1510, and entrusted the government mainly to Archbishop Cisneros. He had Joanna confined in the Royal Palace in
Son as co-monarch
As a result of the death of her father, Ferdinand II, on 23 January 1516, Joanna became Queen of Aragon. Cisneros and the regency council hid the news of her father's death from her, pretending he still lived and ruled. Her then-17-year-old son Charles arrived in Asturias at the Bay of Biscay in October 1517. Until his arrival, the Crown of Aragon was governed by Archbishop Alonso de Aragón (a natural son of Ferdinand) and her Crown of Castile was governed by Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros. On 4 November, Charles and his sister Eleanor met their mother Joanna at Tordesillas – there they secured from her the necessary authorisation to allow Charles to rule as her co-King of Castile and León and of Aragon. Despite her acquiescence to his wishes, her confinement would continue and Charles expanded the deceptions surrounding her, later hiding the 1519 death of Emperor Maximilian from her.[19] The Castilian Cortes, meeting in Valladolid, spited Charles by addressing him only as Su Alteza ("Your Highness") and reserving Majestad ("Majesty") for Joanna.[10]: 144 However, no one seriously considered rule by Joanna a realistic proposition.[12]: 143–146
In 1519, Charles I ruled the Crown of Aragon and its territories and the Crown of Castile and its territories, in personal union. In addition, that same year Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor. The kingdoms of Castile and Aragon (and Navarre) remained in personal union until their jurisdictional unification in the early 18th century by the Nueva Planta decrees, while Charles eventually abdicated as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in favour of his brother Ferdinand, and as King of Spain in favour of his son Philip – an act that represented the "transition from a universal empire to defence of the interests of the 'Austrian family' (austriacismo), in other words, to a close alliance between two parts of the dynasty, aimed at guaranteeing the hegemony of Catholicism and of the dynasty within Europe".[20][21]
Revolt of the Comuneros
In 1520, the Revolt of the Comuneros broke out in response to the perceived foreign Habsburg influence over Castile through Charles V. The rebel leaders demanded that Castile be governed in accordance with the supposed practices of the Catholic Monarchs. In an attempt to legitimise their rebellion, the Comuneros turned to Joanna. As the sovereign monarch, had she given written approval to the rebellion, it would have been legalised and would have triumphed.
In an attempt to prevent this, Don Antonio de Rojas Manrique, Bishop of Mallorca, led a delegation of royal councillors to Tordesillas, asking Joanna to sign a document denouncing the Comuneros. She demurred, requesting that he present her specific provisions. Before this could be done, the Comuneros in turn stormed the virtually undefended city and requested her support.
The request prompted
Forced confinement
Charles ensured his domination and throne by having his mother confined for the rest of her life in the now demolished Royal Palace in Tordesillas, Castile.[23] Joanna's condition degenerated further. She apparently became convinced that some of the nuns that took care of her wanted to kill her. Reportedly it was difficult for her to eat, sleep, bathe, or change her clothes. Charles wrote to her caretakers: "It seems to me that the best and most suitable thing for you to do is to make sure that no person speaks with Her Majesty, for no good could come from it".[24]
Joanna had her youngest daughter,
Joanna died on
Disputed mental health claims
As a young woman, Joanna was known to be highly intelligent. Claims regarding her as "mad" are widely disputed.
The narrative of her purported mental illness is perpetuated in stories of the mental illness of her maternal grandmother,
Legacy
Bethany Aram argues that while she seemed to be unable or unwilling to rule herself, Joanna's major (political) significance lay with her defense of the rights of her descendants and thus the Habsburg dynasty. While she did have affection for Philip, her refusal to bury her husband (and attempt to bring his corpse to Granada so that he would lie beside her mother) was likely an attempt to ward off suitors and create a connection between Charles and Castile. Facing the leaders of the Comunero Revolt, she again chose the Habsburg dynasty over her Castilian heritage. Her fecundity provided Charles with many Habsburg siblings (and by extensions, these siblings' children) who upheld his rule. Sara T. Nalle agrees with Aram that this was Joanna's major success, while pointing out that Aram seems to gloss over the fact that Joanna's contemporaries did see her as different. Nalle opines that overall, Joanna was a troubled individual who was also not trained for the political world, found herself surrounded by strong personalities, and had to face a shocking amount of cruelty and deceit.[28][29]
Arms
Children
Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Eleanor | 15 November 1498 | 25 February 1558 | (aged 59)first marriage in 1518, Manuel I of Portugal and had children; second marriage in 1530, Francis I of France and had no children. |
Charles | 24 February 1500 | 21 September 1558 | (aged 58)married in 1526, Isabella of Portugal and had children. |
Isabella | 18 July 1501 | 19 January 1526 | (aged 24)married in 1515, Christian II of Denmark and had children. |
Ferdinand | 10 March 1503 | 25 July 1564 | (aged 61)married in 1521, Anna of Bohemia and Hungary and had children.
|
Mary | 18 September 1505 | 18 October 1558 | (aged 53)married in 1522, Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia and had no children.
|
Catherine | 14 January 1507 | 12 February 1578 | (aged 71)married in 1525, John III of Portugal and had children. |
Ancestry
Ancestors of Joanna of Castile | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Notes
- ^ [...] the most serene king of the Romans was keeping company with the queen his daughter-in-law, dressed in black velvet and with a fairly good complexion given the illness she has had. And it seemed to me, although it was night, that she was very beautiful, and she had the air of a wise and prudent lady. I made my reverence to her majesty in the name of your sublimity and spoke a few good words well adapted and appropriate to the time and place where we were and these were amiably reciprocated by her majesty."[13]
References
- ^ a b Bethany Aram, Juana the Mad: Sovereignty and Dynasty in Renaissance Europe (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins UP, 2005), p. 37
- ^ Bergenroth, G A, Introduction. Letters, Despatches, and State Papers to the Negotiations between England and Spain. Suppl. to vols 1 and 2. London: Longmans, Green, Reader and Dyerm 1868. https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_9q8MAQAAIAAJ
- ^ Tomás Gismera Velasco, Guadalajara in Memory, New Alcarria Newspaper, Guadalajara, August 7, 2020
- ^ Catherine was the first wife of Henry VIII and the mother of Mary I of England (Bloody Mary).
- ^ a b c d Gelardi, Julia P. (2009). In Triumph's Wake: Royal Mothers, Tragic Daughters, and the Price They Paid for Glory. St. Martin's Griffin.
- ^ Eleanor of Austria, Queen of France and Portugal, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, Isabella of Austria, Queen of Denmark, Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor, Mary, Queen of Hungary, and Catherine of Austria, Queen of Portugal.
- ^ a b Colmeiro, Manuel (1883). Cortes de los antiguos reinos de León y de Castilla. Madrid: Rivadeneyra.
- ^ a b c Francisco Olmos, Estudio documental de la moneda castellana de Juana la Loca fabricada
- ^ doi:10.2307/2544520
- ^ a b c Francisco Olmos, Estudio documental de la moneda castellana de Carlos I
- ^ Prawdin, Michael, The Mad Queen of Spain, p. 83.
- ^ a b c d e Elliott, J. H., Imperial Spain
- ^ Fleming 2018, p. 90.
- ISBN 978-0-300-19652-8. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
- ISBN 978-3-319-74347-9. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
- ISBN 978-1-101-15977-4. Retrieved 24 November 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-19-860175-3.
- OCLC 25048514.
- ISBN 978-0-300-19652-8.
- ISBN 978-1-317-66870-1. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
- ISBN 978-1-4411-5002-8. Retrieved 26 July 2023.
- ^ Seaver, Henry Latimer (1966) [1928], The Great Revolt in Castile: A Study of the Comunero Movement of 1520–1521, New York: Octagon Books, p. 359
- ^ "Palacio Real". Turismo de Tordesillas (in Spanish). Oficina de Turismo de Tordesillas. Archived from the original on 17 January 2020. Retrieved 30 October 2018.
- ISBN 978-0-7679-3103-8.
- JSTOR 20063477. Retrieved 12 March 2021.
- ^ ISBN 9780838757048
- ^ Medievalists.net (8 December 2015). "The Tragic Story of Joanna the Mad". Medievalists.net. Retrieved 27 December 2020.
- JSTOR 20477911. Retrieved 6 September 2022.
- ^ Fleming 2018, p. 7.
- ^ ISBN 84-934643-3-3. Retrieved 19 March 2013.
- ^ ISBN 84-259-1074-9
- ^ [1] Image at Santa María la Real Church Facade, Aranda de Duero, Burgos (Spain)
- ^ a b Isabella I, Queen of Spain at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ a b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- ^ a b Henry III, King of Castille at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1896). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 45. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 167.
- ISBN 9780415939188. Retrieved 17 May 2018.
- ^ a b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- ^ ISSN 0210-7317.
Bibliography
Biographies
- Prawdin, Michael, The Mad Queen of Spain (1939)
- Dennis, Amarie, Seek the Darkness: The Story of Juana La Loca, (1945)
- Prescott, William H., History of Ferdinand and Isabella (1854)
- Rosier, Johanna die Wahnsinnige (1890)
- Tighe, Harry, A Queen of Unrest: The Story of Juana of Castile, Mother of Charles V., Born 1479, Died 1555 (1907).
- Villa, R., La Reina doña Juana la Loca (1892)
- Aram, Bethany, Juana the Mad: Sovereignty and Dynasty in Renaissance Europe (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005).
- Fleming, Gillian B., Juana I: Legitimacy and Conflict in Sixteenth Century Castile (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018).
- Assini, Adriana, Le rose di Cordova, Scrittura & Scritture, Napoli 2007
- Fox, Julia, Sister Queens: The Noble, Tragic Lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile (New York: Ballantine Books, 2011).
- Bergenroth, G A. Introduction, Part 1, Calendar of State Papers, Spain; vol. 1, 1485–1509, (London, 1862), p. xlvii. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/spain/vol1
Works cited
- Miller, Townsend, Castles and the Crown. Coward-McCann: New York, 1963
- Aram, Bethany, "Juana 'the Mad's' Signature: The Problem of Invoking Royal Authority, 1505–1507", Sixteenth Century Journal
- Elliott, J.H., Imperial Spain, 1469–1716
- de Francisco Olmos, José María: Estudio documental de la moneda castellana de Juana la Loca fabricada en los Países Bajos (1505–1506), Revista General de Información y Documentación 2002, vol. 12, núm. 2 (Universidad complutense de Madrid).
- de Francisco Olmos, José María: Estudio documental de la moneda castellana de Carlos I fabricada en los Países Bajos (1517); Revista General de Información y Documentación 2003, vol. 13, núm. 2 (Universidad complutense de Madrid).
- Juan-Navarro, Santiago, Maria Gomez, and Phyllis Zatlin. Juana of Castile: History and Myth of the Mad Queen. Newark and London: Bucknell University Press, 2008.