Isabella of Castile saintly or satanic?



 

by

 

Damien F. Mackey

 

 

  

 

“Isabella’s fearsome reputation is one of the reasons Henry VIII would later become so afraid of his ex-wife. Henry worried that Catherina was “of such high courage … with her daughter at her side, she might raise an army and take the field against me with as much spirit as her mother Isabella”.”

 

 

 

 

Queen Isabella of Castile and Aragon seems to have quite a polarising effect.

 

Today she can be greatly respected, or greatly hated – with a fair range of differing views floating about in between these two extremes.

 

Kyra Cornelius Kramer depicts her as both brave and scary:

http://www.kyrackramer.com/2015/11/27/isabella-of-castiles-death/

 

Isabella of Castile and co-ruler of Aragon, died on November 26, 1504.  This was a terrible blow to her widowed daughter, Catherina of Aragon. Not only did Catherina lose a beloved parents, Isabella was the strongest ally possible in the battle to make Catherina’s father in law, Henry VII, behave like a gentleman and honor his agreement to wed his heir to the bereaved princess. After Isabella’s death, Catherina’s father would prove himself to be both mercenary and callous toward his daughter’s fate, more interested than using her as a pawn and political weapon than guarding her welfare.

Henry was right to respect Isabella and to fear her wrath should he mistreat her child too blatantly. Isabella’s abilities as a commander were no joke. Although her support for the Spanish inquisition and the forced conversion or execution of Jews and Muslims is heinous in historical hindsight, in her own time she was considered one of the best and bravest of Catholic monarchs because she reunited the Iberian peninsula under Occidental/Christian control. England, a small island nation that had been ripped apart by civil war for years and was just beginning to recover it’s economic footing, would have been beyond foolish to provoke Spain.

Isabella’s fearsome reputation is one of the reasons Henry VIII would later become so afraid of his ex-wife. Henry worried that Catherina was “of such high courage … with her daughter at her side, she might raise an army and take the field against me with as much spirit as her mother Isabella.” Henry fears were not just paranoid phantoms, either. Catherina’s prowess as a leader and war commander had been tested and proven, since she had ably demonstrated her abilities earlier in their marriage. In 1513, Henry left his pregnant wife to act as regent and defend England from Scotland while he was away fighting the French on the continent. Like her mother before her, the stalwart queen didn’t let the fact she was carrying a baby slow her down or curb her readiness for warfare. During her regency the English army defeated and killed the King of Scotland, James IV, at the Battle of Flodden. Not one to be squeamish in military victory, Henry’s exultant queen sent her husband a blood-stained piece of the dead Scots king’s coat-armor as a trophy.

Catherine was no shrinking violet; the warrior-queen apple had not fallen far from the warrior-queen tree. ….

 

Lisa J. Yarde depicts her as “a cruel villain” (Herstory: Isabella of Castile - the queen at war):

http://unusualhistoricals.blogspot.com.au/2017/03/herstory-isabella-of-castile-queen-at.html

 

... For me, Isabella of Castile will always remain a cruel villain. She couched the quest for Spain’s trade domination across the Mediterranean Sea and control of the kingdom of Granada’s gold supply from Africa as a religious crusade. She ensured the aid of the Catholic Church for her dynastic aims and brought about the ruin of Moorish Granada; ultimately, the end of Muslim Spain.

 

Civil war among the Moors allowed Isabella to take advantage of an already worsening situation. Through guile and ruthless calculation, she exploited the divisions between the last Nasrid rulers Abu’l-Hasan Ali, his brother Muhammad al-Zaghal and their rival Muhammad, respectively a son and nephew to both men.

 

Within a few years of Muhammad’s departure from his homeland, she had violated each of the terms offered on behalf of his people in the Capitulations of 1491, specifically the stipulation allowing the Moors to “…live in their own religion,” and “…not permit that their mosques be taken from them….” She unleashed the Inquisition on conquered southern Spain and bore responsibility for thousands of fiery deaths among innocents of the Muslim, Jewish and even Christian faiths. - From the author's note of Sultana: The White Mountains.

 

Isabella's portrait - a picture taken while visiting Segovia Castle

 

Historians have often portrayed the Catholic monarch Isabella, the queen at war as a shining example of female courage in the struggle between Moors and Christians from 1482 to 1492. The sight of her on the edge of a battlefield or at a lengthy siege could boost morale and lead to victory. Against all odds, including difficult terrain and a determined enemy who could strike hard and fast against the Spanish Christians before disappearing through the mountain passes, Isabella and her husband secured the official surrender of Moorish Spain on January 2, 1492.

Isabella may have never anticipated a future as queen of Castile. In the line of succession, two elder brothers Enrique and Alfonso preceded her. She might not have imagined a union with Ferdinand of Aragon or how their marriage would lay the groundwork for a future Spanish dynasty. Like her ancestors, she could have idled and watched the Moors of southern Spain destroy each other in foolish civil war. Instead, she pursued a ten-year campaign against them and sought the hegemony of Spain under Christian rule.

The campaign against the Moors didn't begin at the direction of Isabella or her husband. For centuries beforehand, Isabella's ancestors had struggled against the kingdom of Granada, which encompassed most of modern-day Andalusia, in a series of intermittent border raids and sieges. When they were not fighting. [The Castilian sovereigns accepted payments of tribute from the Moorish rulers, whom they considered their vassals. It's clear the Moors did not always accept this subordinate role because several Sultans refused to submit the gold coins. Last among them was Abu'l-Hasan Ali, known among the Spanish as Muley Hacén. 

His soldiers seized the city of Zahara in December 1481, provoking the response of Rodrigo Ponce de León, Marqués of Cádiz, who then attacked and claimed Alhama. Isabella and the Marqués did not always enjoy good relations; at the death of her elder brother Enrique, Rodrigo Ponce de León first supported the rival claim of the princess Juana, Enrique's daughter and Isabella's niece. The propaganda of Isabella's supporters made the supposed heir of Castile the illegitimate child of another man. Juana eventually resigned herself to a convent. Although Isabella and Ferdinand had not ordered the reprisal at Alhama, they planned to use it as a base for future conquests. Ferdinand came south to attack Loja, but the forces of Abu'l-Hasan Ali turned his quest into a resounding defeat. 

What happened to the momentum after the victory at Alhama? At Loja, Isabella's husband became aware of the difficulties their campaign would face in every Moorish territory. The cities of Andalusia were not only defended by stout walls and cannon, but the terrain itself made the movement of massive armies and siege weapons a struggle. Men and artillery required money the monarchs did not have. So, the king and queen sent a delegation to the Pope Sixtus IV seeking a papal bull. 

The words, "We have not been moved to this war by any desire to enlarge our realms...but our desire to serve God, and our zeal for His Holy Catholic faith, made us put all other interests aside...." had the intended effect and the Pope granted the bull. It turned centuries-long warfare between the kingdoms into a religious crusade. The indulgences the Church gave to those who fought against the Moors, including absolution for any violence committed, bolstered the numbers in the army and brought the funds the king and queen required. To secure future victories and avoid the embarrassment at Loja, they employed the services of Francisco Ramírez de Madrid, Master of Artillery.

Internal divisions within Granada also buoyed their efforts. Abu'l-Hasan Ali's eldest son Muhammad then claimed the throne in the summer of 1482, relegating his father to the area around Malaga, which was then the governorship of Muhammad Al-Zaghal, brother of Abu'l-Hasan Ali. During April 1483 in an attempt to raid the Castilian border, the new Sultan fell into the hands of Isabella and Ferdinand. They gave him an ultimatum; he would gain release if he fought against his father and turned his toddler son and younger brother over as hostages. In the interim, the Castilian forces kept up the attacks on Abu'l-Hasan Ali. They also built up the Castilian navy's presence in the Mediterranean Sea and interrupted the centuries-long supply of Muslim troops from Morocco in defense of Granada, as well as gold from the mines of Africa.

Isabella and Ferdinand released the young Sultan in exchange for his son, whom they kept at their court until 1492. Then they began the campaign in earnest with the siege weapons the master of artillery had developed. Faced with merciless bombardment under heavy mortar and cannon, city after city fell into their hands. Ronda surrendered in 1485, as did Marbella. Then Malaga in 1487, Vera in 1488, Guadix, Almeria and Baza in 1489, and finally Granada in 1492. At almost every siege, which sometimes occurred during Isabella's numerous pregnancies, she joined her husband, even with their children as at Los Ojos de Huescar where an eight-month siege culminated in June 1491.

 

The Capitulations, Pradilla - from Wiki Commons

 

Despite the ravages of the campaign and the abandonment of the treaty terms between the Catholic monarchs and the last Muslim ruler of Spain, Isabella is largely responsible for the preservation of the fragile beauty of Muhammad’s Alhambra palace as we see it today. She lies buried at Granada, the city she claimed through determined efforts, accomplishing in ten years what none of her ancestors had done in centuries past. ….

 

“… controversial … no female leader has done more to shape our modern world …”, is what we read of her in this review of Kirstin Downey’s book, Isabella: The Warrior Queen (2014):

http://freeebooknews.info/livre/isabella

 

An engrossing and revolutionary biography of Isabella of Castile, the controversial Queen of Spain who sponsored Christopher Columbus's journey to the New World, established the Spanish Inquisition, and became one of the most influential female rulers in history Born at a time when Christianity was dying out and the Ottoman Empire was aggressively expanding, Isabella was inspired in her youth by tales of Joan of Arc, a devout young woman who unified her people and led them to victory against foreign invaders. In 1474, when most women were almost powerless, twenty-three-year-old Isabella defied a hostile brother and a mercurial husband to seize control of Castile and León. Her subsequent feats were legendary. She ended a twenty-four-generation struggle between Muslims and Christians, forcing North African invaders back over the Mediterranean Sea. She laid the foundation for a unified Spain. She sponsored Columbus's trip to the Indies and negotiated Spanish control over much of the New World with the help of Rodrigo Borgia, the infamous Pope Alexander VI. She also annihilated all who stood against her by establishing a bloody religious Inquisition that would darken Spain's reputation for centuries. Whether saintly or satanic, no female leader has done more to shape our modern world, in which millions of people in two hemispheres speak Spanish and practice Catholicism. Yet history has all but forgotten Isabella's influence, due to hundreds of years of misreporting that often attributed her accomplishments to Ferdinand, the bold and philandering husband she adored. Using new scholarship, Downey's luminous biography tells the story of this brilliant, fervent, forgotten woman, the faith that propelled her through life, and the land of ancient conflicts and intrigue she brought under her command. From the Hardcover edition.