Joanna of Castile

Joanna
Portrait by Juan de Flandes, ~1500
Queen of Castile and León
Reign	26 November 1504 – 12 April 1555 (&000000000000005000000050 years, &0000000000000137000000137 days)
Predecessors	Isabella I & Ferdinand V
Successor	Charles I
Co-sovereign	Philip I Charles I
Queen of Aragon
Reign	23 January 1516 – 12 April 1555 (&000000000000003900000039 years, &000000000000007900000079 days)
Predecessor	Ferdinand II
Successor	Charles I
Co-sovereign	Charles I
Spouse	Philip I of Castile
Issue
Eleanor, Queen of France Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Isabella, Queen of Denmark Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor Mary, Queen of Bohemia Catherine, Queen of Portugal
House	House of Trastámara
Father	Ferdinand II of Aragon
Mother	Isabella I of Castile
Born	6 November 1479(1479-11-06) Toledo, Spain
Died	12 April 1555(1555-04-12) (aged 75) Tordesillas, Spain
Burial	Capilla Real, Granada, Spain

Joanna or Joan (Spanish: Juana I Galician: Xoana I) (6 November 1479 – 12 April 1555) was Queen regnant of Castile and Queen regnant of Aragon, in present day Spain.^[1] She has been pejoratively nicknamed Joanna the Mad (Spanish: 'Juana la Loca', Galician: 'Xoana a Tola'). Joanna was the last monarch of the Iberian House of Trastámara, and her marriage to Philip of Burgundy (Philip the Handsome) initiated the Habsburg Dynasty rule in Spain.

Early life

Joanna was born in the ancient Visigothic city of Toledo, the capital of the Kingdom of Castile. She was the third child and second daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon of the royal House of Trastámara. Joanna was an intelligent child and student. In the Castilian court her main tutors were the Dominican priest Andrés de Miranda, the respected educator and member of the Queen's court Beatriz Galindo, and her mother, the Queen. She was accomplished in the religious studies, court etiquette, the arts of dance and music, and equestrian skills. Joanna mastered all of the Iberian Romance languages: Castilian, Leonese, Galician-Portuguese, and Catalan. She also was fluent in French and Latin. She was trained and educated to enter a significant marriage that through royal family alliances would expand the kingdoms' influence, power, security, and peace with other ruling powers. As an infanta she was not expected to be an heir to the throne of Castile or Aragon, although through deaths she later became so.

Marriage

The marriage contract of Joanna and Philip (1496).

In 1496 Joanna, at the age of sixteen, was betrothed to Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy (titular), in the region of Flanders in the Low Countries. Philip's parents were Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and his first wife, Duchess Mary of Burgundy. The marriage was one of a set of family alliances between the Habsburgs and the Trastámara, designed to strengthen against growing French power. Joanna entered a proxy marriage at the Palacio de los Vivero in the city of Valladolid, Castile Spain (her parents secretly married here in 1469). In August 1496 Joanna left from the port of Laredo in northern Spain on the Atlantic's Bay of Biscay. She would not see her mother or siblings again, except for her younger sister Catherine of Aragon in 1506, as the Queen of England. She would see her father Ferdinand II again, in his ruthless political efforts to prevent and rescind her and Philip's crowns. Joanna began her journey on 22 August 1496 to Flanders in the Low Countries, parts of present day the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and Germany. The formal marriage took place on 20 October 1496 in Lier, north of present day Brussels. Between 1498 and 1507 she gave birth to six children: two emperors and four queens.

Married life

Joanna's life with Philip was rendered extremely unhappy by his infidelity and political insecurity. He consistently attempted to usurp her legal birthrights of power. This led in no small part to rumors of her insanity, stoked by reports of her depressive or neurotic acts while she was imprisoned or manipulated by her husband. Before her mother's death in 1504, husband and wife were already living apart.

This portrait of Joanna was done in Flanders, ca 1500: it is a detail from the wings of the Last Judgement Triptych of Zierikzee, by the Master of Afflighem (Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium)

Appearance

Joanna was of a very fair complexion, had blue eyes, and had a hair color that was between reddish-blonde and auburn; these were typical in members of the Trastámara family who were descendants of Peter I of Castile.

Princess of Asturias

The deaths of her brother John, Prince of Asturias, eldest sister Queen Isabella of Portugal, and then Isabella's infant son Miguel, Prince of Asturias, made Joanna the heiress of the Spanish kingdoms. Her remaining siblings were Maria of Aragon (1482-1517) and Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536), three years and six years younger than Joanna. In 1502, the Castilian Cortes of Toro^[2][3] recognized Joanna as legitimate heiress to the Castilian throne, and Philip as her legitimate consort. She was named Princess of Asturias, the title traditionally given to the heir of Castile.^[4] Also in 1502, the Aragonese Cortes gathered in Zaragoza, alleged oath to Joanna as heiress, but the Archbishop of Saragossa expressed firmly that this oath could not establish jurisprudence, that is to say, without modifying the right of the succession, but by virtue of a formal agreement between the Cortes and the King.^[5][6]

In 1502, Philip, Joanna and a large part of the Burgundian court travelled to Spain to receive fealty from the Cortes of Castile to the Castilian throne as Princess of Asturias, a journey chronicled in intense detail by Antoon I van Lalaing (French: Antoine de Lalaing). Philip and the majority of the court returned to the Low Countries in the following year, leaving a pregnant Joanna behind in Madrid, where she gave birth to their fourth child Ferdinand I, later a Central European monarch and Holy Roman Emperor.

Queen of Castile and Léon

Struggle for the crown

Upon the death of her mother, Isabella I of Castile, in November 1504, Joanna became Queen regnant of Castile, and her husband de jure uxoris King. Joanna's father, Ferdinand II, lost his title of 'King of Castile', although his wife's will permitted him to govern in Joanna's absence, or, if Joanna was unwilling to rule herself, until Charles I reached the age of 20. Ferdinand refused to accept this: he minted Castilian coins in the name of "Ferdinand and Joanna, King and Queen of Castile, Léon and Aragon," and in early 1505, persuaded the Cortes that Joanna's "illness...is such that the said Queen Doña Juana our Lady cannot govern"; the Cortes then appointed Ferdinand as Joanna's guardian, and administrator and governor of the kingdom. However, her husband Philip the Handsome was unwilling to accept any threat to his own chances of ruling Castile, and he also minted coins, in name of "Philip and Joanna, King and Queen of Castile, Léon and Archdukes of Austria, etc."^[7] In response, Ferdinand embarked upon a pro-French policy, marrying Germaine de Foix, niece of Louis XII of France (and his own great-niece), in the hope that she would produce a son to inherit Aragon, and perhaps Castile.^[8]

Ferdinand's remarriage merely strengthened support for Philip and Joanna in Castile, and in late 1505, the pair decided to travel to Castile. Leaving Flanders on 10 January 1506, their ships were wrecked on the English coast and the couple were guests of Henry VIII and her sister Catherine of Aragon at Windsor Castle. They were only able to leave on 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 La Coruña on 26 April, upon which the Castilian nobility abandoned Ferdinand en masse. Ferdinand met Philip at Villafáfila on 20 June, 1506, and handed over the government of Castile to his "most beloved children", promising to retire to Aragon. Philip and Ferdinand then signed a second treaty, agreeing Joanna's mental instability made her incapable of ruling, and promising to exclude her from government. Ferdinand then proceeded to repudiate the agreement the same afternoon, declaring 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 be infringed, he abandoned Castile for Aragon, leaving Philip to govern in Joanna's stead.^[9]

Joanna and her husband with their Spanish subjects

Philip's death

By virtue of the agreement of Villafáfila, the procurators of the Cortes met in Valladolid, Castile, on 9 July 1506. On 12 July,^[10] they swore Philip I and Joanna together as King and Queen of Castile and León, and their son Charles as their heir.^[11] This arrangement only lasted several months. On 25 September 1506 Philip died suddenly of typhus fever in the city of Burgos in Castile. Some suspected he was poisoned by his father-in-law Ferdinand II who always had disliked his foreign Habsburg origins, and never wanted to share power with him. Joanna was pregnant with their sixth child, a daughter Catherine (1507-1578). By 20 December 1506, she was in the village of Torquemada in Castile, attempting to exercise her rights as Queen of Castile to rule alone in her own name. The country fell into disorder. Her son and the next heir, 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 regency council under Archbishop Cisneros was set up (against the Queen's orders) but it was unable to manage the growing public disorder; plague and famine devastated the kingdom, with supposedly half the population perishing of one or the other. The Queen was unable to secure the funds required to assist and protect her power. In the face of this, Ferdinand II returned to Castile in July 1507: with a coincidental remission of the plague and famine quieted the instability, but left an impression that his return restored the health of the Kingdom.^[12]

Father's regency

Ferdinand II and Joanna met at Hornillos, Castile, on 30 July 1507. Ferdinand then constrained her to yield up her power over the Kingdom of Castile and León to himself. On 17 August 1507 she summoned three members of the royal council and ordered them to inform the grandees, in her name, 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." She refused to sign the instructions: a last gesture of defiance, and a statement that she did not as Queen regnant endorse the surrender of her own royal power. Nonetheless, she was thereafter Queen only in name, and all documents, though issued in her name, were signed with Ferdinand's signature, "I the King". He would be named administrator of the kingdom by the Cortes of Castile in 1510, although he would entrust the government mainly to Archbishop Cisneros. He had Joanna confined to the Santa Clara convent in Tordesillas, near Valladolid in Castile, in February 1509, after having dismissed all of her faithful servants and appointing a small retinue entrusted to him alone.^[4] At this time some accounts claim that she was 'insane' (or 'mad'), and that she took her husband's corpse with her to Tordesillas, to keep it close to her.^[9]

Queen of Aragon, Castile and León

Co-reign with son Charles

Joanna with two of her children (one of them being Charles V)

Ferdinand II ended embittered: his second marriage had failed to produce a surviving heir, leaving his daughter Joanna his heir. Ferdinand resented that, upon his death, Castile and Aragon would effectively pass to his foreign born and raised grandson Charles I, to whom he had transferred his hatred of Philip I. He had hoped his younger grandson and namesake, Ferdinand I, who was Charles I's brother and had been born and raised in Castile, would succeed him. Ferdinand II had named Ferdinand as his heir in his will before being persuaded to revoke it and rename Joanna and Charles I as his heirs instead. When Ferdinand II died in 1516, the Kingdoms of Castile and León, and Aragon, and their associated crowns and territories-colonies would pass to Joanna I and Charles I.^[13] With Charles I still in Flanders, Aragon was being governed after Ferdinand II's death by his bastard son, Alonso de Aragon. Meanwhile, Castile and León, already subjects of Joanna, were governed by Archbishop Cisneros as regent. A group of nobles, led by the Duke of Infantado, attempted to proclaim the Infante Ferdinand as King of Castile but the attempt failed.

In October 1517, Charles I arrived in Asturias, on the Bay of Biscay. On 4 November, he and his sister Eleanor met Joanna at Tordesillas – there they secured from her the necessary authorization 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. The Castilian Cortes, meeting in Valladolid, would spite Charles by addressing him only as Su Alteza ("Your Highness") and reserving Majestad ("Majesty") for Joanna.^[14] However, no one seriously considered rule by Joanna a realistic proposition.^[15]

Since Charles I now ruled the Kingdom of Aragon and its territories, and the Kingdom of Castile and León and its territories, the two kingdoms were officially unified into one country: Spain, in 1519. The former King Charles I became Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, and was able to create the most powerful country in the world at the time by building on the achievements and colonies' wealth of his mother's parents, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Catholic Monarchs.

Revolt of the Comuneros

In 1520 the Revolt of the Comuneros broke out in response to Charles V and the perceived foreign Habsburg influence over Castile. The rebel leaders demanded that Castile be governed in accordance with the supposed practices of the Catholic Kings. In an attempt to legitimize their rebellion, the Comuneros turned to Joanna. As the 'on record' sovereign monarch, if she gave written approval of the rebellion, it would be legalized and triumph. In an attempt to prevent this, Don Antonio de Rojas, Bishop of Mallorca, led a delegation of royal councilors to Tordesillas, asking her 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 Adrian of Utrecht, the regent appointed by Charles V, to declare that Charles would lose Castile if she did so. Although she was sympathetic toward the Comuneros, she was persuaded by Ochoa de Landa and her confessor Fray Juan de Avila that supporting the revolt would irreparably damage the country and her son's monarchy and refused to sign a document. ^[16] The Battle of Villalar confirmed that Charles would prevail over the revolt.

Confinement continues

Real Monasterio de Santa Clara de Tordesillas

Charles ensured his domination and throne by having his mother confined for the rest of her life in the windowless rooms of the Convent of Santa Clara in Tordesillas, Castile. Joanna's condition degenerated further in that degrading physical and mental environment. She apparently became convinced that some of the nuns of the convent wanted to kill her, a fear which was never proved or disproved. Reportedly it was difficult for her to eat, sleep, bathe, or change her clothes - common symptoms of what is now called clinical depression. Charles wrote to the Convent of Santa Clara 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."

Joanna had her youngest daughter, Catherine of Austria (1507–1578), with her during Ferdinand II's time as regent, 1507-1516. Her older daughter Eleanor of Austria (1498-1558) had created a semblance of household within the convent rooms. In her final years, Joanna's physical state began to rapidly decline, with mobility ever more difficult.

The Capilla Real in Granada, where Juana (Joanna) is entombed.

Joanna died on Good Friday, 12 April 1555 at the age 75, in the Convent of Santa Clara at Tordesillas.^[4] She is entombed in the Royal Chapel of Granada ( la Capilla Real ) in Spain, alongside her parents Isabella I and Ferdinand II, her husband Philip I, and her nephew Miguel da Paz, Prince of Asturias. A statue of her stands in Tordesillas, and the Convent in which she was confined for fifty years can be visited.

Mental health - illness

Most historians now agree she had melancholia,^[17]:9 a neurotic depression,^[17]:9[18] a psychosis^[18] or an inherited schizophrenia^[17]:9[18] at the time, not 'insane' or 'mad' as commonly believed.^[18][17] There is debate about her mental illness diagnosis considering the symptoms are standard and aggravated by non-consensual confinement and being controlled for others' assumption of power. To legitimize the claims of her husband, father, and son to the throne, Joanna was nominalized as Queen regnant of Castile, León, and Aragon until her death. There was a possible genetic heredity of mental illness from her family, her maternal grandmother Isabella of Portugal, Queen of Castile suffered from it in widowhood after her stepson exiled her to the castle of Arévalo in Ávila, Castile.^[19][17]:12

Joanna in literature, art, music, film and other media

F. Pradilla Ortiz: Juana la Loca depicts Queen Joanna in vigil over her husband's coffin.

The story of Queen Joanna attracted authors, composers, and artists of the 19th century romanticist movement, with her qualities of unrequited love and moral fidelity. Later authors often focus on the grief-stricken woman and her mental illness. An incomplete list of these works follows:

• Felipe el Hermoso (1845) — Eusebio Asquerino and Gregorio Romero. A play in four acts.
• La Locura de Amor (1855) — Manuel Tamayo y Baus. Play
• Doña Juana la Loca (late 19th Cent.) — Emilio Serrano. Opera.
• Juana la Loca (1877) — Francisco Pradilla. Painting (shown above). Currently in the Prado museum of Madrid, Spain.
• Locura de amor (1948) — Juan de Orduña. Film.
• La Loca (1979) — Gian Carlo Menotti. Opera.
• Mariner by the playwright Don Nigro. Play.
• Las Ruinas del Corazon (1999) — Eric Gamalinda. Poem.
• Juana la Loca (2001) — directed by Vicente Aranda and starring Pilar López de Ayala as Joanna, was nominated for 12 Goya Awards, and was released in the US as Mad Love. Based on La Locura de Amor by Manuel Tamayo y Baus.
• El Pergamino de la Seducción (2005) — Gioconda Belli. Novel in Spanish.
• The Last Queen (2007) — C.W. Gortner. Novel in English and Spanish
• The Bugle (2007-) TimesOnline podcast with John Oliver (comedian) and Andy Zaltzman. Joanna has been a long-time recurring figure, mainly in the 'Hotties from History' competition, in which she was chosen by John Oliver as his all-time favorite nominee in episode 59.

Issue

By Philip I (22 July 1478 – 25 September 1506; married in 1496)

All Joanna's children except Mary had children. However, only Charles, Ferdinand and Isabella have descendants today.

See also: Descendants of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon

Ancestors

Biographies

Crown of Castile
Royal dynasties
House of Trastámara

Henry II Children include    John I    Eleanor, Queen of Navarre John I Children include    Henry III    Ferdinand I of Aragon Henry III Children include    John II    Maria, Queen of Aragon John II Children include    Henry IV    Isabella I    Alfonso, Prince of Asturias Henry IV Children    Joan, Queen of Portugal Isabella I with Ferdinand V Children    Isabella, Queen of Portugal    John, Prince of Asturias    Joanna the Mad    Maria, Queen of Portugal    Catherine, Queen of England Joanna

• W. H. Prescott, Hist. of Ferdinand and Isabella (1854)
• Rosier, Johanna die Wahnsinnige'(1890)
• H. Tighe, A Queen of Unrest (1907).
• R. Villa, La Reina doña Juana la Loca (1892)
• Bethany Aram, Juana the Mad: Sovereignty and Dynasty in Renaissance Europe" (2005)

References

Bibliography

• Miller T. The 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.

External links

• Media related to Joanna of Castile at Wikimedia Commons
• Biography of Juana the Mad of Castile (1479–1555)
• Juana of Castile at Find-A-Grave