The Dance of Death

Isabel the Catholic’s last will and testament had been explicit: were Juana, the heir to the throne, absent from Castile or unable to rule, her father, Fernando—not her husband, Philippe—was to rule in her stead. But however clear she had been, and whatever royal authority she embodied during life, Isabel’s power to ensure that her will was observed evaporated in death. What was left was a text that was subject to interpretation and vulnerable to manipulation and distortion. Such was clearly Philippe’s intent, as part of a larger dynastic strategy that echoed the experiences of his father, Emperor Maximilian (1508–19). In 1477, when Maximilian was still merely an archduke, he had married the twenty-year-old Marie, a daughter of Charles the Bold, and Duchess of Burgundy (1477–82) in her own right. With her death seven years later in an equestrian accident, Maximilian claimed Burgundy by right of marriage (at the time Philippe was only four years old), taking the duchy out of the Valois orbit and incorporating it into the Habsburg patrimony.⁷ And now the Crown of Castile (and potentially that of Aragon) dangled before the Habsburgs by the same right.

Philippe was steeped in the French monarchic tradition, in which the Salic law forbade women or their descendants from inheriting the throne. However, Alfonso X of Castile’s monumental thirteenth-century legal compilation, Las siete partidas, had expressly granted women the right to succeed in the absence of a male heir.⁸ Yet, with the excuse that Juana was pregnant with their fifth child, Philippe did not even inform her of her mother’s passing until after he had proclaimed himself king, and then only when her presence was required at the funerary ceremony he staged for Isabel in Brussels.⁹ Meanwhile, Fernando, who by this time had lost faith in the capacity of Juana and the loyalty of Philippe, was no less busy summoning the cortes in Toro in January 1505, where Isabel’s testament would be read into the record to ensure his own regency until Juana and Philippe’s son and heir, Carlos, came of age.¹⁰ What followed was a negotiation over the fate of Castile between two king consorts, Philippe and Fernando, together with the parties that supported each of them. On one point they agreed: Juana was no longer to be considered competent to rule. But the reasons they used to justify this were both medical and political and reflect the nature of mental illness at the time—a condition that was constructed physically, emotionally, culturally, religiously, and politically.

Thus, on January 23, 1505, Fernando—brandishing Isabel’s will and a report (unfortunately now lost) that Philippe had ordered Martín de Móxica/Mújica to compile in order to establish Juana’s incapacity, along with other testimony—convinced the cortes to approve his gubernatorial powers.¹¹ Ironically, it seemed that Philippe had granted Fernando the ammunition he needed to remain on the throne, which forced the Flemish king consort to defend his wife’s sanity after all he had done to undermine it. For his part, Fernando must not have believed everything he himself had said at Toro, given that he requested his daughter’s signature in approval of his regency—something that would be unnecessary and ineffective were she truly “mad.” Philippe, however, intercepted the document and redoubled his supervision of Juana, who remained in seclusion and incommunicado. It was only on the occasion of a visit by Emperor Maximilian that her confinement was lifted, in order to maintain a semblance of normality.¹² By this point, Fernando was publicly acknowledging both his daughter’s mental troubles and the problems she and Philippe had been having for quite some time.¹³ With the situation heading toward a stalemate, Philippe sent ambassadors to Castile, where on November 24, 1505, they concluded the “Concordia of Salamanca,” which put the kingdom under a triumvirate consisting of Fernando, Philippe, and Juana.

However, the agreement was not to last. Fernando was about to discover just how disliked he was by most of the Castilian nobility, who were looking forward to regime change and eager to profit from the resulting instability. The ambassador Juan Manuel (1450–1543), Lord of Belmonte de Campos, a descendant of the famous nobleman, politician, and writer Don Juan Manuel (1282–1348), had been cultivating Philippe’s favor in Flanders. There he emerged as the young monarch’s favorite and consequently a fierce opponent of the Aragonese king, whom he strove to alienate from the Habsburg prince. The problem was that without Isabel Fernando had little influence or authority in Castile, and it was clear he could count on neither Juana nor Philippe. Consequently, the king drew close to the Habsburg rival Louis XII of France, with whom he signed the Treaty of Blois, sealing it by marrying the French king’s niece, Germana de Foix, on October 19, 1506. This agreement would stabilize the situation in Naples and enable Fernando to focus on Castile.¹⁴

After Juana delivered her fifth child, Marie/María, in Brussels on September 15, 1505, she and Philippe waited for her to recover before setting out for Castile the following January. They traveled without their children, but their two-year-old son Fernando was waiting for them in Castile. Traveling by sea in winter was a risky proposition; and sailing from Flanders for Castile, they found themselves washed ashore instead in England. This was Juana’s second visit to the island kingdom, having been previously carried there en route from Laredo to Flanders. The delay of the storm granted Henry VII an opportunity to ask Philippe to hand over the English rebels who had taken refuge in Flanders, while Juana enjoyed another visit with her sister Catalina, known locally as Catherine of Aragon. Catalina’s husband, Arthur, Prince of Wales, had died four years earlier, and at the time of Juana’s visit she was not yet betrothed to the future Henry VIII. We do not know about the two sisters’ encounter. An absent Martire d’Angheira described how Catalina “hugged, consoled, and kept company” with her sister, who seemed mired in melancholy. He claimed Juana “refuses all pleasure, delights in darkness, and keeps in solitude, refusing all companionship.” He also noted that rumors were flying regarding her condition, as courtiers looked for any sign relating to her state of mind and capacity to rule.¹⁵ For his part, Henry VII, who also met Juana in Windsor, was left with a good impression of her, despite the fact Philippe and his entourage proclaimed she was mad.¹⁶ It seems that Juana and Philippe had a major argument in England that disturbed both her sister (who would be named ambassador to England two years later) and Henry VII. Catalina alludes to the matter in 1507 in the course of a letter to Juana, in which—without adding any details—she mentions both her embarrassment at the argument and her frustration that Henry VII had failed to intervene in what his councillors characterized as a domestic dispute.¹⁷ It is clear that Juana and Philippe’s marital discord was reaching a crescendo, and they were unable to restrain themselves from conflict even in the public context of a foreign court. Their disharmony was a source of great distress to those who were forced to witness it, but were unable to intervene because they recognized a husband’s right to treat his wife as he pleased. Catalina could not have guessed how her sister and brother-in-law’s marriage foreshadowed her own relationship with an abusive Henry VIII years later.

On April 26, 1506, Juana and Philippe finally arrived at A Coruña (Galicia), but two months would pass before Philippe met with Fernando. What followed was a discussion between Fernando and Philippe and their representatives that excluded Juana, whose latest pregnancy served as an excuse to keep her isolated and prevent her from even meeting with her father. According to Martire d’Anghiera, Juana had been rendered “useless by her illness.”¹⁸ Fernando for his part was losing what support he still had among the Castilian nobility. While the Aragonese king could still count on Fadrique of Toledo, Duke of Alba, the grandees of Castile, including Juan Manuel, Bernardino de Velázquez, Constable of Castile, Diego López Pacheco, Marquis of Villena, Alonso Manrique, Bishop of Badajoz and later Archbishop of Seville and cardinal, and García Lasso de la Vega, Comendador Mayor de Castilla, had all gone over to Philippe.¹⁹ As both consort of the reigning queen and father of the future Carlos V, Philippe was clearly the most promising contender.

With his position clearly untenable, the aging Fernando had no choice but to negotiate the relinquishment of his authority in the kingdom. Thus, on June 27, 1506, he signed the humiliating Concordia de Villafáfila, in which he unwillingly renounced his rights in Castile and retired to his own kingdoms in exchange for retaining what Isabel had assigned to him in her will: the administration of the three Castilian military orders and half of the income from the New World.²⁰ Further, he was forced to condemn his daughter Juana, whom he had not been allowed to see in person, to political irrelevance by signing a charter that recognized her incapacity, affirming that “in no way did he wish her to occupy nor participate in any body of government, nor any other such matters, for even were she to desire to do so, this would result in the total destruction and loss of those kingdoms, on account of her illness and passions, and other things that are not mentioned out of modesty.”²¹ Juana’s fate was sealed. She had been disqualified from rule on account of both her disinterest and her incapacity, thus meeting both of the criteria for her exclusion that Isabel had explicitly specified in her will.

Writing in 1555, Pedro de Alcocer mentions another incident involving Juana that provoked scandal at court during this time of negotiation. Apparently, Juana was staying in Benavente when she got wind of Philippe’s intention to rule alone and heard that he was sending guards ostensibly to protect her from being abducted by her father. In response, Juana rode into town and refused to go back to the fortress where she was lodging, and instead slept in the house of a commoner—a female baker (una pastelera).²² If accepted as true, this incident was only further proof of Juana’s bad judgment. In any case, Fernando left the kingdom, and no sooner had the cortes gathered in Valladolid sworn in Philippe as king on July 12, 1506, than the new monarch pressed them to order Juana’s internment on the grounds of “incompetence.”²³ Fortunately for Juana, in the ensuing debate, the representatives of the kingdom’s estates judged that there was no need to detain her.²⁴ As far as they were concerned, she was not mad.

From there, the royal court moved to Burgos in early September to celebrate the succession of the new monarchs. It would be Philippe’s last hurrah. There, in the house of the royal favorite, Juan Manuel, the new king would unexpectedly die. Bernardino Carvajal, Cardinal of Santa Cruz, recounted how after a particularly intense game of ball the new king was suddenly seized by a high fever and an unquenchable thirst, to which he succumbed a week later, on September 25, 1506.²⁵ For the Benedictine bishop and chronicler Prudencio de Sandoval (d. 1620), writing nearly a century later, it was overindulgence that brought down the king: “He felt ill, and the unfortunate sickness tightened its grip until on the seventh day he was snatched up by death.”²⁶ For all his exertions, the Habsburg prince reigned as king in Castile for only five months; Philippe I “the Handsome” was monarch for only the briefest moment.

Philippe’s Final Journey

During the short period of Philippe’s illness, Juana remained calm, serene, helpful, and dispassionate. Eyewitnesses were impressed by her decorum and remarked that she did not even cry. Doctor Parra, who had been part of the team of physicians who treated Philippe, wrote a memorandum to Fernando to inform him of his son-in-law’s illness and death, in which he praised the queen, who was “treating the king with the best composure, touch, air, and grace, that I have ever seen any woman of any social class do.”²⁷ The physician also mentioned that rumors had started circulating among the Flemish, and even among some Castilians, that Philippe had been “given herbs” (que le dieron hierbas), but he dismissed the possibility of poisoning.²⁸ Similarly, the chronicler Lorenzo de Padilla reported that Juana “was so affected that there was no way to get her away from the body, nor would she consent that he be taken away to be buried, and that it was because of this that his corpse had to be embalmed.²⁹ The anonymous Flemish author of The Second Trip (Deuxième voyage de Philippe le Beau en Espagne; 1506) described Philippe as “the most handsome in the world” (le plus beau du monde). He reported that Juana embraced and kissed the corpse until it was finally taken from her and laid to rest temporarily in the nearby Carthusian monastery of Miraflores. There she visited the body weekly until she finally succeeded in having it removed.³⁰ So, unlike her sister Isabel, Juana did not engage in exuberant penitential mortification, such as scratching her face or cutting her hair. Rather, Juana’s grief resembled that of her grandmother, Isabel of Portugal, who withdrew into solitude and melancholy.

The ceremonial of death is rooted in culture, and although Philippe died in Castile, the traditions of his Flemish homeland were followed after his death, further marking him as a foreign king in eyes of the Castilians. His servants and courtiers kept vigil through the night in a large hall hung with tapestries, with the deceased king dressed in precious vestments, sitting for a final time in death on the throne he had coveted in life. Juana’s Castilian courtiers, Martire d’Anghiera included, attended the vigil, along with many monks and friars of various orders, who prayed through the night. At dawn, the display of his corpse ended, and the preservation process began. A curious Martire d’Anghiera, this time an eyewitness, described the events in detail in a letter to his usual interlocutors, Hernando de Talavera, Archbishop of Granada, and Iñigo López de Mendoza y Quiñones, Count of Tendilla, who, were kept informed of all that happened at court, although both resided in Granada:

At dawn they removed the cadaver from its bier in order to extract its organs and embalm it. Two surgeons were called in for the process, opening him up from his feet to his head. His calves and legs and his flesh was removed so that having been drained of blood he would take longer to rot. They say that they removed his heart, so that placing it in a golden vessel, they would take it to his homeland and leave it next to the ashes of his ancestors. Having opened the skull, they took out his brains. Opening his stomach, they removed the intestines, and afterwards embalmed the corpse with lime and perfume (not having the necessary balms), sewed him up, and wrapped him in linen bandages, holding his extremities together by each of their joints, and laying him finally in a lead coffin set within in a wooden box.³¹

Other chroniclers, including Santa Cruz, Bernáldez, and Padilla all mentioned the embalming, corroborating these observations.³² Following his own family’s tradition Philippe’s heart was removed to be buried separately alongside the remains of his mother, Marie de Bourgogne, and his grandfather, Charles the Bold, in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges (Belgium). This had become common practice among the northern European nobility and royalty but seems particularly poignant in this case—Juana was deprived of Philippe’s heart not only in life, but even in death.³³

The measures followed to preserve Philippe’s corpse were precisely what Isabel the Catholic wanted to avoid being done to her own body. Thus her will specified she was to be buried “whole.” She was so concerned about preserving her queenly dignity that she even indicated where her funerary procession should stop as her corpse was carried to Granada.³⁴ This is not surprising. As a family, the Trastámaras were not in favor of embalming, notwithstanding the occasional precedents set by rulers of previous dynasties, notably Alfonso X the Learned (d. 1284).³⁵ Nor were Philippe’s successors, Carlos V and his wife, Empress Isabel of Portugal, embalmed, although when her time came, Juana was.³⁶ In general, the royalty of the Iberian Peninsula did not favor embalming until the death of Felipe IV in 1665.

The change in fashion is reflected in the publication of the first medical treatise in Spanish dedicated to this matter, The Practical Technique for Embalming Dead Bodies in Order to Preserve Them as Incorrupt and Eternalize Them as Much as Possible (Modo práctico de embalsamar cuerpos defunctos para preseruarlos incorruptos y eternizarlos en lo possible; 1666), by Pérez Fadrique. The author noted the lack of expertise among Spanish physicians: “Most surgeons do not know it, and those that do, do not know it well.”³⁷ Flemish burial practices were closer to the French, the Burgundian, and the German traditions, in which embalming was common. Since the second half of the fourteenth century the royalty and nobility of France publicly exhibited their dead. In the early 1400s the dead typically lay in state for four or five days, but by the end of the century kings might be on display for as long as twenty days.

Consequently, embalming became necessary. In Burgundy, Philippe le Hardi (d. 1404) and Philippe le Bon (d.1467) are both recorded as being embalmed.³⁸ In the Holy Roman Empire, embalming is documented since the tenth century; there they also used the technique of boiling corpses to preserve them.³⁹ Romedio Schmitz-Esser documents important changes regarding the treatment of cadavers beginning in the thirteenth century as Italian and French universities established anatomy and dissection as part of the medical curriculum.⁴⁰

Decomposition starts almost immediately after death, and in warmer months the process accelerates. Embalming is intended to delay the corruption of the corpse to allow its exhibition and a ceremonial burial. When individuals died far from their designated burial place, they would often be interred provisionally in a nearby church or monastery, until such time that they could be transported to their final burial place. The Trastámara rulers did not have a single pantheon; rather, each specified a final resting place in their will. Even with all the preparations the journey usually could not take place immediately. The idea was to wait until the corpse had fully decomposed (a period of some six months), because otherwise it presented a health hazard to move it.⁴¹ Given that Philippe died in Burgos in the warm weather of late September, the obvious provisional resting place was the charterhouse of Miraflores, only two and a half miles away. Miraflores was also the permanent resting place of Juana’s grandparents, Juan II of Castile and Isabel of Portugal, and her uncle, Prince Alfonso. But Miraflores would be only a first stop; Philippe had stated in his will that were he to die in Castile he wanted to be buried in Granada like his mother-in-law, the Catholic Queen.

Juana was genuinely affected by the passing of her husband, undoubtedly all the more so because she was carrying their sixth child. In his chronicle, Lorenzo de Padilla noted that “whether from the great emotion surrounding the death of her husband or for other reasons, the queen did not focus on or occupy herself with the governance of her kingdoms.” In the face of this, and fearing the money would soon run out, Philippe’s Flemish courtiers started departing Juana’s court.⁴² And it is at this point that the humanist and cleric Martire d’Anghiera—an eyewitness who was in Juana’s entourage—shifts his tone in describing the queen. For the first time, he shows sympathy for her sorrow, for her lack of experience in government, for the difficulties of being a pregnant widow upon whom the exigencies of rule and the challenges of reining the restive Castilian nobility suddenly fell. Nevertheless, Martire d’Anghiera was perplexed by Juana’s actions. She seemed paralyzed, remaining silent on matters of government and refusing to sign any royal orders. The queen eagerly desired her father’s presence, but lacked the resolve to write to him personally. Her inaction left the kingdom on hold, so a provisional council presided over by Cardinal Cisneros and leading nobles representing the three main political factions (roughly, pro-Fernando, pro-Maximilian, and pro-Juana) was established.⁴³

Even so, Martire d’Anghiera could not resist acknowledging Juana’s discretion and deep understanding of certain matters. He described how she argued both against calling Emperor Maximilian to rule and against investing Carlos, who was still a child, with royal power. For her, the best candidate for regent was her father, Fernando. Martire d’Anghiera commented:

Had one not heard the spontaneous responses of this woman, one would say that she is discretion itself. But if you came as a supplicant, even with tears welling in your eyes, for her to sign some document of state, you would have wasted your time.⁴⁴

In another dispatch, he appeared indecisive regarding the queen, who obviously puzzles him. So, while acknowledging that she was bright and lucid, he again remarked on her inability to act: “No sooner than we take hope that she will come around, it is dispelled.”⁴⁵ What struck him most was her melancholic state:

Have compassion on the daughter of the Queen [Juana], a pregnant widow without the least experience in the affairs of state—as her own father knows well—dragged into a miserable life, enjoying anonymity and repose, with her hand stuck to her chin, and her mouth clamped shut as if mute. She enjoys the company of none, and all the less that of women, whom she hates and drives from her presence—as she did during the lifetime of her husband—and without there being any way to convince her to write her signature or dictate a few lines in order to govern the state.⁴⁶

Nineteen days later, Martire d’Anghiera repeated some of these same thoughts in a letter to the Count of Tendilla, saying that Juana was not mad—“seems to be sensical”—but was mired in melancholy and consequently disengaged from government.⁴⁷ He emphasized that “in responding to the effects of her widowhood, her pregnancy, her health, and the absence of her father, she has not yet been able to turn to the business of ruling”—which was to say, Juana was not engaged in governing at the moment, but planned to be.⁴⁸ It seemed that she was asking for time to recover. This insistence in court circles on assessing Juana’s state of mind and her emotional composure is further proof that her condition had become the talk of the town.

Yet, if there were ever an opportunity for Juana to reset the narrative of her life and claim her throne in her own name, it was at that precise moment. Her husband was dead, her father was in Naples, her father-in-law was in Flanders, and her heir, Carlos, was only six years old. She was finally free of direct supervision. Had she been successful in rallying, Juana would have anticipated the independent feminine rule of Elizabeth I of England (1558–1603) by fifty years. Unlike Juana, however, the English “Virgin Queen,” who famously eschewed marriage and managed to rule as a single woman, had the support of trusted and competent advisers, and no living father to overshadow her. Juana, on the other hand, had been unable to develop her own networks of patronage, and unlike Elizabeth, had a bevy of healthy heirs, making it easier to replace her with a regent. Whatever happened to her, her line would go on without her—at least matrilineally.

But Juana failed to act decisively. She did not generate a political record, she did not write personally to her father to request his aid, she did not convene the cortes to build support among her subjects, and no nobleman (or noblewomen) from her entourage emerged as her favorite (although Bishop Villaescusa seemed particularly valued).⁴⁹ Her most important political resolution dates from December 18, 1506, when she revoked all of the patrimony and rents that Philippe had appropriated and given to his supporters without her approval. The aim was to recover considerable patrimony for the Crown and to disempower Philippe’s loyalists, who would never have supported her as queen.⁵⁰ By the same stroke, she ordered the royal councillors named by Philippe to be replaced by former officials who had served her parents.⁵¹ And yet, despite this promising start, the only other major project she undertook between her husband’s death and her father’s return was to personally escort Philippe’s remains to Granada.

It seems that whatever sympathy Juana had garnered, whether on the part of Martire d’Anghiera or the rest of her courtiers, was finally spent on December 20, 1506, when breaking with tradition and defying common sense, she removed her husband’s body from Miraflores less than three months after his death with the intent of conveying it to Granada without delay. This would be a trip of over 400 miles undertaken at a time when Juana was well into her third trimester of pregnancy and Philippe’s corpse, although embalmed, was still decomposing. To cover this distance in her delicate condition and together with a queenly entourage would transform the endeavor into a sort of perpetual funerary procession– one that included religious services in every place it stopped along the way, and demanded the observance of both religious and courtly ceremony. Solemn prayers would need to be said, while an honor guard would have to stand vigil over the royal body. Although the custom among royalty was to leave these hands-on translations to the clergy, Juana had every intention of accompanying Philippe’s remains herself.

The expectation was instead that Juana would hold a formal funeral. She would order requiem masses, attend religious services, dress the court in mourning, and refrain from visible enjoyments for a period of time. She might also memorialize the event through the commissioning of literary works (as had been done after the deaths of Prince Afonso and Prince Juan). Another option would have been to move Philippe’s corpse from Burgos to Granada as quickly as possible after his death to take advantage of his embalming. Neither Isabel’s nor Fernando the Catholic’s corpse was embalmed, and each was taken directly to Granada—the queen from Medina del Campo (a trip of nearly 400 miles, which took twenty-two days), and the king from Madrigalejo (a ten-day journey of 240 miles).⁵² Granted, both died in cooler months (November and January, respectively), and that helped delay decomposition, whereas Philippe passed away in the heat of September and his corpse would have decomposed quickly.

But even more unusual was Juana’s insistence on personally accompanying her husband’s body on the journey. Fernando, for example, did not escort Isabel’s body to Granada, but left it to the clerics whose office it was to tend to the dead. Fernando certainly had to process his grief, but he could not let go of the reins of state, and so he secluded himself for nine days in the monastery of Mejorada without neglecting his administrative responsibilities.⁵³ On top of all of this, Juana was in an advanced stage of pregnancy. That previously she had postponed two trips from Flanders to Castile (the first to be sworn as heir, and the second when she returned to rule) precisely because she was pregnant reflects her determination to accompany Philippe’s body. Nothing prevented Juana from emulating her father and retreating to a convent to compose herself out of public view, but she could not afford to present herself once more as someone disengaged from governing. She was already viewed with suspicion by her subjects, and as a female ruler in this era she was studied more closely. Any perceived failing on her part would be judged more harshly than would have been the case for a man.

Juana also used the disruptions provoked by her journey to exert her power as queen, rearranging her household and purging it of untrusted courtiers, particularly among the pro-Fernando camp. One of those who was cast out was her own illegitimate halfsister, Juana of Aragon, along with the Marchioness of Denia. The Aragonese royal secretary Lope de Conchillos claimed that this “scandalized everybody” (referring to his own pro-Fernando faction).⁵⁴ This suggests that part of Juana’s motivation to go through with her much-criticized trip to Granada was to assert her power and independence. After a life in the shadow of the authority of others, she was finally in command of her household and her destiny, and would not be stopped. She would travel whenever she wanted, however she wanted, and with whomever she wanted, and as queen of Castile in her own right, she had every intention of fulfilling her husband’s last wishes. Indeed, when her father finally intervened to put an end to the journey, Juana had been traveling in the company of Philippe’s corpse for no less than two years and three months.

Lope de Conchillos, who traveled with Juana, wrote to Fernando’s secretary, Miguel Pérez de Almazán, to explain in detail what was going on. For Conchillos, the kingdom could only be saved from Juana’s poor judgment if Fernando returned and took the reins of power. Pérez de Almazán’s disdain for Juana’s plan to disinter Philippe was absolutely clear: “With this nonsense the queen has embarked on, there is no one great or small, who does not say now that she is confused and brainless, with the exception of Juan López who says she is of sounder mind than even her mother (está más cuerda que su madre).”⁵⁵ Conchillos was referring to Juan López de Lazárraga (d. 1536), who as Juana’s royal secretary had access to her financial records, and was lending her the money to pay for the trip.⁵⁶ López de Lazárraga had strong motives to present Juana as rational and sane; a courtier of the Catholic Kings, he was the new queen’s factotum, controlling access to her as well as to her signature and seal.⁵⁷ The pro-Fernando faction distrusted López de Lazárraga, as did the king’s ambassador, Luis Ferrer y Exarch, who suspected his motives for defending the queen.⁵⁸ To underline Juana’s eccentricity, Conchillos made reference to the stench of Philippe’s half-decomposed corpse.

In a letter to Hernando de Talavera, Martire d’Anghiera echoed Conchillos’s concerns and his alarm at Juana’s intentions: “As I see it, no era ever saw a corpse taken from its grave carried by a four-horse draught, surrounded by funeral pomp and a mob of clergymen chanting the Office of the Dead.”⁵⁹ As the funeral cortege progressed, Martire d’Anghiera reported that they traveled by night, and that palace guards were assigned to hold vigil over the corpse night and day. Juana was, he said, “so crushed by Saturn, that she is incapable of walking from one point to another, nor knows how to get up once she has sat down, even should she want to.”⁶⁰ Moreover, he continued, she “does not have the least concern whether her kingdoms prosper or decline.”⁶¹ To characterize Juana as “crushed by Saturn” (est Saturno adeo pessunta) was to say that she was overcome by melancholy, a debilitating illness that pushed the infirm to retreat into isolation, and rendered it impossible for them to perform as expected.⁶² This description of Juana has prompted modern historians, like Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada, to suggest that for a period she was suffering from acedia—a sort of acute melancholy.⁶³Acedia, a condition that produced delusions, was sometimes thought to be provoked by the mortal sin of sloth, but was more widely associated with anchorites, monks, and nuns. According to Stanley Jackson it was “characterized by exhaustion, listlessness, sadness or dejection, restlessness, aversion to the cell and the ascetic life, and yearning for family and former life.”⁶⁴

Some historians—unconcerned with potential anachronisms or the dubiousness of retrospective diagnoses—have claimed that Juana was suffering from some more severe type of “disequilibrium,” or even schizophrenia.⁶⁵ On the other hand, Bethany Aram and Gillian Fleming have read Juana’s insistence on transferring her husband’s corpse to Granada as a political move. Fleming maintains that “many rational explanations may be found for the funeral journey.”⁶⁶ For Aram, by making the journey, “Juana probably hoped to secure her rights, and those of her eldest son, Carlos, to that southern kingdom [Granada].”⁶⁷ But there is little to back up the latter contention, aside from some rumors circulated by the pro-Maximilian party. Certainly, Juana was neither trusted nor appreciated as a queen, but her children’s right to succeed in Granada, or in any of her other Castilian kingdoms, was never put in question.⁶⁸ The Crown of Aragon, however, was a different case. Here, Juana’s succession would only occur if Fernando failed to produce a male heir by his new wife, Germana de Foix. In the final analysis, even if Juana’s decision to embark on this journey was strategic, and aimed at asserting authority while taking her somewhat out of the public eye, the best that can be said is that it was a flawed plan. Abandoning the court and letting go of the reins of power were clear examples of poor judgment.

In the end, it was this extraordinary funeral procession that forged Juana’s legend and legacy as a desperately alienated martyr for love—a portrayal reflected and disseminated in the works of Romantic painters such as Francisco Pradilla Ortiz (1848–1921), writers like Manuel Tamayo y Baus (1829–98), and film directors like Vicente Aranda (1926–2015) (see figs. 10 and 11).⁶⁹ But the legend took root in her own lifetime, when fact and fiction already began to blend. The Chronicle of Philippe’s Second Voyage explains that while the deceased king lay in state in Miraflores, Juana would have his casket opened on a weekly basis so she could kiss his feet—a practice she continued throughout the long journey to Granada.⁷⁰ This is almost certainly an invention that at once tapped into stereotypes of exaggerated wifely devotion and feminine irrationality, while discrediting Juana as a competent ruler. No other source reports this, although in his account, Lope de Conchillos refers to Juana’s adoration of Philippe’s “holy body” (cuerpo santo), evoking at once the cult of saints and the literary topos of the religion of love, and suggesting the corpse had taken on a divine aspect in the eyes of the dowager.⁷¹ It also echoes the biblical image of pious weeping associated with Mary Magdalene (Luke 7:38), traditionally identified as the female sinner who bathed Jesus’s feet with her tears, dried them with her hair, and kissed and anointed them. If Juana had in reality been doing something as outrageous as what The Chronicle of Philippe’s Second Voyage describes, it would have been corroborated by other witnesses, particularly Martire d’Anghiera, who was with Juana at the time, and who seemed to delight in disclosing the most salacious details.

There was certainly concern regarding Juana’s sense of judgment. Martire d’Anghiera recounts how a monk of Miraflores had to be ejected from the procession for trying to convince Juana to continue the funeral procession indefinitely, in case Philippe miraculously came back to life—as he claimed had happened to another king after fourteen years in the tomb.⁷² The courtier and diplomat also reported how Juana remained irrationally jealous of Philippe even after his death, and would not allow any woman to approach his body. Martire d’Anghiera describes, for example, how as the cortege journeyed from Torquemada in the direction of Hornillos, it stopped at the monastery of Santa María de Escobar, with the intention of staying. But once they had arrived and the queen realized it was a female convent, she ordered the coffin removed in all haste, despite the foul weather of the day, and contracted local workers to open both the wood sarcophagus and the leaden casket in order to certify—on the testimony of noble witnesses—that Philippe’s body had remained in place.⁷³ Juana, who preferred to travel by night to avoid the public gaze in her grieving state, opened Philippe’s coffin at least twice more en route to Granada, in May and August 1507.⁷⁴

Strange as her behavior may have seemed, it does indicate the degree of control she exercised over her household. When she commanded, she was obeyed. But it is clear, beyond the sensational allegations, that witnesses agreed that Juana was neglecting her affairs of state. Moreover, her decision to disinter Philippe and embark pregnant and at great and unnecessary risk on her Granada odyssey was disconcerting because it was seen as subverting the established order. Drawing on Arnold van Gennep’s studies on liminality and rites of passage, Craig Koslofsky has suggested that death rituals “provide, above all, an opportunity for established authority to reproduce itself.”⁷⁵ In Juana’s case, the rite of passage of death and the ceremonial attached to it did not reinforce the social order but undermined it. As Thomas Laqueur points out in his cultural history of mortal remains, “The dead are not, and have never been, viewed as just like the living (except perhaps by the mad)”—an assessment that seems to reflect the intuitions of Juana’s courtiers.⁷⁶

Through her trip to Granada, Juana inverted the metaphor of the body politic: the body of the ruling king consort was present, but as a cadaver, while Juana was present and regarded as a ruler according to the recognized precedents of the monarchy, but real or effective authority and executive action on her part were absent. According to Alfonso X’s Partidas, a sovereign had four main roles: ruler, head of the dynasty, defender of the faith, and protector of the kingdom. Ruling came first because everything else depended on that. With the death of Philippe and with her own reputation already tainted, Juana needed to refashion herself as an effective leader and an example to her subjects, particularly because as a female sovereign she needed to be careful not to be seen as too “feminine.” In other words, she could not allow her emotions to take control of her royal persona, so that she appeared irrational and unpredictable. But this is precisely how she was viewed.

The Return of the King

Despite her determination, Juana never made it to Granada with Philippe’s remains.⁷⁷ She had to stop to deliver her last child, and on January 14, 1507, her daughter Catalina was born in Torquemada (Palencia)—with nearly 400 miles still remaining to Granada and only twenty-five days after the queen had departed Miraflores with her husband’s cortege. So, after resting and recovering, Juana was on the move again on April 19, 1507, when she is documented passing through a small town, Hornillos del Cerrato, a few miles to the south. Given the stipulations of her mother’s will, the only person who could claim authority over Juana and take on the regency was her father. Fernando had been receiving letters from his supporters begging him to come back. His trusted secretary, Conchillos, wrote, “The salvation of this lady and of her sons and of these kingdoms is the arrival of Your Highness here.”⁷⁸ But even before he could return, he had to consider a marriage proposal that had come in for Juana—a development that shows that although a reigning queen and as yet unconfined, Juana was perceived as under the authority of her father (who was, of course, not only her father, but the reigning King of Aragon).

Henry VII of England, who had met the dowager personally, was determined to marry her and had prevailed on her sister Catalina, then serving as ambassador, to intercede on his behalf.⁷⁹ Fernando played for time, writing back to his daughter Catalina, a widow since 1501, requesting that Henry VII send ambassadors to Castile to propose marriage, noting, “I do not know if the said Queen, my daughter, is willing to marry yet,” but reassuring the English king that he was in favor of the match.⁸⁰ There was also the matter of Juana’s mental health—which was not merely a personal matter, but a political one. Doctor Puebla, Fernando’s ambassador to the English court, wrote to encourage the Aragonese king. He suggested that if there were a possibility of Juana recovering, having a husband like Henry VII would help, whereas if she were beyond recovery, it would be better for Fernando if she were in far-off England, and less likely to do damage at home. In either case, the ambassador argued, such a marriage would be in the Aragonese king’s favor, allowing him to rule Castile without interference, and in exchange for which the English king would expect only a “certain sum” as a dowry.

Although Henry had met the queen when high seas had brought her and Philippe to England en route to Castile, there remained some concern regarding her health and mental state. For his part, Doctor Puebla focused on Juana’s ability to bear children (she had delivered six, including two boys), and conveyed his confidence in her maternal prospects, noting “in terms of reproduction, she is not ill at all.”⁸¹ This reduction of a woman’s value to her reproductive capacity foreshadowed her sister Catalina’s future difficulties in England, when her failure to produce a male heir for Henry VIII prompted the king to humiliate her, divorce her, and finally incarcerate her in a castle—the second of Fernando and Isabel’s daughters to end her days as a prisoner.⁸²

While these discussions were taking place, Fernando finally returned to Castile, ten months after Philippe’s death, leaving his new wife, Germana de Foix, in Valencia so as not to provoke his Castilian subjects, who might suspect he would supplant Juana’s line.⁸³ Father and daughter met on August 29, 1507, in Tórtoles de Esgueva. It was an emotional encounter. Both embraced, Fernando cried out of “happiness,” but Juana did not. Finally, after a long conversation she apparently authorized him to rule on her behalf.⁸⁴ Juana, the obedient daughter, put Castile at her father’s disposal—as Martire d’Anghiera put it, “Paternal respect triumphed.”⁸⁵ After traveling together for a month, they separated, with Fernando going to Burgos, and Juana continuing toward Granada with Philippe’s corpse.

Meanwhile, the topic of a potential English marriage kept popping up. Doctor Puebla continued pushing the matter, and Catalina also wrote to her sister.⁸⁶ Fernando, for his part, wrote to his ambassador, warning him that Juana could not consider remarrying until the matter of Philippe’s body had been resolved, but thus far she had refused to bury him. Fernando claimed that he had been trying to convince her to do so without delay, but it was a matter of some delicacy: “In that which pertains to her health and happiness, I do not contradict her in any way, least I do something that would upset her.”⁸⁷

It was at this point in the negotiations that Henry VII spoke frankly to Fernando’s ambassador, claiming he was tired of concealing his thoughts (disimular). The English monarch thought that his “brother,” Fernando, being a “wise” and “prudent” king, could force Juana to bury Philippe if he truly wanted to—a matter that doubtless also puzzled many contemporaries. Henry was hesitant, and even though he had met Juana, he did not know whether to believe what Philippe and others had related to him regarding Juana’s health, or to understand these politically damaging rumors as an effort to deprive Juana of her inheritance:

If the queen were as her husband had said, or as so many say, because were she the way many say she is, I would not marry her even for three kingdoms like the ones she has; however, others maintain that the king, your lordship [Fernando], likes to have her this way, and is pleased that it be said that she is this way, in order to be able to deprive her of everything.⁸⁸

Henry did not want to marry a “mad” queen—his hesitancy shows the extent to which Juana’s reputation had been undermined. In the end, the delays caused by Juana’s concerns and Fernando’s machinations outlasted Henry VII, who died on April 21, 1509, putting an end to any potential marriage.⁸⁹ It did not matter to Fernando that he could not now ship Juana off to England, as this would only have complicated his regency and Carlos’s succession. Fernando could better control Juana in Castile.

Castling the Queen

In September 1507 Juana is documented at Arcos de la Llana, where she stayed for over a year—still accompanied by Philippe’s body—having left her father to attend the cortes in Burgos when they convened on October 29, 1507.⁹⁰ Almost a year later, the queen was still in Arcos, when on October 9, 1508, Diego Ramírez de Villaescusa, Bishop of Málaga, who knew Juana well because he had been with her in Flanders and in Castile, wrote to Fernando informing him of his daughter’s bad health and suggesting that someone needed to take charge of her well-being. The bishop painted a grim picture. Juana, he wrote, was neither changing her clothes nor washing; she was sleeping and eating on the floor, and urinating too frequently—“something unheard of” (cosa non vista). In other words, her health and behavior had taken a turn for the worse. All of this Villaescusa took as signs of her imminent death (señales de corta vida)—which certainly was a bad guess, given that she would live another forty-eight years. Compounding all of this, he noted Juana was not attending mass regularly, which was seen as further undermining both her mental and spiritual health.⁹¹ While the foundation of health was held to be determined by the balance of the humors, physical and spiritual well-being could not be separated.⁹² Spiritual and physical health, medicine and religion, sin and sickness, were connected, and thus part of the cure for acedia was confession.

It was at this point that Fernando intervened, secluding Juana in a palace in Tordesillas, where she would remain from March 1509 until her death on April 12, 1555. Juana would remain a prisoner at Tordesillas for forty-six years: entering at age thirty and dying at seventy-six.⁹³ Meanwhile, Philippe’s body was ensconced provisionally in the Clarissan convent in the same city; eventually, in 1526, it would make its way to Granada as planned. Hence, the popular refrain

In the end, neither Juana’s husband, nor her father, nor her son and successor, Carlos, was interested in her rehabilitation; it was Juana’s fate to be displaced. Although she inherited the throne at twenty-five in 1504, her father ruled in her name while she languished as a virtual prisoner in Flanders. She returned to Castile in 1506 only to have her husband, Philippe, take the throne. No sooner had he died than her father returned, ruling in her name until his death in 1516. It was Fernando who confined her in Tordesillas—close enough to visit and control her, but far from the eyes of her subjects and the court. The king undoubtedly contemplated the recent history of the Trastámara dynasty in which a series of melancholic or otherwise troublesome royals had been confined, including his mother-in-law, Isabel of Portugal, his niece Juana “la Beltraneja,” and his own half brother, Carlos de Viana. Indeed, Juana’s fate resembled that of her grandmother, Isabel, who after the death of Juan II retired from court life to the castle of Arévalo with her children, Isabel and Alfonso, and her mother, Isabel de Barcelos. Her last years were spent alone, surrounded only by servants, visited only occasionally by her daughter, Isabel the Catholic, her son-in-law, Fernando, and their children.⁹⁵

Like her grandmother, Juana was allowed to live with her youngest daughter until Catalina turned eighteen. Catalina, like her grandmother, Isabel the Catholic, was educated far away from court, in relative isolation and scarcity, with little external influence and under the care of a mother considered mentally unbalanced by her peers. Juana, her sister Isabel, and their grandmother, Isabel of Portugal, all seem to have been afflicted by melancholy (or some version of what would likely be called “complicated grief” or “prolonged grief” today). In each case this was provoked by the death of their husband, and each retreated into modest piety and resisted remarriage.⁹⁶ The difference was that when she was bereaved, Juana was a queen in her own right, who was nevertheless confined against her own will, having failed to take control of her kingdom or to defend herself from those who coveted her crown.

The closest parallel to her experience is, perhaps, that of her uncle, Carlos de Viana (1421–61), the halfbrother of her father, Fernando of Aragon.⁹⁷ Carlos, the son of Joan II of Aragon by his first wife, Blanche of Navarre, was heir to the thrones of both Navarre and Aragon. But after Carlos’s mother died in 1441, his father refused to relinquish the throne, despite the fact that Blanche’s testament named her son as heir to Navarre. In 1446 Joan II took a second wife, Juana Enríquez, which further threatened Carlos’s position, particularly after she bore Joan a son in 1452, the future Fernando the Catholic. Soon after, Carlos rose in rebellion with the support of Juan II of Castile and Álvaro de Luna. The insurrection failed, and Carlos was taken prisoner by his father, who released his son after receiving his pledge not to claim the throne of Navarre until after Joan had died. But in the face of the encroachments of Juana Enríquez, and the interference of his father, who frustrated Carlos’s ambitions to marry Isabel of Castile, the prince ended up in prison again. This provoked a broad uprising against the Aragonese king, who was forced to release his son in 1459. When Carlos died of natural causes just three years later, some whispered that Juana Enríquez had had him poisoned. In other words, Fernando’s actions toward Juana in 1504 and 1507 resembled those of his father vis-à-vis Fernando’s half brother, Carlos. Both Joan and Fernando were king consorts who, after the death of their spouses, refused to respect their own children’s right as heirs.⁹⁸

In a further parallel, if Fernando became his father’s heir after his rebellious elder half brother had died, Isabel the Catholic’s supplanting of her niece, Princess Juana, on the throne of Castile with Fernando’s aid was little different. And the fate of “La Beltraneja,” who was to be confined for life in a religious house, was not so different from that of Juana “the Mad,” who lived out her days imprisoned in a palace.⁹⁹ All of this foreshadowed the fate of Juana’s descendant Carlos of Austria (1545–68), the son of Felipe II and Maria Manuela of Portugal. Carlos suffered from chronic poor health, compounded by a head injury in adolescence. As he matured, the prince’s increasingly erratic behavior provoked the loss of his father’s confidence and favor. When Felipe discovered Carlos was plotting rebellion, the king had him cast into prison, where he died in 1568—a series of events that was distorted by anti-Habsburg propagandists and became the germ of the anti-Spanish “Black Legend.”¹⁰⁰

Given the family history of destabilizing melancholy and the Trastámara propensity for intrafamilial rebellion, it is little wonder that Fernando thought it most prudent to remove Juana from the scene. In the Middle Ages and early modern era members of the royal family may have enjoyed great power and privilege thanks to their rank, but both male and female family members could also be regarded as potentially dangerous competitors. They may have been insiders par excellence, but if they were judged unfit to rule, because they were incompetent, rebellious, or ill, they could find themselves suddenly viewed as threatening “outsiders” who needed to be eliminated. As the sociologist Howard Becke notes, “Social groups create deviance by making rules whose infraction creates deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labeling them as outsiders.”¹⁰¹ Thus, once Juana was perceived as someone who had broken the “rules of royalty,” she could no longer enjoy the privileges and protections of that group.

The Princess in the Tower

In Tordesillas the frustrations of Juana’s earlier life were magnified. As an isolated adolescent and newly married woman in foreign Flanders, she had had difficulty exercising patronage and establishing networks of loyal and dependent individuals. Now she found herself a prisoner with no access to her own economic resources. Servants owe their greatest loyalty to those who pay and protect them, not to those they merely serve. Consequently Juana’s household staff did the bidding first of her father, and then of her son, and showed little respect for the “mad queen.” This was a source of great indignation for Juana, particularly because she was forced to beg for money, which she did not get, when, in fact, as proprietary queen of Castile, “everything belonged to her” (todo era suyo).¹⁰² Her economic and political influence was in fact nearly nil. While her mother, Isabel the Catholic, and her sister Isabel of Aragon were the subject of consolatory treatises, none were dedicated to her. The sycophants at court had no interest in or sympathy for a patroness who could offer them nothing by way of support or influence. It was clear to all that Juana would never rule.

Once the queen arrived in Tordesillas in March 1509, any pretensions regarding her rehabilitation were discarded.¹⁰³ Kept in isolation, she was visited occasionally by her Habsburg kinsmen, who at times used these occasions to pilfer from what remained of her queenly regalia. Her regents, first Fernando, and then her son, Carlos, controlled the flow of information to the queen. As a consequence, Juana knew little of the goings-on of the world outside and received little news from her family members on the rare occasions they visited.¹⁰⁴ But she remained, in principle, queen of Castile, and head of the dynasty. Consequently, her mental state needed to be kept as confidential as possible. If she were believed to be sane, there would be pressure to return her to rule; whereas if she were thought to be mad, rumors would spread and taint the reputation of her line. Juana was kept in such a state of isolation that she was not even informed of the death of her father, who passed away aged sixty-four in Madrigalejo (Cáceres) on January 23, 1516.¹⁰⁵

In another strand of continuity, Fernando, like his son Juan of Asturias, was seen as a victim of love and desire—in this case his determination to sire a son by his new wife, Germana de Foix. In the opinion of his contemporaries, the potions and preparations the king took in pursuit of paternity sapped his health and hastened his demise.¹⁰⁶ And yet he almost succeeded. On May 3, 1509, Germana bore him a son, whom they named Juan, but who lived only a few hours. Finally resigned to the fact he would have no other children, Fernando recognized Juana as heir to the Crown of Aragon in his will. Since Juana would never rule, this effectively granted his kingdoms to her eldest son, the sixteen-year-old Carlos, who was Lord of the Netherlands and Duke of Burgundy (1506–56) and would become Holy Roman Emperor from 1519. Fernando had never met Carlos, who was raised abroad, and likely would have preferred the thrones to go to his favorite grandson, Fernando—the future Holy Roman Emperor (1556–64)—who had been raised in Castile, and whom the king knew well. It would not be until September 1517 that Carlos would finally arrive in his Spanish kingdoms. In the meantime, in order to ensure a smooth transition, Fernando provisionally named his illegitimate son, Alonso, Archbishop of Zaragoza, as Lieutenant-General of the Crown of Aragon, and Cardinal Cisneros as Governor of Castile.

Among the last letters that Fernando sent, two were addressed to his grandson and heir, Carlos. One was dated only two days before his death, and the other was probably written the following day. Fernando, fully aware that his end was approaching, and noting that he was writing “as a man more dead than alive,” ratified Carlos as his heir, requesting that he respect his testament and be kind and supportive of “our most serene and very dear Queen and very loved wife,” Germana de Foix.¹⁰⁷ His daughter, Queen Juana, did not even merit a mention—Fernando had no concerns about her future.

Meanwhile, in Tordesillas Juana’s health took a turn for the worse. From the windows of the palace in which she was confined she could look down on the neighboring Clarissan convent, where Philippe’s body rested in state until it was finally dispatched to Granada in 1526. Her household and well-being were placed first in the hands of Mosén Ferrer, Fernando’s former ambassador to Castile—an individual who was hated by the townsfolk of Tordesillas, who blamed him for Juana’s incarceration and lack of rehabilitation, and who attempted to expel him from the town.¹⁰⁸ In his own defense, Ferrer penned a letter to Cisneros, noting that the cardinal was well aware of Juana’s “illness and condition” (condiciones y enfermedad) and that Fernando, a “wise king,” would never have chosen him for the position were he unfit.¹⁰⁹

Nor would Carlos show any interest in reviving Juana’s authority. Even before the heir disembarked in Castile, and could personally assess his mother’s condition, he prepared for his arrival by requesting that a new regal formula be used to ensure that his authority and legitimacy were on par with Juana’s: “Lady Juana and Lord Carlos, her son, Queen and King of Castile, León and Aragón …” (“Doña Juana e Don Carlos, su hijo, reina y rey de Castilla, de León, de Aragón …”). He would update his title again in 1519 on becoming Holy Roman Emperor.¹¹⁰

When Carlos first arrived on Spanish soil in September 1517, he was seventeen years old, and one of the first things he and his sister Leonor did was visit their mother, reaching Tordesillas on November 4, where they also met their sister Catalina. Beyond the obligatory political gesture, both were probably curious about their mother, of whom they had little memory. Carlos had not seen her since he was six years old. They spent seven days with Juana and their sister and celebrated a funeral mass for Philippe at the Clarissan convent. It was a pleasant visit, during which the Burgundian functionary and chronicler Laurent Vital claims one of Carlos’s main advisers, William of Croy, Lord of Chièvres, persuaded Juana to grant her son authority over her kingdoms, as she had done before with her father.¹¹¹

Less than a year later, on March 15, 1518, Carlos appointed Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas, Marquis of Denia and Count of Lerma, who had been a trusted officer in Fernando’s entourage, as head of Juana’s household, along with his wife, Francisca Enríquez. Their instructions were to keep Juana isolated and under control, to the point that under Carlos’s orders she was prohibited even from visiting the neighboring Clarissan monastery as she had done before.¹¹² Carlos wanted complete control, and wrote to the Marquis of Denia: “It does not behoove you to speak or to write anyone else but me regarding Her Highness’s communications with anyone else.”¹¹³ To achieve this goal of completely silencing and isolating Juana, Carlos also directed those living with her to leave the palace as little as possible.¹¹⁴

It was nevertheless impossible to control the news from the palace. Moreover, Denia’s correspondence with Carlos survives, and it makes disturbing reading. Through his letters we see Juana complained about her situation and asked repeatedly to leave the palace and have her queenly rights restored. She ordered Denia to let her go and to call on the grandees of the kingdom to demand their intervention, but instead he informed Carlos of her requests and dismissed her demands by telling her that her father was opposed to any such intervention.¹¹⁵ She had not even been informed of Fernando’s death. As Aram has noted, the Marquis of Denia, with Carlos’s support and guidance, created a fictional world for Juana in which both her father, a great source of authority for her, and her father-in-law, the deceased Emperor Maximilian, were both alive long after they had passed away.¹¹⁶

Thus, Juana became immersed in an ever more complex and bizarre web of lies. Denia, for example, wrote to Carlos that Juana was complaining through him to her father that “she cannot bear the life she is living, that so much time has passed since he has had her locked up here as a prisoner, despite the fact that she is his daughter, and he ought to see reason and have her treated better.”¹¹⁷ Needless to say, these were not the communications of someone deprived of their senses. Juana’s growing suspicion that her father had died shows that she understood that the conditions of her seclusion were deteriorating, and this would not be happening were Fernando alive.¹¹⁸ Her father would not be so cruel. This lucidity made her more dangerous in the eyes of her son, who doubled down on her need for seclusion and isolation, limiting those who could talk to her to only the Marquis of Denia, his wife, and Juana’s confessor, Juan de Ávila.¹¹⁹

Only the plague would provide a brief respite. While discussing potential evacuation plans in 1518, Denia told Carlos that were they to evacuate Tordesillas, Philippe’s corpse would have to come with them.¹²⁰ At this point it is not clear whether the queen would have required this or whether the legend that developed around her bizarre attachment to Philippe’s mortal remains was so entrenched that Denia anticipated that Juana would not go anywhere without him. Or perhaps Denia’s intentions were more twisted, and he wanted to encourage the legend of a disabled queen by making Juana, who had not been seen by her subjects in nearly a decade, appear before them in the midst of an emotional crisis and with Philippe’s long-dead corpse still in tow.

In any case, what is clear is that Carlos continued to gaslight Juana through the Marquis of Denia to better control her and to ensure her acquiescence. The situation was so alarming that even Denia remarked repeatedly that Juana “could not stand the life she was living.”¹²¹ But Carlos persisted in his cruelty toward his mother, and Denia remained an accessory. It is hard not to read their correspondence today without feeling pangs of sympathy and outrage. Juana’s desperation to be heard and her despair at her isolation provoked a decline in her physical and mental health. As early as 1508 Bishop Villaescusa had reported that Juana was not eating, was sleeping very little, was not changing her clothes or washing regularly, and refused to leave her bed; she was disheveled and melancholic, but still mostly possessed of her faculties.¹²²

Ten years later, Carlos finally decided to take his eleven-year-old sister, Catalina, out of Tordesillas to place her in a situation more appropriate to her station as a Habsburg princess. Juana was not consulted, or even informed, and on the night of March 15, 1518, Carlos ordered a hole made in the wall of Catalina’s bedchamber so the young princess could be snatched. A rightly panicked Juana believed her daughter had been kidnapped.¹²³ On learning the truth, Juana’s first reaction was anger, which gave way to sadness, and after fruitlessly demanding Catalina’s return, she refused to eat, drink, or sleep.¹²⁴ In the face of this, Catalina was returned to her and would stay with her mother for another six years. The girl was, in Martire d’Anghiera’s words, Juana’s “only consolation.”¹²⁵

Only two people could potentially undermine Carlos’s position and authority in his Spanish kingdoms: his mother and his younger brother and heir, the infante Fernando, beloved in Castile because he had been born and raised in the kingdom.¹²⁶ The soon-to-be emperor tightened his control over his mother and sent his brother into exile in the Netherlands with their Aunt Marguerite—defying the cortes of Castile, which had requested that the prince stay in the kingdom as long as Carlos remained childless.¹²⁷ Again, Juana was not consulted regarding her son Fernando’s departure, a development that plunged her more deeply into sorrow. Denia told Carlos that should Catalina be taken from her, Juana had threatened: “I’ll throw myself out the window or kill myself with a knife.”¹²⁸ Meanwhile, the queen’s daughter was educated as an infanta should have been. She learned to read with Fray Juan de Villa, and studied Latin and music, and was even taught dancing by Francisco Deza, a Portuguese tutor who was attached to the palace for five months in 1519.¹²⁹ Catalina would remain with Juana until her brother, by then emperor, arranged her marriage to her cousin, João III of Portugal (1521–57)—the son of Manuel I and Juana’s own sister María of Aragón—in 1524.¹³⁰ This was to be a double matrimony, like that of her mother. Three decades earlier Juana and her brother, Juan, Prince of Asturias, had been betrothed to the siblings Philippe the Handsome and Marguerite of Austria; now, Catalina’s marriage to João took place alongside Carlos’s union with the Portuguese king’s sister, Isabel. Whatever these matches heralded for the Spanish kingdoms, for Juana, the loss of Catalina constituted yet another blow.

With few options to resist her son or to assert her personal autonomy, and having tried anger and self-mortification, Juana now refused to attend mass or say confession, a desperate strategy that only encouraged the myth that she was an “impious queen.” As Claire Trenery and Peregrine Horden have noted, madness tends to be associated with social deviance. In their words, “Across time and place, one can see that a certain kind of strangeness has frequently been attributed to the experiences and behavior of those deemed mad. This oddness, of course, has always been perceived through the lenses of prevailing cultural assumptions.”¹³¹ The medieval monarchy valued conformity and continuity. In this light, Juana’s resistance was incomprehensible, and could not be seen for what it may well have seemed to her: a rational response to the bind that she had been forced into against her will and in contravention of her rights and the law of the kingdom. Juana was the queen.

Nor was Carlos’s confinement of his mother an act of cruel irrationality; as reigning queen by right of law, she constituted a potential threat to his authority and position. This became clear during the revolt of the Comuneros of 1520 to 1521.¹³² Part nativist reaction to the ascent of Carlos’s Burgundian and Dutch courtiers and part anti-noble class rebellion, the uprising was provoked by the emperor’s nomination of Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht (the future Pope Adrian VI; 1522–23) as regent of Spain on his departure for his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor. In response, the municipal councils, or comunidades, rose up in arms, first across Castile, and subsequently in Aragon and Valencia (where they were referred to as the Germanies, or “brotherhoods”). Carlos—who had arrived in Spain as king without even being able to speak Castilian or Catalan—and his Flemish councillors were seen as foreigners, who were bent on exploiting their new kingdoms and had little respect for the local nobility.

Three points of contention had emerged when the cortes of Castile met in Valladolid in 1518: excessive taxation, the appointment of foreigners to coveted government positions, and the physical absence of the king, whose far-flung territories and wider ambitions took him away from the peninsula and threatened to reduce Castile to an accessory. The first revolt took place in Toledo in 1519, spreading quickly to Segovia, before engulfing fourteen of the eighteen cities represented in the Castilian parliament. Only Seville, Granada, Córdoba, and Jaén remained loyal.

Looking for a figurehead who could unify and justify their rebellion, the Comuneros naturally turned to Juana—the rightful queen and a full-blooded Spanish Trastámara. In their view, the queen was a hostage. Arriving in Tordesillas to liberate her, they burst the bubble in which she had been living for the previous fourteen years, and confirmed her suspicions that her father and supposed protector had been dead now for four years. The regent, Adrian of Utrecht, dispatched a communiqué to Carlos, reporting that the queen had been freed, and that her own servants were claiming that she had been a prisoner and that she was in sound mental health (de buen seso).¹³³ On Saturday, September 1, 1520, the Comuneros, led by Juan de Padilla, Juan Bravo, Juan Zapata, and Luis de Quintanilla, first met with the queen and the infanta Catalina (then thirteen years of age), with a follow-up meeting on the twenty-fourth of the same month.¹³⁴ Juana, now treated as a queen by her subjects, told the Comuneros: “It has been fifteen years since I have been treated properly.”¹³⁵ So, was Juana the Mad, mad?

A Mad Queen?

As we have seen over the course of this chapter and chapter 7, according to the sources at our disposal, during her marriage Juana was often portrayed as overemotional and lacking self-control. She was seen at times as angry, anxious, jealous, and overly passionate. After Philippe’s passing, she was described as indolent and melancholic prior to embarking on the funeral march to Granada, and clearly eccentric during the journey itself.

On the other hand, such behavior was not entirely without precedent in royal circles, even among men. For example, in 1355 Inês de Castro, the adulterous lover of the future Pedro I of Portugal, was assassinated on the orders of the prince’s own father, Afonso IV (1325–57), and beheaded in front of one of her own children. Once crowned as king, the distraught Pedro pursued the assassins, two of whom he tortured and killed personally in 1361. Some years previously, Pedro had exhumed Inês’s body and, claiming that they had married secretly prior to her death, had it carried in a royal funerary procession from Coimbra to the royal pantheon at Alcoçaba where she was laid to rest in a monumental tomb. Later legend claimed that Pedro had proclaimed the deceased Inês as queen, and having set her corpse on a throne in regal splendor, demanded the magnates of the realm render her homage by kissing the hem of her robe.¹³⁶

Juana’s confinement in Tordesillas only aggravated her melancholy, and unable to express her autonomy any other way, she resorted to self-harm as an act of resistance. In the view of her latest biographer, Gillian Fleming, at the beginning Juana had “difficulty in controlling a quick temper and her hypersensitivity,” while during her captivity her situation resembled “those of modern maximum-security prisoners deprived of sympathetic social contact, or held in long-term, small group isolation.”¹³⁷ When the Comuneros came to her rescue in Tordesillas, her servants testified she was sane, comparing her to her much-admired mother, who was seen as the greatest queen of Castile: “The attendants and servants of the queen say publicly that her father and her son have detained her tyrannically and that she is just as capable of governing as when she was fifteen years old, as Queen Isabel had been.”¹³⁸ Juana’s truth, it seemed, was finally coming to light.

Juana was begged by the Comuneros to take the reins of state. “Should Your Highness, make the effort to rule and govern and command your kingdoms, then there is no one in the world who can prohibit or impede this,” they declared, but she did not rise to the occasion.¹³⁹ In the final analysis, Juana was a member of the highest elite; she was the queen, and understood that she was in the presence of a rebellion against a monarchical order represented by her son, Emperor Carlos V, but that included her and all of her extended family. And so, once again, she did not seize the crown that was rightfully hers, but abandoned her own rights to protect those of her son. It was a prudent decision; by 1520 Carlos and the nobility had rallied. The Comuneros were crushed, and their leaders executed. For Carlos the whole episode only reinforced the need to remove his mother from the scene.

Moreover, his mother was not Carlos’s only concern. The emperor received a report shortly after the death of Manuel I of Portugal on December 13, 1521, that asked him to ensure that “La Beltraneja”—the sixty-year-old pretender who had never formally relinquished the title “Queen of Castile”—remained under control.¹⁴⁰ The worry was that she could be used by Castile’s enemies, that is, the French, with whom Carlos was then at war, in the eventuality they were to ally with the Portuguese. This account is particularly interesting because it lays out for Carlos the entire background story of what had happened in Castile that brought about the disinheritance of Juana and the ascent of his grandmother Isabel the Catholic. As the cases of the two Juanas show, queens who had a claim to the throne were seen as a threat, and despite whatever had tainted their reputation, whether illegitimacy or incapacity, they needed to be disposed of gingerly.

And so, the queen would remain in Tordesillas a prisoner. Effectively nothing had changed for her following the revolt of the Comuneros. Bernardo de Sandoval y Rojas died at the beginning of 1536, and his son, Luis, the new Marquis of Denia, succeeded him as the queen’s warden. For the rest of her years, Juana’s life remained as monotonous and tedious as it had been since she arrived there, punctuated only by rare visits from members of the royal family. For example, on November 20, 1543, her grandchildren, the sixteen-year-old prince, Carlos V’s son and the future king Felipe II (1556–98), came to visit with his new wife, Maria Manuela, the daughter of Juana’s beloved Catalina and João III of Portugal. Catalina had not forgotten her mother and certainly spoke of her to her own daughter, Maria Manuela. Although Catalina never returned to Tordesillas, once in Portugal she dispatched trusted clergymen to her mother’s palace to inquire about her (she knew she could not write to her because her correspondence would be monitored), and requested from her brother, the emperor, favors for her favorite servants there.¹⁴¹ Felipe and Maria Manuela visited their grandmother as newlyweds, and if we are to believe the chronicle written on the occasion of their wedding, it was a very pleasant visit during which the queen seemed very much to have her wits about her: “She was pleased with them and had them dance in her presence, and she asked them many things about themselves, and their wedding, with complete coherence (con todo el concierto que se podía decir).”¹⁴²

Nevertheless, in her last years, her neglect of religious obligations was seen increasingly as a problem; so, in 1554, a year before her passing, Prince Felipe sent the nobleman Francisco de Borja, Duke of Gandia (1510–72), to check on her. The duke became an influential Jesuit and was later canonized, but earlier in life he had been a childhood attendant of the infanta Catalina for three years and was thus in a position to assess Juana’s condition. Together with Friar Juan de la Cruz, the duke examined the queen, who now at age seventy-five and after so many years of seclusion was experiencing apparent delusions, to determine what supernatural demons she was battling.¹⁴³ After so many years of captivity, it was not only her mental health that had deteriorated; for two years she had been unable to move because of the ulcers on her legs. Compounding this pain, her servants had accidentally scalded her in a hot bath. And so it was that on April 12, 1555, in Tordesillas, she died, ill and alone, with no member of the royal family in attendance. On hand to witness her passing was Francisco de Borja, who was sent by Carlos V’s daughter and regent, Juana of Austria (1535–73). It was a solitary and bitter end to a lonely and tragic life (see fig. 12).

The future was for her children. Leonor, her eldest child, first became queen of Portugal (1518–21) with her marriage to Manuel I, and later of France (1530–47) as wife of François I. Carlos, her heir, inherited both the Holy Roman Empire and the Spanish kingdoms, and oversaw the establishment of a global colonial empire. Isabel married Christian II of Denmark, becoming Queen of Denmark and Norway (1515–23), as well as of Sweden (1520–21). Fernando became King of Bohemia, Croatia, and Hungary (from 1526, through marriage to Anne of Bohemia), and succeeded his brother Carlos as Holy Roman Emperor (1531–64), while María, who had preceded her brother Fernando in Hungary and Bohemia as queen (1515–26), later served him as regent and governor there. But at least two of Juana’s children and two of her grandchildren were also seen as afflicted by “melancholy” and mental health problems. Manuel Fernández Álvarez has pointed to her daughter María, who became melancholic and overwhelmed after the death of her husband, Lajos (Louis) II of Hungary (1516–26). However, María’s brother, Carlos V, gave her the space to recover, and she went on to play an important political role as regent of the Netherlands (1531–55).¹⁴⁴ Likewise, Fleming has noted that by the time of his death in 1564, aged sixty-one, Juana’s son, Fernando, had been suffering from “melancholic fantasies” that made him “cry and throw things on the floor; pound his fist on the table, draw imaginary circles, and sit in a strange position, and when having return to his senses, could not think consecutively.”¹⁴⁵

Similarly, Empress María, who was Juana’s granddaughter (as daughter of Carlos V and Isabel of Portugal), suffered from recurrent melancholy further accentuated by grief after the deaths of her husband in 1576 and her brother in 1598.¹⁴⁶ Her sickness and behavior are described in terms that resonate with Juana I’s own difficulties: disrupted eating and sleeping, fever, weakness of the pulse, sorrow, jealousy, fear, and suspicion.¹⁴⁷ Recalling “Santa Joana” of Portugal, she chose to seclude herself in the convent of the Reales Descalzas in Madrid, but kept her own attendants and did not profess as a nun. And like “Santa Joana” she remained a political force as an informal adviser to her nephew and grandson, Felipe III. In fact, Magdalena Sanchez has argued that at the royal court some men and women “use[d] melancholy (and other illnesses) as a political ploy and as a negotiating tool.”¹⁴⁸ Two great-grandsons of Juana I also suffered from mental afflictions: Felipe II’s son, Carlos (1545–68; noted earlier in this chapter), and Rudolf II (1552–1612), the son of Maximilian II and Felipe II’s sister, Empress María.

In conclusion, in the case of Juana “the Mad” it is all but impossible to disentangle historical facts from the cultural construction of disease and emotions, gender bias, propaganda, legend, and myth. In the final analysis, it seems that Isabel the Catholic, who as a child lived in seclusion in Arévalo with her grief-stricken mother, was the one who best understood her daughter Juana. As Isabel stated in her will, Juana might not want to rule, or she might not be able to—and at times both seemed to be true. What the Catholic Queen could not have anticipated is the extent to which Juana would be sabotaged and prevented from ruling by her own father, her own husband, and her own son, or to what degree her life would be defined by cruelty and abuse. Allegations of madness are particularly powerful in discrediting a rival or competitor. There is no objective measurement of sanity; it is a matter of the opinion and consensus of the community. Once such an allegation has been made by trusted authorities, confirmation bias can skew the judgment of observers. Therefore, behavior that seems to be irrational or nonsensical when taken out of context may in fact constitute a rational, if perhaps misplaced, reaction to a situation that appears to the individual in question to be unreasonable, untenable, or unbearable.¹⁴⁹ This brings to mind a later archetype of Golden Age literature: the loco/a-cuerdo/a, who is at once mad and sane, irrational and perceptive—a person whose disability increases their awareness and truthfulness, and therefore becomes dangerous and untrustworthy. This person became a favorite stock character of Cervantes, as seen in Don Quijote and Licenciado Vidriera. Whether she was “mad” or not by any objective standard, Juana was clearly a conflicted individual put in difficult circumstances and stressed by a series of double binds: the tension between her perceived obligations to her husband and the demands of her royal parents, and between her need for self-preservation and her duty to the dynasty, all amplified by the tremendous emotional trauma of her grief in the face of the irredeemable loss of Philippe, who was a source of anguish even while he was alive.¹⁵⁰ For Juana, Philippe represented an unattainable love, irrevocably lost, which, compounded by the loss of her kingdom, her family, and her freedom, saddled her with an emotional burden that few could carry without appearing to outside observers as “mad.” Tragically—and undoubtedly the fact that she was a woman contributed to her construction as unfit—this has become her legacy.

1. Torre, Testamentaría, 76. For an analysis of Isabel I’s last will and testament, see chapter 7.

2. Ladero Quesada, Los últimos años, 78; Varela, La muerte del rey, 23. The emperor also liked to retire to a monastery to pray and meditate during Holy Week. Parker, Emperor, xii. In 1568, Felipe II mourned his third wife, Élisabeth de Valois, for over two weeks by entering a monastery and abandoning all other affairs. Parker, Imprudent King, 163.

3. For João II of Portugal see chapter 5.

4. Bertelli, The King’s Body, 215.

5. Varela, La muerte del rey, 86; Gómez Requejo, “Los Austrias y las ceremonias,” 254.

6. Gómez Requejo, “Los Austrias y las ceremonias,” 255.

7. Haemers, For the Common Good, 266–67.

8. Burns, Las siete partidas II:366; Taylor, “The Salic Law,” 543–64.

9. Gómez de Fuensalida, Correspondencia, 358–59 (Anvers, May 10, 1505).

10. Zurita, Historia del Rey, b.7, 5–6.

11. Colmeiro, Cortes de los antiguos reinos, chap. 23; Suárez Fernández, Fernando el Católico, 400–402; Belenguer Cabrià, Ferran el Catòlic, 283–86; Aram, Juana the Mad, 79.

12. Aram, Juana the Mad, 81; Padilla, Crónica, 125–29; Santa Cruz, Crónica, II:7–8; Gómez de Fuensalida, Correspondencia, 249–50, 352, 337.

13. Gómez de Fuensalida, Correspondencia, 371–74, 379, 388.

14. Fernández de Oviedo, Batallas y Quinquagenas, 135. Unfounded rumors circulated that the king was planning to marry Juana “la Beltraneja” instead. This idea is mentioned by Gómez de Fuensalida (Correspondencia, 316–18). See also Ladero Quesada, Los últimos años, 80–81; Belenguer, Ferran el Catòlic, 295–97; Azcona, Juana de Castilla, 240–43.

15. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.18, doc. 300 (to the Count of Tendilla), 129 (Valladolid, April 4, 1506). See Fleming, “La visita a Inglaterra,” 415–16.

16. Gómez de Fuensalida, Correspondencia, 460–61 (London, May 7 [1508?]).

17. AGS: PTR, 54, 33 (October 25, 1507); CSP, Sp., Supplement to vols. 1 and 2 (Queen Juana), 23; Fleming, “La visita a Inglaterra,” 416.

18. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.18, doc. 309 (to the Archbishop of Granada and the Count of Tendilla), 141 (Valladolid, June 30, 1506).

19. Alcocer, Relación de algunas cosas, 4. Some of these noblemen supported Fernando after Philippe’s death.

20.Deuxième voyage, 440; Suárez Fernández, Fernando el Católico, 409–11.

21. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, 161–62 (June 28, 1506), cit.; Ladero Quesada, Los últimos años, 99–100.

22. Alcocer, Relación de algunas cosas, 13; Aram, Juana the Mad, 85.

23. Zurita, Historia del Rey, b.7, chap. 11.

24. Ladero Quesada, Los últimos años, 103.

25. Santa Cruz, Crónica, II:58. According to Prudencio de Sandoval (Historia de la vida, 28), Philippe died after eating too much and playing ball, while according to Bernáldez he died of the plague (Historia, 726). See also Padilla, Crónica, 148–49; and for a modern perspective, Calderón, Felipe el Hermoso, 174–75; Cabrera Sánchez, “La muerte de los miembros,” 116–18.

26. Sandoval, Historia de la vida, 28.

27. From Dr. Parra’s memorial to Fernando; Bofarull, CODOIN, vol. 8, doc. 394, 394–97 (date missing). Martire d’Anghiera agrees: “While he was ill, the queen never left his side. In the grips of great pain, or because at this point she could no longer feel pain, she did not shed even a single tear.” Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.18, doc. 316 (to the Archbishop of Granada and the Count of Tendilla), 152 (Burgos, September 28, 1506). See also Santa Cruz, Crónica, chap. 9, 58.

28. The author of The Chronicle of Philippe’s Second Voyage also entertains the idea, but ultimately dismisses the poisoning. Deuxième voyage, 463–64.

29. Padilla, Crónica, 150.

30.Deuxième voyage, 462–63.

31. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.18, doc. 316 (Burgos, September 28, 1506), 152.

32. Santa Cruz, Crónica, 59; Bernáldez, Historia, 726–27; Padilla, Crónica, 150.

33. Warntjes and Spiess, “Programmatic Double Burial,” 197–259.

34. See the analysis of the last will and testament in chapter 7.

35. Cabrera Sánchez situates Alfonso X in the German tradition; he and his mother, Beatriz of Suabia, were embalmed. Zurita states that Joan II of Aragon, Fernando the Catholic’s father, was embalmed and exhibited nine days. Cabrera Sánchez, “Técnicas de conservación,” 181, 187; Zurita, Anales, b.8, 355.

36. Varela, La muerte del rey, 18–19.

37. Varela, La muerte del rey, 77–78; and Pérez Fadrique, Modo práctico de embalsamar cuerpos defunctos.

38. Cabrera Sánchez, “Técnica de conservación,” 184.

39. Schmitz-Esser, The Corpse in the Middle Ages, 240–63.

40. Schmitz-Esser, The Corpse in the Middle Ages, 273.

41. The bishop of Burgos tried to convince Juana not to move Philippe’s corpse until at least six months had passed. Santa Cruz, Crónica, II:82.

42. Padilla, Crónica, 150–51.

43. For a detailed analysis of the events that took place between Philippe’s death and Fernando’s arrival, see Fernández de Córdoba, “Facciones políticas,” 24–43. See also Zurita, Historia del Rey, b.7, chap. 16; Fleming, Juana I, 127–53; Cauchies, Philippe le Beau, 211; García Oro, El Cardenal Cisneros, II:155–65.

44. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.18, doc. 324 (to the Archbishop of Granada and the Count of Tendilla), 155 (Burgos, December 21, 1506).

45. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.19, doc. 351 (to the Count of Tendilla), 200 (Hornillos, July 5, 1507).

46. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.18, doc. 318 (to Miguel Pérez de Almazán, King Fernando’s secretary), 155 (Burgos, November 30, 1506).

47. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.18, doc. 320 (Burgos, December 19, 1506), 159.

48. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.18, doc. 320 (Burgos, December 19, 1506), 159.

49. Santa Cruz, Crónica, 2:65, 89; for Fleming, in this period Juana “intervened in government as never before,” Fleming, Juana I, 173. This, while true, was not enough.

50. Aram, Juana the Mad, 88; AGS: CC Diversos I-12 (December 18, 1506); Zurita, Historia del Rey, b.7, 38.

51. Ferrer, Fernando’s ambassador in Castile, wrote to the king to blame Juana’s secretary, Juan López de Lazárraga, for blocking the publications of these two policies Juana undertook. Fernández de Córdova, “Facciones políticas,” 39.

52. Cabrera Sánchez, “Técnica de conservación.” 191–92; Azcona, Isabel la Católica, 94–96; Liss, Isabel the Catholic, 402–20; Santa Cruz, Crónica, 2:338; Galíndez, Anales breves, 554–55.

53. Martín Barba, “El desarrollo de la almoneda,” 251.

54. Her half sister, Juana of Aragon, was Fernando’s illegitimate daughter by the Valencian noblewoman Juana Nicolaua, and was married to Constable Bernardino de Velasco. For Conchillos’s remarks, see RAH: A-12, f. 86r.

55. RAH: Salazar y Castro, A-12, f. 86r (December 23, 1506).

56. Conchillo reiterates that Juan López was providing Juana with monetary resources in two letters: RAH: A-12, f. 86r (December 23, 1506) and A-12, f. 127r (Torquemada, 3–7–1507).

57. Aram, “Juana the Mad’s Signature,” 331–58. Among Juana’s most important officials were her secretary, López de Lazárraga; her mayordomo, Diego de Cárdenas; and head of her chapel, Diego Ramírez de Villaescusa, Bishop of Málaga.

58. For a study of Ferrer’s correspondence, see Fernández de Córdova, “Facciones políticas,” 39.

59. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.19, doc. 332 (to the Archbishop of Granada), 173–74 (February 26, 1507).

60. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.19, doc. 332, 174.

61. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.19, doc. 332, 174.

62. Anglerii, Opus Epistolarum, 185.

63. Ladero Quesada, “Juana de Castilla, la reina ausente,” 122.

64. Jackson, Melancholia and Depression, 66. As seen in two of Teresa de Ávila’s works, The Foundations (Fundaciones; 1573–82) and The Interior Castle (Castillo interior; 1577), her opinions on melancholy coincide with those of her contemporaries: a humoral imbalance, in which the devil also plays a role and which impacts women disproportionately. Radden, “Melancholy in the Writing,” 293–97; Weber, Teresa of Ávila, 139–47.

65. Ladero Quesada, “Juana de Castilla, la reina ausente,” 122; Ladero Quesada, Los últimos años, 114; For Zalama, “her mind was sick.” Zalama, Juana I, 288.

66. Fleming, Juana I, 59.

67. Aram, Juana the Mad, 89.

68. Fernández de Córdova, “Facciones políticas,” 34n98.

69. For instance, the play Locura de amor by Tamayo y Baus is the base of two movies, Locura de amor (1948) by Juan de Orduña and Juana la Loca (2001) directed by Vicente Aranda.

70.Deuxième voyage, 462–63.

71. See chapter 1; and RAH: A-12, f. 86v.

72. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.19, doc. 328 (to papal ambassador [legado] Juan Rufo), 167–68 (January 13, 1507).

73. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.18, doc. 339 (to the Count of Tendilla), 184–85 (Hornillos, May 1, 1507).

74. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.19, doc. 339 (to the Count of Tendilla), 184–85 (May 1, 1507); doc. 359 (to the Count of Tendilla), 208–9 (Tórtoles, August 25, 1507).

75. Koslofsky, The Reformation of the Death, 8.

76. Laqueur, The Work of the Death, 81.

77. Fernández Álvarez divided Juana’s burial journey with Philippe into five stages: Burgos-Torquemada, Torquemada-Hornillos, Hornillos-Tórtoles de Esgueva, Tórtoles de Esgueva-Arcos de la Llana, and Arcos de la Llana-Tordesillas; while Rubio Marcos provides a more detailed itinerary, supplementing documentary sources with the oral tradition. Fernández Álvarez, Juana la Loca, 151; Rubio Marcos, “Itinerario de una locura de amor,” 75–95.

78. RAH: A-12, f. 79 (Burgos, October 10, 1506). See also RAH: A-12, ff. 135–36 (May 15, 1507), a letter from Friar Francisco Ruiz to Secretary Miguel Pérez de Almazán inquiring about and requesting King Fernando’s return: “We all wish you to come back” (f. 135r); and another letter from Diego Fernández de Córdoba, alcaide of Los Donceles: RAH: A-12, ff. 77–78 (Burgos, October 10, 1506). Martire d’Anghiera also repeats the same idea: Fernando must urgently come back. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.18, doc. 318 (November 29, 1506) and doc. 319 (December 7, 1506), 155–58.

79. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 11 (March 15, 1507), 64–66.

80. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, 66.

81. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 12 (London, April 15, 1507), 66–71, at 67.

82. Earenfight, Catherine of Aragon, 88–121; Tremlett, Catherine of Aragon, 272–80.

83. Sesma Muñoz, “Una reina de Aragón en Castilla,” 681–89.

84. Zurita, Historia del Rey, b.8, chap. 7. The same is repeated by Secretary Miguel Pérez de Almazán in a letter to Fernando’s ambassador in France. Aram, Juana de Mad, 95; Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.19, doc. 363 (Santa María del Campo, September 5, 1507), 212–14.

85. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.19, doc. 363 (Santa María del Campo, September 5, 1507), 213.

86. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, docs. 13–16, 69–75.

87. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 17 (end of 1507 or beginning of 1508), 75–77, at 76. The same is repeated by Martire d’Anghiera in a letter to the Count of Tendilla, noting that Fernando does not dare to interfere. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.19, doc. 363 (Santa María del Campo, September 5, 1507), 212–14.

88. Gómez de Fuensalida, Correspondencia, 460–61 (London, July 5, 1508).

89. Fernández de Córdova, “Facciones políticas,” 34. Martire d’Anghiera mentioned that Juana intended to remain chaste. Anglería, Epistolario, 2:b.18, doc. 339 (May 1, 1507), 185.

90. Fernández Álvarez, Juana la Loca, 156.

91. RAH: Salazar y Castro, A-12, f. 262r (Arcos, 10–9–1508).

92. Trenery and Horden, “Madness in the Middle Ages,” 66.

93. Zalama, “Recuperar la memoria,” 17.

94. Rubio Marcos, “Itinerario de una locura de amor,” 78.

95. See chapter 4.

96. See the the introduction.

97. Vicens Vives, Els Trastàmares, 165–72.

98. Vicens Vives, Juan II de Aragón, 167–70.

99. As it was, after some twenty years (ca. 1500), Juana “la Beltraneja” was allowed to leave the convent and move into a palace in Lisbon. Azcona, Juana de Castilla, 207–16.

100. Parker, Imprudent King, 92–94; Hillgarth, The Mirror of Spain, 520–44. Prince Carlos, like his great-grandmother, Juana I, and her even more remote relative, Juana’s grandmother, Isabel of Portugal, also had an afterlife in the arts. For instance, Johann Christoph Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805) wrote a play about Carlos that was later adapted by Verdi as an opera (Don Carlo). There is an abundance of scholarship on the Black Legend. See, for instance, Juderías, La leyenda negra; Kamen, “La visión de España en la Inglaterra Isabelina”; García Cárcel, La leyenda Negra; and a more recent and controversial study by Roca Barea, Imperiofobia y la leyenda negra.

101. Becke, Outsiders, 9.

102. For example, see missive from the Marquis of Denia to Carlos V, ed. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 35 (September 26, 1519), 102, and doc. 38 (May 1520?), 106.

103. See King Duarte of Portugal’s recovery from melancholy in chapter 2.

104. For instance, Fernando visited her in October 1509, November 1510, and in 1513. Germana de Foix is also documented visiting her. Fernández Álvarez, Juana la Loca, 171.

105. Santa Cruz, Crónica, 2:58; Varela, La muerte del rey, 9.

106. Zurita’s sources are Martire d’Anghiera and Doctor Carvajal. Zurita, Historia del Rey, b.10, chap. 55.

107. RHA: Salazar y Castro, A-16, f. 3 (Madrigalejo, January 21, 1516) and f. 4 (Madrigalejo, 1516). Carlos gave his condolences to Germana, and also fulfilled his grandfather’s request, given that she ended up acting as lieutenant of Valencia on his behalf along with her second and third husbands. RHA: Salazar y Castro, A-16, f. 5 (Brussels, February 12, 1516). Some historians have claimed that Germana and Carlos had a relationship and even produced a daughter together, but this has been dismissed as untrue by Ríos Lloret and Parker. Parker, Emperor, 545–46.

108. Fernández Álvarez, Juana la Loca, 168–69, 173; Aram, Juana the Mad, 107–8.

109. Ferrer also explains to Cisneros that he was (unfairly) accused of being “the reason why our Lady Queen did not get better.” Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 18 (Tordesillas, March 16, 1516), 79.

110. Sandoval, Historia de la vida, 1:83.

111. Laurent Vital, Premier voyage de Charles-Quint, 3:137. See also Fernández Álvarez, Juana la Loca, 185–87; Parker, Emperor, 78–79.

112. Juana asked to be allowed to go to the convent during Holy Week, but she was not authorized. Letter from Denia to Carlos, ed. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 31 (April 20, 1519). See also Aram, Juana the Mad, 118; Zalama, Juana I, 282.

113. Zalama, Vida cotidiana, 193.

114. RHA: Salazar y Castro, A-50, f. 22 (Barcelona, January 14, 1520), ed. Fernández Álvarez, Juana la Loca, 275–76.

115. Letters from Denia to Carlos, ed. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 31 (Tordesillas, 1518), 83–85; and doc. 39 (May 1520?), 107–8.

116. Aram, Juana the Mad, 120; Parker, Emperor, 80.

117. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 37 (late 1519), 104–5; Fernández Álvarez, Juana la Loca, 197.

118. Denia wrote to Carlos probably in May 1520, “[The queen] complained greatly (estaba muy quexosa) of me because I hid the death of the king [Fernando] from her.” Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 37 (late 1519), 107–9, at 107.

119. In a letter to Carlos, Denia reported he had had to separate the palace’s female servants from Juana, because they were spreading rumors in town about how the queen was being treated. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 26 (July 30, 1518); doc. 33, from Juan de Ávila to Carlos (Tordesillas, June 8, 1519), 89–92.

120. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 28 (August 10, 1518), 96.

121. Denia to Charles, Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 37 (late 1519), 104.

122. See the letter from Denia to Carlos, Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 25 (Tordesillas, June 22, 1518), 89.

123. To enter Catalina’s room, it was necessary to pass through Juana’s chamber. For a full description of her chambers and personnel, see Zalama, Juana I, 251–78; for Catalina’s “kidnapping,” Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, 278–82.

124. Zalama, Juana I, 280.

125. Anglería, Epistolario, 3:b.31, doc. 614 (March 20, 1518), 308–10.

126. Rudolf, “El emperador Fernando I,” 129–36.

127. Denia reassured Carlos that the infante Fernando would not receive news about Juana from him. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 23 (Tordesillas: April 27, 1518), 87; Parker, Emperor, 86.

128. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 37 (late 1519), 105.

129. AGS: Casa Real, leg. 16–8/768, year 1515; AGS: Casa Real, leg. 16–6/1519. For a list of the books bought for her, see AGS: Casa Real, leg. 16–8/768, year 1521. See also Jordan, A rainha coleccionadora, 28–29; Sánchez-Molero, “La bibliofília,” 43–168; Llanos Torriglia, Contribución al estudio; Buescu, Catarina de Austria, 17; Viaud, Lettres des souverains, 57–80; Silleras-Fernandez, Chariots of Ladies, 216–22.

130. Her dowry was 200,000 gold doblas. Fonseca Benevides, Rainhas de Portugal, 2:4; Buescu, Catarina de Austria, 134; Buescu, D. João III, 152–60.

131. Trenery and Horden, “Madness in the Middle Ages,” 5.

132. Espinosa, The Empire of the Cities, 1–34. Conversos also played an active role in the revolt. See Perez, “Conversos y comuneros,” 21.

133. See the letters from Adrian to Carlos: Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 42 (August 31, 1520), 111–12; doc. 44 (Valladolid, September 4, 1520), 114. See also doc. 41, from the city of Valladolid to the Captains of the Comuneros (Valladolid, August 31, 1520), 110.

134. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 43, 112–13.

135. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 57, 333 (Adrian reporting to Carlos V).

136. The chronicler Fernão Lopes recounts the murder and Pedro’s vengeance in his Crónica de el-rei D. Pedro (ca. 1434), but the tale of the grisly enthronement does not appear until 1577 in two works of theater by the Spanish playwright Jerónimo Bermúdez (d. 1599). Luís de Camões included her story in Os Luisíadas (canto III), 118–35. Through the seventeenth century up to the present, the legend of Inês has inspired numerous poems, plays, ballets, operas, musical compositions, and films in many languages. See Lopes, Crónica de D. Pedro, 117–29; Jones, “Historical and Literary Perspectives”; Jordão, “Inês de Castro.” Leonor de Albuquerque, who married Fernando de Antequera, was Inês’s granddaughter, making Inês the forebear of the Aragonese Trastámaras.

137. Fleming, Juana I, 53, 200.

138. Cardinal Adrian to Lope Hurtado de Mendoza, in Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, doc. 45 (Valladolid, September 4, 1520), 114.

139. Rodríguez Villa, Bosquejo, 114.

140. The report was edited by Azcona, Juana de Castilla, 451–56.

141. For example, on March 17, 1529, Queen Catalina asked Empress Isabel to appoint to her court Diego Azpecia, who had served her and her mother in Tordesillas. Viaud, Lettres des souverains portugais, 125 (doc. 40).

142. BNE: MS 4013, Boda de Felipe II con María Manuela, ed. Conde Benavides.

143. Lozano, “Francisco de Borja,” 68–69; Zalama, Vida cotidiana y arte en el palacio.

144. Fernández Álvarez, Juana la Loca, 162–64. Today women are nearly twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with depression. Recent studies on genetics and depression, still in their infancy, indicate that depression is more common among blood relatives, which does not mean that one inherits it. Mayo Clinic, “Depression (Major Depressive Disorder).” A 2009 genetic study of the Habsburg dynasty (1516–1700) suggests that their constant inbreeding was linked to their mental and physical problems, the high death rate among their children, and the eventual “extinction” of their line with Carlos II. Álvarez, Ceballos, and Quintero, “The Role of Inbreeding in the Extinction of a European Royal Dynasty.”

145. Fleming, Juana I, 286.

146. González Cuerva, Maria of Austria, 68–69, 148–49.

147. Sanchez, “Melancholy and Female Illness,” 85.

148. Sanchez, “Melancholy and Female Illness,” 81–82.

149. The psychiatrist R. D. Laing challenged the idea of normality, saying, “What we call ‘normal’ is a product of repression, denial, splitting, projection, introjection, and other forms of destructive action on experience. It is radically estranged from the structure of being.” Laing, The Politics of Experience, 23–24.

150. In Laing’s view, what is seen as insanity by observers can result from the distress caused by individuals being placed in double-bind situations, wherein psychotic episodes represent cathartic attempts by the individual afflicted to communicate their anguish. For Laing, the family was often the nexus of such situations. See Laing, The Divided Self, 17–26; Laing and Esterson, Sanity, Madness, and the Family, xxiv.