Daughters of Spain
Joanna was born in the city of Toledo, Kingdom of Castile. She was the third child and second daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, of the House of Trastámara. She was described as having a fair complexion, brown eyes and strawberry-blonde/auburn hair.
She was highly educated in anticipation of a good royal match. As a younger princess she was not expected to be heiress to the throne of either Castile or Aragon, but she could still bring and give political gain and influence through marriage.
She was educated in canon and civil law, genealogy and heraldry, grammar, history, languages, such as Castilian, Leonese, Galician-Portuguese and Catalan, and became fluent in French and Latin, mathematics, philosophy, reading, spelling and writing.
She was also taught the skills of royal court etiquette, dancing, drawing, good manners, music, and the needle arts of embroidery, needlepoint, and sewing. She was especially skilled at dancing and music, having played the clavichord, the guitar, and the monochord. She was equally skilled at hunting, horse riding and hawking.
Unlike her fervently devout mother, Joanna began to show signs of religious skepticism, and by 1495 relatively no devotion to the Catholic faith that greatly alarmed her mother. This deviance from faith would not be tolerated by her mother, who declared she would rather see her dominions depopulated than fall into heresy. Joanna was punished for this lack of adherence with “La cuerda” (the rope). She was suspended by a rope with heavy weights attached to her feet; she would suffer this punishment for hours. But ever stubborn she refused confession and would not back down.
At sixteen, she was betrothed to the eighteen year old Philip of Flanders. In the autumn of 1496, Joanna left Spain for her husband’s country, other than an encounter with her sister Katherine ten years later, she never saw any of her siblings again. After the deaths of her brother and older sister she was made the heir to the Spanish Kingdoms. After her mother’s death Joanna inherited her throne, her father Ferdinand lost his status and was relegated to regent. This change did not sit well with him and despite his change in circumstances he had new coins minted in the names of Ferdinand and Joanna, King and Queen of Castile, León and Aragon.
By 1505 Ferdinand was actively working against his daughter trying to prove that her ‘illness’ prevented her for sitting on the throne and he would do the honours until her heir came of age. Her husband was also plotting behind the scenes to further his own ascension to her throne as King jure uxoris.
Joanna was desperately in love with her wayward husband and insanely jealous of his many dalliances.
Together they had six children, Eleanor, Charles, Isabella, Ferdinand, Mary and Catherine.
When they decided to return to Spain as a show of strength against her father Joanna forbade any women on the same ship with her husband, further giving both the men in her life more fodder for their schemes against her. Philip wanted to land in Andalusia and rally an army against Ferdinand but Joanna refused to act against her father. With the support of Spain behind her husband, he met her father to sign a treaty, with Ferdinand promising to retire to Aragon. A second secret treaty was signed, depriving Joanna of her rights as queen and her freedom. A few weeks later Ferdinand renegaded on the seconded treaty and vowed to step in if his daughter’s rights were infringed upon in any way.
Philip died in 1506 after a five-day illness in the city of Burgos in Castile. The official cause of death was typhoid fever. But many suspected he had been poisoned by his father-in-law.
Joanna attempted to reign in her own right, but with little support and success. Her father sat back and allowed the chaos to ensue and then swooped in and returned to power. Unable to do anything other than voice her opposition, Joanna effectively ceded her throne to her father. After his death she would be forced to co-reign with her son, who would eventually have her ‘put away’ and reign alone in both of their names. Locked away, she became very paranoid convinced her carers wanted to poison her, she refused to eat or sleep bathe or change her clothes. Her son Charles wrote to her caretakers ordering them to prevent her from talking or interacting with anyone. Her physical and mental state began to deteriorate further, locked away in a few rooms with little interaction.
She died on Good Friday, 12 April 1555, at the age of 75 and was entombed in the Royal Chapel of Granada,alongside her parents and, her husband.
Portrait of Joanna c.1496
Sources:
In Triumph’s Wake: Royal Mothers, Tragic Daughters, and the Price They Paid for Glory, by Julia P. Gelardi
Juana the Mad: Sovereignty and Dynasty in Renaissance Europe, by Bethany Aram