Isabel of Castile and the making of the Spanish nation, 1451-1504

by Ierne L. Plunket

It can be imagined that Ferdinand found no grace at all in the eyes of the Marquis of Villena, to whom opportunities for turbulence were as the breath of life, and whose affection for the House of Aragon had never been sincere.

Policy dictated to him a counter-alliance and at first the importunate Alfonso of Portugal won support. Villena had re-established his old influence over his master, and at this time formed an ambitious scheme, by which his son should marry the Infanta Joanna; the idea being to draw up a new settlement, settling the crown on his own descendants, if Isabel and her Portuguese husband had no children.

At Ocaña, where Henry IV. and his sister held a meeting of the Cortes in 1468, a magnificent embassy appeared from Alfonso V., with the Archbishop of Lisbon at its head, seeking the betrothal of their master to the Infanta Isabel.

“They thought it an easy matter to bring about the marriage,” says Alonso de Palencia; but they were destined to return to their own land, with their mission unfulfilled. Isabel had never been attracted to the Portuguese King; and her coldness was hardened into antipathy by the Archbishop of Toledo, who sent her secret warnings that the alliance was a plot to ruin her prospects. Once married, she would become a foreigner in the eyes of Castile, and while her children could not hope to succeed to the throne of Portugal, since Alfonso had already an heir, the Infanta Joanna would be preferred to her in her own land. Isabel, moved both by these arguments and her own feelings, thereupon gave a secret promise to marry her cousin Ferdinand, returning a steady refusal to her brother’s persuasions and threats.

Henry now made an attempt to capture her, with a view to imprisoning her in the Alcazar at Madrid; but the attitude of the principal knights of Ocaña, who loved neither Villena nor the Portuguese, was so threatening that he quickly changed his manner. Assuring the Archbishop of Lisbon that some other means would be found to placate the Princess, whose opposition would only be increased by violence, he sent him and his fellow-ambassadors away, not altogether despairing but with their confidence somewhat shaken.

In the meanwhile the fires of rebellion were alight once more in Andalusia and burnt so furiously, that it was felt only the King in person could hope to allay them. With great reluctance he left his sister in Ocaña, but he dared not risk further unpopularity by using force. At the Master of Santiago’s suggestion he demanded that she should promise to take no new steps about her marriage until his return, thinking in this way to place her in an equivocal position. Either she would refuse, in which case she would stand self-convicted of some secret plot, or she would take the oath, condemning herself as a perjurer if she broke it.

Isabel, appreciating the situation, gave her promise. Even the Master of Santiago, for all his vigilance, did not know that her consent to the Aragonese alliance was of previous date, and therefore arrangements concerned with it could be argued not to fall under the heading “new.” As soon as Henry IV. and his favourite had gone southwards, she herself left Ocaña, with the ostensible object of taking her brother Alfonso’s body to be buried in state at Avila, and from there went to Madrigal her birthplace, where her mother was living. It was her hope that here she would be able to complete her negotiations with King John and his son, undetected; but she found the Bishop of Burgos, a nephew of the Master of Santiago, in the town ready to spy on all her actions.

The King had by now planned for his sister a new match, with Charles, Duke of Berri, brother and heir-presumptive to Louis XI. Not only would this alliance cement the customary friendship of Castile and France, but Isabel’s close connection with the French throne would remove her very thoroughly from the danger zone of Castilian affairs. When the Cardinal of Arras arrived in Andalusia he was therefore encouraged by Henry to go to Madrigal in person and urge the Duke’s suit.

Nothing doubting the success of his mission, for he was a man famed for his oratory, the Cardinal, having gained admittance to the Princess, brought forward all his arguments, laying stress not only on the wealth and personal charms of the Duke, but on the joy such an alliance would give her father in the other world. Now Isabel had previously sent secret messengers to report on the respective appearance and bearing of Ferdinand and the French Duke, and the comparison was hardly favourable to the latter, who was a weakling with thin ungainly limbs and watery eyes. She could thus estimate the worth of the Cardinal’s statements and replied firmly that “she could not dispose of her hand in marriage save by the advice of the leading nobles and knights of the kingdoms, and that having consulted them she would do what God ordained.”

This was equivalent to a refusal; and the Cardinal, having exerted his eloquence once more in vain, returned to France, nursing his resentment and wrath. He left the Princess in a critical position; for her brother could draw but one conclusion from her refusal of such an advantageous match; and he and the Master of Santiago now strained every effort to stop her marriage with the King of Sicily.