It is my wish that not only in matters of importance but in all that concern these kingdoms you should give me your advice; ... and this I do most earnestly beg, that you will not cease from writing your opinion on the ground that these things do not concern you since you are no longer here; for well I know that although absent your counsel will be worth more to me than that of another present.
She then goes on to thank him for the reproofs he had administered on the score of the too-great gaiety at Court and to assure him that in explaining certain matters she is not seeking to free herself from blame.
As for the French people supping with the ladies at table, that is a thing they are accustomed to do. They do not get the custom from us; but, when their great guests dine with sovereigns, the others in their train dine at tables in the hall with the ladies and gentlemen; and there are no separate tables for ladies. The Burgundians, the English, and the Portuguese also follow this custom; and we on similar occasions to this.... I say this that you may see there was no innovation in what we did, nor did we think we were doing anything wrong in it.... But if it be found wrong after the inquiry I will make, it will be better to discontinue it in future.... As for the bull-fights, I feel with you, though perhaps not quite so strongly. But after I had consented to them, I had the fullest determination never to attend them again in my life nor to be where they were held.
One of Queen Isabel’s biographers on the contrary tells us that the Queen admired this national pastime for the skill and courage it demanded, a statement it is difficult to reconcile with the avowed distaste in her own letter. Perhaps her enthusiasm was evoked after the adoption of her device to place false horns, turned points inwards, on the horns of the bull, that the frequent loss of human life might be prevented. It was hardly a suggestion to win her popularity with her subjects, whose enjoyment of a spectacle was always proportionate to its risks. Isabel herself did not lack the true sporting instinct, for the chroniclers record a bear-hunt in the woods near Madrid, where one of the most ferocious of the beasts fell a trophy to her javelin.
Courage, the natural heritage of her race, her will and pride exalted almost to a fetish; and Pulgar tells us that “even in the hour of childbirth she disguised her sufferings and forced herself neither to show nor utter the pain that in that hour women are wont to feel and manifest.”
Her reserve was deep, in all that concerned her innermost thoughts almost like a curtain veiling some sanctuary, that she felt would be profaned by other eyes, but now and then torn back for the moment by the stress of some sudden emotion. Her agony of mind was obvious after the attempted murder of Ferdinand in Barcelona in August, 1492. The assassin, a madman who believed the King’s death would result in his own accession to the throne, had hurled himself on his victim from behind, as he was descending the palace stairway, inflicting a deep wound in his neck. This, though not fatal, was aggravated by fever, and for many days the King’s life hung in the balance.
And on the seventh day [wrote the Queen to Fra Fernando] the fever reached its climax, so that we were then in fear greater than all that through which we had previously passed; and this lasted a day and a night of which I will not say that which Saint Gregory said in the Office for Holy Saturday, more than that it was a night of hell; so that you may believe, Father, never was the like seen amongst the people at any time, for officials ceased their work, and none paused to speak with another. All was pilgrimages, processions, and almsgiving, and more hearing of confessions than ever in Holy Week.
Ferdinand was popular in Barcelona, and the Council of Justice there condemned his assassin to a death of ghastly torment, of which tearing the flesh with red-hot pincers formed but a part. One is thankful that Isabel issued a special command ordering the man to be beheaded before this barbarous sentence was enacted.
Her love for Ferdinand was the strongest of her personal affections, growing rather than diminishing as the years passed, so that, dying, she sought that she should not be parted from him for long.
Let my body be interred in the monastery of San Francisco, which is in the Alhambra of the city of Granada, ... but I desire and command that, if the King, My Lord, should choose a sepulchre in any church or monastery in any other part or place of these my kingdoms, my body be translated thither and buried beside the body of His Highness.