Joanna arrived at Tordesillas under the guardianship of Ferrer, the man who, it was believed, had poisoned her husband. The palace was a plain house, situated in a barren country; the climate was scorching in summer and very severe in winter. Joanna was confined here in a narrow chamber, without windows, and lighted only by a candle; she was not allowed to walk, even for a few minutes, in a corridor which looked out upon the river. She was thus refused a liberty accorded even to murderers. She was there, without money, attended by two female keepers, and unable to communicate with the outer world.
The mother of Charles V. continued to show in the prison of Tordesillas her dislike to the Roman ceremonies. She refused to hear mass; and the main business of her keepers was to get her to attend it. The cruel marquis of Denia, count of Lerma, who succeeded Ferrer, endeavored to compel the queen to practices which she abhorred. 'There is not a day passes,' he wrote, 'on which we are not taken up with the affair of the mass.'[207] At length the queen consented to attend mass, at the end of the corridor, either from fear of the scourge, the pain of which she knew, or perhaps in order not to sunder herself from the religion of Spain, of which she constantly hoped to be acknowledged as queen. But when they brought her the pax, the paten which the priest offers to great persons to kiss, she refused it, and commanded it to be presented to the Infanta her daughter, whom they had not yet taken away from her.
At Christmas, 1521, matins were being sung in the chapel which had been fitted up at the end of the corridor. The Infanta alone was present. Suddenly Joanna appeared, wretchedly attired for a queen. She did not attend the mass herself, and even wished to prevent her daughter from attending it. She interrupted the service, ordered with a voice that re-echoed from the walls that the altar should be taken away and every thing else that was used in the religious ceremonies, and then laying hold of her daughter she dragged her away from the place. Nothing could at this time bend her; she resolutely refused to attend mass or any other Catholic services. In vain did the marquis of Denia entreat her to conform to the Roman practices; she would not hear of such a thing. 'In truth,' wrote the marquis to Charles V., 'if your majesty would apply the torture (premia), it would be doing service to God and to her highness.'[208]
HER HARSH TREATMENT.
The mother of Charles V. was plunged into the deepest melancholy by the treatment to which she was subjected. Her days were a constant succession of sorrows. Her passage through life was from one suffering to another. All her desire was to get out of that horrible prison; and in striving to attain this object she displayed much good sense, earnestness, and perseverance. She begged the marquis of Denia to allow her to quit Tordesillas, at least for a time. She wished to go to Valladolid. She alleged as a reason the bad air she breathed and the acute sufferings it caused her. Her health required a change of air, and she must at least undertake a journey. Her deep feeling moved her barbarous jailer himself. For a moment pity touched that heart of stone. 'Her language is so touching,' wrote Denia to the emperor, 'that it becomes difficult for the marchioness and myself to withstand her appeals. It is impossible for me to let any one go near her, for not a man in the world could resist her persuasion. Her complaints awaken in me deep compassion, and her utterances might move stones.'[209] This is not how Denia would have written to Charles if he had been speaking of a mad woman. Moreover he requested him to destroy his letters. At times she remained silent; and we know that the grief which does not utter itself is only the more fatal to the sufferer. At other times her distress broke forth. One day (April, 1525) she contrived to find access to the corridor and filled it with her sighs and moanings, shedding the while floods of tears. Denia gave orders immediately that she should be taken into her narrow chamber, so that she might not be heard.[210] At the same time he wrote to Charles V.: 'I have always thought that in her highness's state of indisposition, nothing would do her more good than the rack; and after this that some good and loyal servant of your majesty should speak to her. It is necessary to see whether she will not make any progress in the things which your majesty desires.' By these things he means confession, the mass, and other Roman rites.
In 1530, despairing of seeing the queen confess, 'I can not believe,' he wrote, 'that so fortunate a thing can happen. However, I will use all needful endeavors.'
The officers of Charles V., and the monks who had incessantly labored for the conversion of Joanna to Romanism, multiplied their efforts as her death approached. She withstood their pressing entreaties to receive the rites, the symbols of the papacy, and people heard the cries which she uttered while they put her to torture. She would have neither confession nor extreme unction.
DEATH OF JOANNA.
Had Joanna become acquainted with the Reformation and the writings of the Reformers, and with the doctrines which they professed? This has been doubted; but it seems improbable that she should have been ignorant of them. Joanna was a Lutheran, says one of the learned writers who have devoted most attention to this subject.[211] This statement is perhaps too definite. But the evangelical doctrines were penetrating everywhere; and they must have reached the prison of Joanna. It has been asserted that Luther at this time had more numerous adherents in Spain than in Germany itself.[212] The keepers of the prison perhaps prevented evangelical works from reaching the queen. There is, however, a light which no hand of man can intercept. The theologian de Soto, celebrated for his acquirements, as well as for his piety, came to her on the morning of her death; and he appears to have thought her a Christian, but not a Roman Catholic. He said: 'Blessed be the Lord, her highness told me things which have consoled me.' Here is the Christian. He adds: 'Nevertheless, she is not disposed to the sacrament of the Eucharist.' Here is the enlightened woman who rejects the rites of Rome. 'She committed her soul to God,' said the princess Joanna, granddaughter of the queen, 'and gave thanks to Him that at length He delivered her from all her sorrows.' Her last words were: 'Jesus Christ crucified, be with me.'[213] She breathed her last on April 12, 1555, between five and six o'clock in the morning.
Thus died the mother of Charles V. at the age of seventy-six years. She had been at various times kept in prison by her husband, Philip of Austria; for ten years by her father, Ferdinand the Catholic; and for thirty-nine years by her son, the emperor Charles V. She is a unique example of the greatest misfortunes, and her dark destiny surpasses all the stories of ancient times. The heiress of so many famous kingdoms, treated as the most wretched of women, was in her last year strictly confined in her dungeon, and lay in the midst of filth which was never removed. Covered as she was with tumors, in anguish and solitude, can we wonder that strange and terrifying images were sometimes produced in her brain by her isolation, melancholy, and fear? But while she was the victim of the gloomiest fanaticism ever met with in the world, she was consoled in the midst of all these horrors, as her latest words prove, by her God and Father in heaven.