Queens of old Spain

by Martin A. S. Hume

The Teutons and Castilians were at open loggerheads now; Queen Joan, reported Jimenez, was more closely guarded and concealed than ever, and Philip less popular in consequence. But, at length, the two rival Kings, on the 20th June 1506, found themselves in neighbouring villages; and on that day at a farmhouse half-way between Puebla and Asturianos they met. Ferdinand, in peaceful guise, was attended only by the Duke of Alba and the gentlemen of his household, not more than two hundred in all, mostly mounted on mules and unarmed; whilst Philip came in warlike array with two thousand pikemen and hundreds of German archers in strange garments and outlandish headgear, whilst the flanks of his great company of nobles were protected by a host of Flemish troops. When Philip approached his father-in-law, with steel mail beneath his fine silken doublet, and surrounded by armed protectors, it was seen that his face was sour and frowning, whilst Ferdinand, almost alone and quite unarmed, came smiling and bowing low at every step. When the Castilian nobles came forward one by one shamefacedly, to kiss the hand of the old monarch they had betrayed, Ferdinand’s satiric humour had full play, and many a sly thrust pierced their breasts, for all their hidden armour. After a few empty polite words between the Kings the conference was at an end, and each returned the way he came; Ferdinand more than ever chagrined that he had not been allowed even to see his daughter.

For the next few days the Kings travelled along parallel roads towards Benavente; Philip continuing to treat his father-in-law as an intruder in the most insulting fashion. At length their roads converged at a small village called Villafafila, at the time when the long discussed agreement had been settled by their respective ministers; and here, in the village church, the two rivals finally met to sign their treaty of peace on the 27th June 1506. It was a hellish compact, and it sealed the fate of unhappy Joan whatever might happen. Ferdinand came, as he said, with love in his heart and peace in his hands, only anxious for the happiness of his ‘beloved children,’ and of the realm that was theirs: and, after warmly embracing Philip, he led him towards the little village church to sign and swear to the treaty. With them, amongst others, were Don Juan Manuel and Cardinal Jimenez, and when the treaty was signed and the church cleared, the great churchman took the arm of Manuel, and whispered, ‘Don Juan, it is not fitting that we should listen to the talk of our masters. Do you go out first, and I will serve as porter.’ And there alone, in the humble house of prayer, the two Kings made the secret compact which explains the treaty they had just publicly executed. In appearance Ferdinand gave up everything. He was, it is true, to have half the revenues from the American discoveries, and to retain much plunder from the royal Orders and other grants of money, but he surrendered completely all share and part in the government of Castile, and allied himself to Philip for offence and defence against the world.

The secret deed, the outcome of that sinister private talk between two cruel scoundrels in the village church, allows us to guess, in conjunction with what followed, the reason for Ferdinand’s meek renunciation of the government. ‘As the Queen Joan on no account wishes to have anything to do with any affair of government or other things; and, even if she did wish it, it would cause the total loss and destruction of these realms, having regard to her infirmities and passions, which are not described here for decency’s sake’; and then the document provides that, ‘if Joan of her own accord, or at the instance of others, should attempt to interfere in the government or disturb the arrangement made between the two Kings, they will join forces to prevent it.’ ‘And so we swear to God our Lord, to the Holy Cross, and the four saintly evangelists, with our bodily hands placed upon His altar.’ And the two smiling villains came out hand in hand, both contented; each of them sure that the best of the evil bargain lay with him, and Ferdinand made preparations for departure to his own Aragon, and so to his realm of Naples and Sicily, delighted that his ‘beloved children’ should peacefully reign over the land of Castile.

It was more than two years and a half since Ferdinand had seen his daughter Joan. During that time both he and Philip had alternately declared she was quite sane and otherwise, as suited their plans. Now both were agreed, not only that she did not wish to govern her country: but that if ever she did wish, or Castilians wished for her to do so, then her ‘passions and infirmities,’ so vaguely referred to, would make her rule disastrous. It ensured Philip being King of Castile so long as he lived, and Ferdinand being master if he survived, and until the majority of his grandson Charles. There is no reason to deny that Joan was wayward, morbid, and eccentric; subject to fits of jealous rage at certain periods or crises, and that subsequently she developed intermittent lunacy. But at this time, according to all accounts, she was not mad in a sense that justified her permanent exclusion from the throne that belonged to her. Philip, heartless, ambitious, and vain, wished to rule Castile alone, according to Burgundian methods, which were alien to Spain and to the Queen. Ferdinand knew that, in any case, such an attempt could not succeed for long; and by permanently excluding Joan he secured for himself the reversion practically for the rest of his life. And so Joan was pushed aside and wronged by those whose sacred duty it was to protect and cherish her, and as Joan the Mad she goes down to all posterity.

But old Ferdinand had not yet shot his last bolt, for symmetry and completeness in his villainy was always his strong point. On the very day that the secret compact was signed, he came again to that humble altar of Villafafila, accompanied this time only by those faithful Aragonese friends who would have died for him, Juan Cabrero, who had befriended Colon, and his secretary, Almazan. Before these he swore and signed a declaration that Philip had come in great force whilst he had none, and had by intimidation and fear compelled him to sign a deed so greatly to the injury of his own daughter. He swore now that he had only done so to escape his peril, and never meant that Joan should be deprived of her liberty of action: on the contrary, he intended when he could to liberate her and restore to her the administration of the realm that belonged to her: and he solemnly denounced and repudiated the former oath he had just taken on the same altar. And then, quite happy in his mind, Ferdinand the Catholic went on his way, having left heavily bribed all the men who surrounded doomed Philip, including even the all-powerful favourite Juan Manuel.

Philip lost no time. Before Ferdinand had got beyond Tordesillas, a courtier reached him from his son-in-law giving him news of Joan’s anger and passion when she learnt that she was pushed aside and was not to see her father. What would Ferdinand recommend? asked Philip. But the old King was not to be caught; he would not be cajoled into giving his consent to Joan being shut up, but he sent a long sanctimonious rigmarole enjoining harmony, but meaning nothing. Philip then appealed to the nobles one by one, asking them to sign a declaration assenting to Joan’s confinement. The Admiral of Castile, Ferdinand’s cousin, led a strong opposition to this, and demanded a personal interview with the Queen to which Philip consented, and the Admiral and Count Benavente went to the fortress of Murcientes, where Joan and her husband were staying. At the door of the chamber stood Garcilaso de la Vega, a noble in Philip’s interest, and Cardinal Jimenez was just inside; whilst in a window embrasure in the darkened room sat the Queen alone, garbed in black with a hood which nearly obscured her face. She rose as Admiral Enriquez approached, and with a low curtsey, asked him if he came from her father. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘I left him yesterday at Tudela on his way to Aragon.’ ‘I should so much have liked to see him,’ sighed poor Joan; ‘God guard him always.’ For many hours that day and the next the noble spoke to the Queen, saying how important it was to the country that she should agree well with her husband, and take part in the government that belonged to her. He reported afterwards that in all these conferences she never gave a random answer.

The Admiral was too important a person to be slighted, and Philip was forced to listen to some plain warnings from him. He must not venture to go to Valladolid without the Queen, or ill would come of it: the people were jealous already, and if Joan was shut up their fears would be confirmed. So Joan was borne by her husband’s side to Valladolid in state, though her face was set in stony sorrow beneath the black cowl that shrouded it. Near there one other interview took place between the two kings with much feigned affection, but no result as regards Joan. On the 10th July 1506, Joan and her husband rode through the city of Valladolid with all the pomp of Burgundy and Spain. Two banners were to be carried before the royal pair, but Joan knew she alone was Queen of Castile, and insisted that one should be destroyed before she would start. She was mounted upon a white jennet, housed in black velvet to match her own sable robes, and a black hood almost covered her face.[^[110]] Shows, feasts and addresses were arranged for their reception, but they rode straight through the crowded, flower-decked streets without staying to witness them; and this joyous entry, we are told by an eyewitness, meant to be so gay, was blighted by an all-pervading gloom, as of some great calamity to come.

On the following day the Cortes took the oath of allegiance to Joan as Queen, and to Philip only as consort, and she personally insisted upon seeing the powers of the deputies. The ceremonies over, Philip came to business. Great efforts were made to persuade the Cortes to consent to Joan’s confinement and Philip’s personal rule; and Jimenez did his best to get the custody of her.[^[111]] But the stout Admiral Enriquez stood in the way, and insisted that this iniquity should not be, so that Philip was obliged to put up with the position of administrator for his wife, since he could not be King in her stead. Flemings, Germans and Castilians, in the meanwhile, vied with each other in rapacity. Philip was free enough with the money of others, but even he had to go out hunting by stealth to escape importunity when he had given away all he had to give and more. But of all the greedy crew there was none so rapacious as Juan Manuel, little of body but great of mind, who, like the Marquis of Villena forty years before, grabbed with both hands insatiate. Fortresses, towns, pensions, assignments of national revenue, nothing came amiss to Manuel, and at last his covetous eyes were cast upon the fortress-palace of Segovia, still in the keeping of that stout Andrés Cabrera and his wife, Beatriz de Bobadilla, Marchioness of Moya, the lifelong friend of the great Isabel. Philip gave an order that the Alcazar of Segovia was to be surrendered to Manuel. Surrender the Alcazar! after fifty years of keeping! No, forsooth, said big-hearted Dona Beatriz; only to Queen Joan will we give the fortress that her great mother entrusted to our keeping.

And so it happened that Philip, with Joan still in black by his side, rode out of Valladolid in August towards Segovia, to demand the fortress from its keeper. When the cavalcade reached Cogeces, half way to Segovia, Joan would go no further. They were taking her to Segovia, she cried, to imprison her in the Alcazar, and she threw herself from her horse writhing upon the ground, and refused to stir another step on the way. The prayers and threats of Philip and his councillors, whom she hated, were worse than useless, and all that night she rode hither and thither across country refusing to enter the town. When the morning came Philip learnt that Cabrera had surrendered the Alcazar of Segovia to Manuel; and as there was no reason now for going thither, they rode back to Burgos. As they travelled through Castile, brows grew darker and hearts more bitter at this fine foreign gallant with his fair face and his gay garments, who kept the Queen of Castile in durance in her own realms, and packed his friends and foreign pikemen in all the strong castles of the land. When Burgos was reached on the 7th September, Philip deepened the discontent by ordering the immediate departure of the wife of the Constable of Castile, an Enriquez by birth, and consequently a cousin of Ferdinand, in order that Joan should have no relative near her, although they lodged in the Constable’s palace. The Admiral of Castile and the Duke of Alba were also attacked by Philip, who demanded their fortresses as pledges of loyalty; and soon all Castile was in a ferment, clamouring for the return of the old King Ferdinand, and the liberation of their Queen Joan.

The King, not content with conferring upon his favourite Manuel the Alcazar of Segovia, now entrusted to his keeping the castle of Burgos, where it was determined to celebrate the surrender by entertaining Philip at a banquet. After the feast the King was taken ill of a malignant fever, it was said, caused by indulgence or over-exercise, and Philip lay ill for days in raging delirium. Joan, dry-eyed and cool, never left his side, saying little, but attending assiduously to the invalid. At one o’clock on the 25th September 1506 Philip I., King of Castile, breathed his last, in his twenty-eighth year: but yet Joan, without a tear or a tremor, still stayed by his side, deaf to all remonstrance and condolence, to all appearance unmoved. She calmly gave orders that the corpse of her husband should be carried in state to the great hall of the Constable’s palace upon a splendid catafalque of cloth of gold, the body clad in ermine-lined robes of rich brocade, the head covered by a jewelled cap, and a magnificent diamond cross upon the breast. A throne had been erected at the end of the hall, and upon this the corpse was arranged, seated as if in life. During the whole of the night the vigils for the dead were intoned by friars before the throne, and when the sunlight crept through the windows the body, stripped of its incongruous finery, was opened and embalmed and placed in a lead coffin, from which, for the rest of her life, Joan never willingly parted.[^[112]]