Controversial, powerful, and insightful, Isabella of Spain, the Warrior Queen, was inspired as a child by women of strength and surpassed even her own dreams. Narrator Kimberly Farr adds strength to this fascinating history of an extraordinary ruler. Farr provides pace and clarity as she describes Isabella’s struggles with males—a difficult brother and Ferdinand, her fiery husband—as she rose above them in stature. While Isabella has been underestimated over time, the author reminds listeners of her vast accomplishments: Her sponsorship of Columbus’s exploration, establishment of Spanish control over most of the New World by way of partnerships with Pope Alexander VI and the Borgias, brilliant strategy to bring Muslims and Christians together, unifying influence over millions of Catholics, and ability to ward off invaders. Farr’s performance provides an elegance and poise that are appropriate for Isabella's biography. B.J.P. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
Isabella: The Warrior Queen
Narrated by Kimberly Farr
Kirstin DowneyUnabridged — 21 hours, 12 minutes
Isabella: The Warrior Queen
Narrated by Kimberly Farr
Kirstin DowneyUnabridged — 21 hours, 12 minutes
Overview
Born at a time when Christianity was dying out and the Ottoman Empire was aggressively expanding, Isabella was inspired in her youth by tales of Joan of Arc, a devout young woman who unified her people and led them to victory against foreign invaders. In 1474, when most women were almost powerless, twenty-three-year-old Isabella defied a hostile brother and a mercurial husband to seize control of Castile and León. Her subsequent feats were legendary. She ended a twenty-four-generation struggle between Muslims and Christians, forcing North African invaders back over the Mediterranean Sea. She laid the foundation for a unified Spain. She sponsored Columbus's trip to the Indies and negotiated Spanish control over much of the New World with the help of Rodrigo Borgia, the infamous Pope Alexander VI. She also annihilated all who stood against her by establishing a bloody religious Inquisition that would darken Spain's reputation for centuries. Whether saintly or satanic, no female leader has done more to shape our modern world, in which millions of people in two hemispheres speak Spanish and practice Catholicism. Yet history has all but forgotten Isabella's influence, due to hundreds of years of misreporting that often attributed her accomplishments to Ferdinand, the bold and philandering husband she adored. Using new scholarship, Downey's luminous biography tells the story of this brilliant, fervent, forgotten woman, the faith that propelled her through life, and the land of ancient conflicts and intrigue she brought under her command.
Editorial Reviews
09/08/2014
The reserved, devoutly Catholic Isabella seized the Castilian throne in 1474, when she was just 23 years old. Having relegated her unwise husband Ferdinand to consort status, Isabella enjoyed major military successes, popularity with both her advisors and her subjects, and significant territorial acquisitions in the New World. Downey (The Woman Behind the New Deal) argues that Isabella served as a true paragon of Machiavelli’s good prince; from her demonstrations of political and battlefield strength in quelling the Ottoman Empire’s efforts at expansion to negotiating treaties and her offspring’s politically fraught marriage contracts. Downey shows how Isabella’s reign prepared Renaissance Spain’s rise to superpower status by consolidating multiple, often ineffectually led, kingdoms into one, all the while patronizing exploration and art. Perfect for both historical novices and experts in European history, this solidly-researched, engaging description of Isabella’s achievements also humanizes her through discussion of her intricate relationships with combative family members and allows readers to see Isabella’s fingerprints on Renaissance culture and religion. (Nov.)
Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
Longlisted for the 2015 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography
A Kirkus Best Biography of 2014
“A tale of feminist ambition that reads like a pulpy novel. (Don't be a snob—that's a good thing.)” —TIME
“[An] immensely provocative figure . . . [who] successfully maneuvered in an almost exclusively male world of politics.” —Kathryn Harrison, The New York Times Book Review
“Downey humanizes rather than idealizes her subject. . . . Isabella offers the reader a deeply satisfying portrait of a fascinating and complex woman.” —Bárbara Mujica, Washington Independent Review of Books
“In a fascinating revisionist portrait, Downey sketches a monarch both adored and demonised, and makes the case that Isabella laid the foundation for the first global superpower.” —BBC.com
“From Game of Thrones to Pillars of the Earth, popular culture offers up medieval stories where royal blood grabs for power, where crucial alliances are built between church and state, where important people suddenly fall over dead after a sumptuous meal, poisoned by a hidden rival. But this world did, in fact, exist, and the subject of Kristen Downey’s new biography, Queen Isabella of Castile, maneuvered through it with unlikely and thrilling success. . . . Downey writes with eloquence and intensity about Isabella’s life, making what could have been a distant history into a dramatic page turner.” —BookPage
“A strong, fascinating woman, Isabella helped to usher in the modern age, and this rich, clearly written biography is a worthy chronicle of her impressive yet controversial life.” —Kirkus Reviews, (starred review)
“Kirstin Downey triumphantly restores Isabella to her rightful place in history. This is an engrossing new portrait of one of the most fascinating and controversial women who ever lived.” —Amanda Foreman, author of the New York Times bestseller Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire
“Kirstin Downey makes medieval history read like a modern day thriller. Queen Isabella's life unfolded at the pivotal moment when the old world was astonished by the discovery of the new, and this graceful and insightful biography reveals her crucial role in making it happen.” —Deirdre Bair, National Book Award-winning author of Samuel Beckett
“In this astonishing biography, Kirstin Downey brings to life the most powerful queen in history, whose extraordinary impact on the world—for good and ill—continues to this day. Downey is particularly good at showing the human side of Isabella, whose life was an unending struggle to assert herself while navigating the countless intrigues and treachery of men who wanted to bring her down, including her own faithless and jealous husband, Ferdinand. It's a fascinating story with great resonance for today.” —Lynne Olson, author of the New York Times bestseller Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh and America's Fight Over World War II
“Queen Isabella was the most important woman in the history of Europe, and more than any person of her era she set the stage for modern Europe and America. Using Muslim, Jewish, and Christian sources, Kirstin Downey's gripping biography reveals how Isabella acquired such importance and vividly narrates the incredible drama of her life.” —Jack Weatherford, author of the New York Times bestseller Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
“Perfect for both historical novices and experts in European history, this solidly-researched, engaging description of Isabella’s achievements also humanizes her through discussion of her intricate relationships with combative family members and allows readers to see Isabella’s fingerprints on Renaissance culture and religion.” —Publishers Weekly
Controversial, powerful, and insightful, Isabella of Spain, the Warrior Queen, was inspired as a child by women of strength and surpassed even her own dreams. Narrator Kimberly Farr adds strength to this fascinating history of an extraordinary ruler. Farr provides pace and clarity as she describes Isabella’s struggles with males—a difficult brother and Ferdinand, her fiery husband—as she rose above them in stature. While Isabella has been underestimated over time, the author reminds listeners of her vast accomplishments: Her sponsorship of Columbus’s exploration, establishment of Spanish control over most of the New World by way of partnerships with Pope Alexander VI and the Borgias, brilliant strategy to bring Muslims and Christians together, unifying influence over millions of Catholics, and ability to ward off invaders. Farr’s performance provides an elegance and poise that are appropriate for Isabella's biography. B.J.P. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine
★ 2014-08-27
Downey (The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR'S Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, 2009) brings her journalistic expertise to this excellent chronicle of the end of the Middle Ages and that time period's most significant female figures. Isabella (1451-1504) was queen of Castile and Léon in her own right, a kingdom much larger than that of her husband, Ferdinand of Aragon. Even so, contemporaries and history have always given him preference of place. However, Isabella surely ranks as one of history's greatest women. She insisted on marrying Ferdinand and no other, despite the opposition of her half brother. Upon his death, Isabella assumed the throne. Her reign was characterized by a series of wars, waged by her mostly unfaithful husband but organized and supplied by her. For the first few years, they fought incursions from Portugal, followed by three years of civil war and, finally, more than a decade fighting the Moors. The fall of Granada in 1492 and expulsion of the Moors was hailed by all, but it was a small benefit to offset the fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Ottoman Turks. Isabella demanded that the defeated Moors, as well as the Jewish population, convert or emigrate. At this point, she introduced the Spanish Inquisition, which was initially aimed at backsliding converted Jews but expanded to include Muslims. Widely known as Christopher Columbus' sponsor, she kept him waiting years before finally agreeing to fund his trip. Her strict instructions were to convert the Indians to Catholicism in the kindest possible way. Her life was devoted to the church, and she felt Pope Alexander VI, Rodrigo Borgia, with his many children and vast wealth, undermined it. A strong, fascinating woman, Isabella helped to usher in the modern age, and this rich, clearly written biography is a worthy chronicle of her impressive yet controversial life.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169351781 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 10/28/2014 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
Prologue
In a castle on a steep promontory overlooking the windswept plains of north-central Spain, a slender red-haired princess finalized the plans for a ceremony that was likely to throw her nation—already teetering toward anarchy—into full-fledged civil war.
Her name was Isabella, and she had just learned that her older brother, King Enrique—known as Enrique El Impotente, which symbolized his failings, both administrative and sexual—had died.
King Enrique’s lascivious young wife, who had occupied her time bestowing her favors on the other gentlemen of the court, had produced a child, but many people doubted that the king was actually the child’s father. Isabella had decided to end the controversy over the succession by having herself crowned queen instead. The twenty-three-year-old woman was essentially orchestrating a coup.
No woman had ruled the combined Kingdoms of Castile and León, the largest single realm on the Iberian peninsula, in more than two hundred years. In many European countries, it was illegal for a woman to rule alone. On the rare occasions when women reigned, it was usually as regent for a son who was too young to govern. Isabella had a husband, Ferdinand, who was heir to the neighboring Kingdom of Aragon, but he had been traveling when the news of Enrique’s death arrived, and she had decided to seize the initiative. She would take the crown for herself alone.
On that bitter-cold morning in December 1474, Isabella added the finishing touches to an ensemble intentionally designed to impress onlookers with her splendor and regal grandeur. She donned an elegant gown encrusted with jewels; a dark red ruby glittered at her throat.
Observers already awed by the pageantry now gasped at an additional sight. On Isabella’s orders, a court official walked ahead of her horse, holding aloft an unsheathed sword, the naked blade pointing straight upward toward the zenith, in an ancient symbol of the right to enforce justice. It was a dramatic warning gesture, symbolizing Isabella’s intent to take power and to use it forcefully.
Acknowledging nothing out of the ordinary, Isabella took a seat on an improvised platform in the square. A silver crown was placed upon her head. As the crowd cheered, Isabella was proclaimed queen. Afterward she proceeded to Segovia’s cathedral. She prostrated herself in prayer before the altar, offering her thanks and imploring God to help her to rule wisely and well. She viewed the tasks ahead as titanic. She believed Christianity was in mortal danger.
The Ottoman Turks were aggressively on the march in eastern and southern Europe. The Muslims retained an entrenched foothold in the Andalusian kingdom of Granada, which Isabella and others feared would prove a beachhead into the rest of Spain. A succession of popes had pleaded in vain for a steely-eyed commander, a stalwart warrior, to step forward to counter the threat. Instead it was a young woman, the mother of a young daughter, who was taking up the banner.
The means she used were effective but brutal. For centuries to come, historians would debate the meaning of her life. Was she a saint? Or was she satanic?
As she stood in the sun in Segovia that winter afternoon, however, she showed no trace of fear or hesitation. Inspired by the example of Joan of Arc, who had died just two decades before Isabella was born and whose stories were much repeated during her childhood, Isabella similarly began to fashion herself as a religious icon. Inwardly infused with a sense of her own destiny, a faith that was “fervent, mystical and intense,” Isabella was confident to her core that God was on her side and that He intended her to rule. The questioning would only come much later.
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