Isabella of Castile: Europe's First Great Queen

by Giles Tremlett

Overview

A major biography of the queen who transformed Spain into a principal global power, and sponsored the voyage that would open the New World.

In 1474, when Castile was the largest, strongest, and most populous kingdom in Hispania (present day Spain and Portugal), a twenty-three-year-old woman named Isabella ascended the throne. At a time when successful queens regnant were few and far between, Isabella faced not only the considerable challenge of being a young, female ruler in an overwhelmingly male-dominated world, but also of reforming a major European kingdom riddled with crime, debt, corruption, and religious factionism. Her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon united two kingdoms, a royal partnership in which Isabella more than held her own. Their pivotal reign was long and transformative, uniting Spain and setting the stage for its golden era of global dominance.

Acclaimed historian Giles Tremlett chronicles the life of Isabella of Castile as she led her country out of the murky Middle Ages and harnessed the newest ideas and tools of the early Renaissance to turn her ill-disciplined, quarrelsome nation into a sharper, truly modern state with a powerful, clear-minded, and ambitious monarch at its center. With authority and insight he relates the story of this legendary, if controversial, first initiate in a small club of great European queens that includes Elizabeth I of England, Russia's Catherine the Great, and Britain's Queen Victoria.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781632865229
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	624
File size:	9 MB

About the Author

Giles Tremlett is the Madrid correspondent for the Economist. Until 2013, he covered Spain for the Guardian, for which he is now a contributing editor. He has lived in, and written about, Spain for the past twenty years, and is the author of Catherine of Aragon: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII and Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through Spain and Its Silent Past. He lives in Madrid with his wife and their two children.

Table of Contents

Maps x

Family Tree xiv

Introduction: Europe's First Great Queen 1

1 No Man Ever Held Such Power 11

2 The Impotent 17

3 The Queen's Daughter 26

4 Two Kings, Two Brothers 34

5 Bulls 41

6 Choosing Ferdinand 49

7 Marrying Ferdinand 59

8 Rebel Princess 64

9 The Borgias 78

10 Queen 95

11 And King! 100

12 Clouds of War 107

13 Under Attack 113

14 Though I Am Just a Woman 128

15 The Turning Point 135

16 Degrading the Grandees 143

17 Rough Justice 155

18 Adiós Beltraneja 165

19 The Inquisition - Populism and Purity 177

20 Crusade 196

21 They Smote Us Town by Town 210

22 God Save King Boabdil! 218

23 The Tudors 232

24 Granada Falls 240

25 Handover 249

26 Expulsion of the Jews 260

27 The Vale of Tears 272

28 The Race to Asia 282

29 Partying Women 298

30 A Hellish Night 307

31 A New World 311

32 Indians, Parrots and Hammocks 323

33 Dividing Up the World 335

34 A New Continent 352

35 Borgia Weddings 365

36 All the Thrones of Europe 371

37 Though We Are Clerics… We Are Still Flesh and Blood 378

38 Juana's Fleet 387

39 Twice Married, But a Virgin When She Died 394

40 The Third Knife-Thrust of Pain 406

41 The Dirty Tiber 411

42 We Germans Call Them Rats 421

43 The End of Islam? 434

44 The Sultan of Egypt 444

45 Like a Wild Lioness 450

46 The Final Judgement 462

Afterword: A Beam of Glory 476

Appendix: Monetary Values and Coinage 489

Notes 491

Bibliography 562

Acknowledgements 585

Index 587

Editorial Reviews

01/02/2017
Tremlett (Catherine of Aragon), Madrid correspondent for the Economist, reveals how decades of ineffective rulers led the Crown of Castile to land on the unlikely head of Isabella (1451–1504), who usurped the throne of her underage niece in her quest to create a powerful unified Spain. He successfully argues that Isabella’s strong sense of duty to God and country strengthened her resolve for unification and her drive to convert heretics to Christianity, resulting in a reign with long-lasting consequences in the Western world. Much of this well-written account covers Isabella’s unique working relationship with her less politically astute husband, Ferdinand of Aragon, and her eagerness to wage war. Tremlett emphasizes her zeal and deftness with resources in furthering Spain’s interests as she perceived them. Clear descriptions of Castilian court politics reveal how the hopeful explorer Columbus finally received Isabella’s funding and approval for his westbound routes, inadvertently launching the Native American genocide while expanding Spanish supremacy. However, despite much attention, there’s little sense of immediacy regarding the Moorish invasions that Isabella (and the Iberian Peninsula generally) feared, making her forced conversions during the Inquisition and Reconquista less understandable to modern readers. Tremlett’s unsentimental portrait reveals an ambitious queen whose accomplishments of prescient religious reform, westward exploration, and empire-building far outshone those of her contemporary European monarchs. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

"Tremlett writes so well as to make this read almost as entertaining as a traditional Spanish novel but with thorough balanced scholarship." - New York Journal of Books

"If you're enjoying Victoria on PBS, you'll like Tremlett’s juicy history of Queen Isabella of Castile, who ascended the Spanish throne in 1474 at 23." - Entertainment Weekly

"Packed with vivid character sketches and lyrical description, Tremlett has told a gripping story, full of beauty and darkness." - The Times (UK)

"A triumphant and chilling account of the rise of Spain and its New World conquests." - Daily Telegraph

"Magisterial . . . Tremlett's contention, which he supports with a sublime presentation of facts and interpretation, is that Isabella represents the first member in the exclusive club of great European queens who exercised sovereign power in their own hands." - Starred Review, Booklist

"Engaging new appraisal of Europe's first female monarch and her long, consequential reign . . . Economist Madrid correspondent Tremlett (Catherine of Aragon: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII, 2010, etc.) puts into lively relief the remarkable talents and drive of this singular female sovereign . . . A combination of a solid biography of an extraordinary monarch and a concise history of turbulent 15th-century Spain." - Kirkus Reviews

"Tremlett uses his gifts as a writer on Spain's history to offer us a voluminous biography with fluent and evocative narrative that fully exploits the romantic aspects of the age." - Times Literary Supplement

"Well-written . . . Tremlett’s unsentimental portrait reveals an ambitious queen whose accomplishments of prescient religious reform, westward exploration, and empire-building far outshone those of her contemporary European monarchs." - Publishers Weekly

"Tremlett paints a sympathetic picture of Isabella without whitewashing the fact that she was often ruthless and intolerant, with a sense of Realpolitik that rivaled that of Machiavelli. Isabella of Castile will appeal to readers who enjoyed Helen Castor's She-Wolves and Sarah Gristwood's Game of Queens." - Shelf Awareness

"Highly readable, engrossing . . . This work raises significant questions about gender, power, and prejudice in the writing of history." - Library Journal

"This detailed, exhaustively researched, clearly presented biography of Isabella lauds her strengths but doesn’t shy away from her faults. The complex political, historical, religious, and geographical issues of the day are explained in a way that provides context for Isabella’s fascinating life. For those interested in royal biography or in the history of Spain as it emerged from the Middle Ages to become a world power, this book is recommended." - Historical Novel Review

"Impressively informed and informative, thoroughly 'reader friendly' in organization and presentation, Isabella of Castile: Europe's First Great Queen will prove to be an extraordinary and popular addition to community and academic library Historical Biography collections." - Midwest Book Review

"Splendid . . . [Tremlett] writes with the fluency of the novelist . . . His intimate knowledge of Catherine's native country allows him to place her convincingly in her Spanish setting, as the intelligent and well-educated daughter of one of the most impressive of European queens regnant, Isabella of Castile." - New York Review of Books on CATHERINE OF ARAGON

"Tremlett deftly takes the reader through all the twists and turns, and shows us a woman who, rather than being a passive victim, was fully the equal of her husband in conviction and determination." - Booklist on CATHERINE OF ARAGON

"[Tremlett's] affectionate yet critical intimacy with the country helps to make this book much more than an ordinary journalistic survey . . . [with the] sort of insight that vindicates his approach to a deeply traditional and fast-changing land." - Wall Street Journal on GHOSTS OF SPAIN

"An evocative, often poignant sojourn through the as-yet uncleared psychic mists of the civil war." - Minneapolis Star-Tribune on GHOSTS OF SPAIN

From the Publisher

11/15/2016
With her marriage to Ferdinand of Aragon in 1479, Isabella (1451–1504) began a decades-long partnership that turned her medieval kingdom into a truly modern state by reorganizing the government, lowering crime, eliminating debt, and transforming Spain into a major world power. In this highly readable, engrossing biography, journalist Tremlett (Catherine of Aragon) champions his subject as one whose achievements are even more remarkable because of the gender norms she transcended during her reign. While Tremlett describes Isabella as bold, self-confident, intelligent, and single-minded, he also acknowledges that she is highly controversial, asking readers to consider why she is not better heralded. From a historiographical point of view, the book is most valuable in this regard. Marginalized for her religiosity, her establishment and support of the Inquisition, and the Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition, Isabella became a symbol for religious traditionalists and authoritarians. The author presents a fascinating discussion of her appropriation by Francoism. This work raises significant questions about gender, power, and prejudice in the writing of history. VERDICT For general readers interested in both Spanish culture and biographies of achieving women, as well as academics open to a revisionist look at Spanish and women's history alike.—Marie M. Mullaney, Caldwell Coll., NJ

Library Journal

2016-12-25
Engaging new appraisal of Europe's first female monarch and her long, consequential reign.A century before Elizabeth I, there was Isabella of Castile (1451-1504), whose 35-year reign alongside her less-capable husband, Ferdinand of Aragon, became the model of a strong, enduring, ruthless (rather than enlightened) dynasty. Economist Madrid correspondent Tremlett (Catherine of Aragon: The Spanish Queen of Henry VIII, 2010, etc.) puts into lively relief the remarkable talents and drive of this singular female sovereign, who subjugated her husband's role by law and believed fervently that her "purification" of the Arab lands of Andalusia and Granada was dictated by God. In short, she ruled as rigorously as a man and was beloved for it. She was already proving herself a shrewd operator when, at age 18, she finagled her own choice of a husband in the dashing son of a quarrelsome neighboring dynasty, Aragon. Ascending to the throne of Castile after the relatively short reigns of her weak brother and half brother, she and Ferdinand were able to bring Castile and Aragon together under one crown, which was unprecedented and spurred new ambition in uniting the whole Iberian peninsula—the Reconquista. Isabella delighted in war preparations: she harnessed the power of the Spanish nobility, the Grandees, defeated her usurper, employed a "new sort of army" that used artillery and infantry rather than knights and their mounted followers, and terrified the enemy by her mere presence, as she did in the siege of Baza in 1489. Certain that God was on her side, she and Ferdinand instigated the state inquisition as a harsh system of justice to convert Jews and Moors to Christianity before banishing them both from the kingdom altogether. Tremlett gives a broad sense of the ramifications of her will, especially in sanctioning the expedition of Christopher Columbus and thus spreading Christianity and Spanish influence throughout the Western hemisphere. A combination of a solid biography of an extraordinary monarch and a concise history of turbulent 15th-century Spain.

Kirkus Reviews