Isabella II of Castile, Queen-Consort of Portugal

A Short Biography of Isabella II of Castile

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Isabella II of Castile

The near death of Isabella of Aragon after her eldest son Miguel was born nearly prevent the Iberian Union before it’s infancy. Sickly after constant travels during her pregnancy and unhappy with her marriage, the young woman took a turn for the worst soon after labour and looked likely to die. Fortunately, through the efforts of a particularly gifted nun, Isabella made it through and soon re-joined her son and husband. Her spirits, long since low after her first husband’s death, lifted in the presence of her son and by early 1500 the Portuguese Queen seems to have fully embraced her role, made evident by her second pregnancy, ending in a second son in May of that year, named Juan. This joy was dampened by the loss of her eldest child Miguel in August. Thus, Juan became the heir to Castile, Aragon and Portugal, along with various other small claims.

Isabella, always a devoted Catholic, grew further enveloped in the teachings of the Bible and in 1501 gave birth a third time, to a daughter who she named Maria Magdalena of Portugal, after the Virgin Mother and Mary Magdalen. Soon after, news arrived that her sister, Catherine, had lost her young husband to illness and thus was a widow at 16. Seeing that her sister may be forced into a position like she had been in, she became a fierce proponent against Catherine’s remarriage to the new Prince of Wales, Henry Tudor, writing to the Pope himself explaining that the union was not holy due to passages in the Bible that forbade the marriage of a widow to her husband’s brother. While this stance did not prevent a betrothal being created, the slow advancement of the dispensation around that time was put squarely at Isabella’s feet, particularly after she offered her daughter as a potential bride instead.

Her fourth pregnancy would take place in 1504, during a visit to her ailing mother. Discovering herself to be pregnant, she refused to return to Portugal until the child had been born, sending word to her husband King Manuel that she felt ill and hoped to ensure their child’s health. While there, she witnessed her sister’s marriage to the Duke of Savoy, acting as support for the disappointed young woman. A victim of James IV of Scotland’s back and forth attitude towards his marriage, she had been betrothed in 1499 but had been put against the Princess Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of the English King, who was desperate for his daughter to marry well. Eventually, money and a chance at possibly joining the Iberian Alliance, particularly after Louis XII of France made motions towards possibly renewing the Auld Alliance through a marriage between a hypothetical second daughter of his and an eldest son of James, should that opportunity arise. Thus, Isabella would watch her sister be made the Duchess of Savoy. The match had been made rather quickly after the previous Duke’s death in September, for fear he would marry his brother’s widow. Maria, now 22, spoke often of her dread that she might end up unmarried, but now had a husband who would worship her, mostly due to her great dowry. Isabella, meanwhile, gave birth in October to a third son, named Afonso of Portugal and made Duke of Beja a year later by her husband.

The Portuguese Queen stayed with her mother at Medina del Campo until her death on November 26th, acting as her nurse in her final days. After acting as the chief mourner at her funeral and in March of 1505, after a difficult fight for recognition, she was coronated as Queen Isabella I of Castile. Now, as Queen of Castile, she was equal to her husband and asked him to join her in Toledo, where she had set up her court of the time being, asking him to bring their children. It was there that she sent word to the Tudor King that, if he allowed her sister to return to Castile so that she might have a more holy match (Isabella had doubted the rumours that Henry Tudor had been granted a dispensation, since she had not found evidence and the Pope had refused to answer if it had been granted or not), then he might keep the partial dowry and have the rest in due time as part of a match between her daughter, Maria Magdalena’s, dowry to the Prince. After much deliberation, it was agreed to and in November of that same year, Catherine departed for Castile, while Maria Magdalena departed to England.

Isabella expected gratitude from her sister, but instead found the Infanta distraught that she had “lost her place in history”. Undisturbed, the Castilian Queen began looking for a match for her sister after acting as godmother to her first nephew between Maria of Aragon and Charles III, Duke of Savoy, named Isabella after her. Finally, after much negotiation, her sister was married to Antoine of Lorraine, a young man set to inherit the Dukedom of Lorraine from his father. A way to ensure peace with Louis XII of Portugal, it also ended talks of the young man marrying an Austrian girl, effectively freezing out Isabella’s sister, Joanna of Aragon, from arranging a match there. Catherine went begrudgingly and Isabella would always consider her the least grateful of her sisters.

The Castilian Queen and the Portuguese King welcomed, in 1505, a second daughter in the shape of Beatrice of Portugal-Castile. At this time, the Austrian Royal family (without the Holy Roman Emperor) made a visit to Madrid, where Isabella had moved the royal court for the time being. While Manuel and the Prince of Asturias were, at this time, in Portugal, Isabella greeted her sister and her family as warmly as she could. However, she was not taken by her brother-in-law, who made an attempt to charm her during his negotiations for his daughter to marry Infante Juan. However, Isabella informed him that, at that time, she had betrothed the Prince to Mary Tudor, younger daughter of the English King. However, she did agree to betroth the Infanta Beatrice of Portugal-Castile to Prince Charles of Burgundy. Thus, Beatrice leaves for Brussels with her cousins, to be raised with her future husband.

In 1507 Isabella underwent her final pregnancy, giving birth to stillborn, twin boys, causing her to fall back into her depression. Her husband, for the time being, attempts to take control of the government, while her father attempts a similar coup, eventually ending after Isabella seems to return to normal in early 1508. To prevent her father from interfering again, she sets her orders if such “madness” should fall onto her again, her health should fail or she might die. Her husband is to act as Regent in Castile. In response to this, he father remarries in an effort to spite her, hoping to have a son to take away the chance that Isabella and her line will inherit Aragon. He marries, late in the year, Germaine de Foix, who will give birth to the short-lived Ferdinand of Aragon, Prince of Girona in 1510.

The Queen once again seems to threaten depression after her younger son Afonso seems sickly. Nursing him for a time, she is absent when the Princess Mary Tudor, in mourning after her father’s death, arrives in Toledo in preparation for her marriage to the Prince of Asturias. Rumours swirl that the Princess and her future father-in-law will have had an affair around this time, but luckily it seems to have been a false one and in 1514 the wedding occurs. The year earlier, Isabella receives word that her daughter, quickly approaching womanhood, has married the English King, although they are awaiting her 14th birthday to consummate the marriage. Called Queen Maud by Londoners, the Portuguese girl is highly popular for her easy nature, although she does maintain strict adherence to the Catholic faith.

Isabella’s death in 1516, shortly after the birth of her first grandchild, Maria Isabella of Portugal, is a shock to the royal family. Despite the constant swings in her mental and physical health, the 46 year old Queen of Castile had managed to push through time and time again. However, it seems breast cancer was at hand here and she left her young son, only barely a man, as King in her wake. Fiercely Catholic to her death, she was buried in a Nun’s Habit and lain next to her first husband in Portugal.
 
Ferdinand II of Aragon (b.1452: d.1516) m. Isabella I of Castile (b.1451: d.1504) (a), Germaine de Foix (b.1488: d.1538) (b)

1a) Isabella II of Castile (b.1470: d.1516) m. Afonso, Prince of Portugal (b.1475: d.1491) (a), Manuel I of Portugal (b.1469: d.1521) (b)

1a) Miguel of Portugal, Prince of Portugal (b.1498: d.1500)

2a) Juan III of Castile, Portugal and Aragon (b.1500: d.1551) m. Mary Tudor (b.1496: d.1530) (a), Catherine of Austria (b.1507: d.1578) (b)

1a) Maria Isabella of Castile (b.1516)

2a) Magdalena Clara of Castile (b.1518: d.1522)

3a) Philip I of the Iberian Union (b.1520)

4a) Stillborn Son (c.1521)

5a) Stillborn Daughter (c.1523)

6b) Isabella of Castile (b.1533)

7b) Stillborn Daughter (c.1536)

8b) Miscarriage (c.1538)

9b) Afonso of Castile (b.1540: d.1541)

10b) Stillborn Son (c.1541)

11b) Juan of Castile (b.1544: d.1544)​
3a) Maria Magdalena of Portugal (b.1501: d.1572) m. Henry VIII of England (b.1491: d.1547) (a)

4a) Afonso of Portugal, Duke of Beja (b.1504: d.1532)

5a) Beatrice of Portugal (b.1505: d.1540) m. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (b.1500: d.1558) (a)

6a) Stillborn Son (c.1507)

7a) Stillborn Son (c.1507)​
2a) Miscarriage (c.1475)

3a) Juan, Prince of Asturias (b.1478: d.1497) m. Margaret of Austria (b.1480: d.1530) (a)

1a) Stillborn Daughter (c.1497)​
4a) Juana of Aragon (b.1479: d.1555) m. Philip, Duke of Burgundy (b.1478: d.1512) (a)

1a) Eleanor of Austria (b.1498: d.1558)

2a) Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (b.1500: d.1558) m. Beatrice of Portugal (b.1505: d.1540) (a)

3a) Isabella of Austria (b.1501: d.1526)

4a) Ferdinand of Austria, Archduke of Austria (b.1503: d.1564)

5a) Mary of Austria (b.1505: d.1558)

6a) Catherine of Austria (b.1507: d.1578)

7a) Maximilian of Austria (b.1510: d.1511)​
5a) Maria of Aragon (b.1482: d.1540) m. Charles III, Duke of Savoy (b.1486: d.1517) (a)

1a) Isabella of Savoy (b.1505)

2a) Emmanuel Philibert III, Duke of Savoy (b.1508)

3a) Stillborn Daughter (c.1510)

4a) Maria Philiberta of Savoy (b.1511)

5a) Stillborn Son (c.1513)

6a) Charles of Savoy (b.1515: d.1518)

7a) Philip of Savoy (b.1516)​
6a) Stillborn Daughter (c.1482)

7a) Catherine of Aragon (b.1485: d.1536) m. Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales (b.1486: d.1502) (a), Antoine, Duke of Lorraine (b.1489: d.1544) (b)

1a) Jeanne of Lorraine (b.1507: d.1507)

2a) Marie of Lorraine (b.1509: d.1510)

3a) Francis, Duke of Lorraine (b.1511)

4a) Miscarriage (c.1512)

5a) Marguerite of Lorraine (b.1514)

6a) Stillborn Daughter (c.1516)

7a) Miscarriage (c.1518)​
8b) Juan, Prince of Girona (b.1510: d.1510)​
 
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A Short Biography of Catherine of Aragon, Duchess of Lorraine

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Catherine of Aragon, Dowager Princess of Wales and Duchess of Lorraine

The youngest of the Catholic Monarchs’ Infantas, Catherine of Aragon was destined from a young age for greatness. Since childhood this woman had been raised to believe that one day she would travel to England, marry the Prince of Wales and ascend to the Throne with him, lifting England from its murky history into the righteous path being forged by her parents. However, this all changed when, in 1502, her husband, Arthur Tudor, fell ill and died. Now without her key to that future, Catherine looked down the line of succession to his brother, and envisioned another glorious future on his 11 year old arm. However, fate had other plans.

The biggest obstacle in her way was not religion, or at least not just religion. No, he biggest obstacle was her sister, the Queen of Portugal and future Queen Isabella II of Castile. Vehemently against a match between her sister and her brother-in-law, Isabella petitioned the Pope with every possible excuse not to issue the dispensation, and eventually led to her offering her own daughter in Catherine’s place.

Catherine claimed the reason Isabella stood in her way was jealousy that Catherine would marry a young, vibrant man and not an older one like Manuel I of Portugal. This was, obviously, not the case, if for the sheer fact that Manuel was only 1 year elder to his Queen. Instead, another aspect of Isabella’s marriage led to her terror on Catherine’s behalf of a quick second marriage. Isabella had originally been married to another Portuguese Prince, Afonso of Portugal. Unfortunately, the young man had, like Catherine’s husband, succumb to illness and left her a widow at 21. Her parents, mindful of the alliance with Portugal, had pushed for Isabella’s match and eventually won out, leading to her current situation. And while time had softened the blow and Manuel was a kind enough husband, she felt that the lucky lightning would not strike twice and it was better for her sister to start anew. Thus, in 1505, shortly after the dispensation for a match between Catherine and the Prince of Wales had arrived, the Aragonese Infanta departed with tearful farewells to the people she had come to expect to rule over and returned to Toledo, where her sister, now Queen of Castile in her own right, began to look for a new match for her.

Her short time in Toledo would be amongst the unhappiest of her life. Isabella kept the court in constant mourning after the death of their mother and looked for Catherine to do the same. While the Dowager Princess of Wales was most definitely upset for the loss of her mother and mourned, she did not understand her sister’s seemingly endless depths of sorrow, writing in a letter to her sister Juana that:

“…it is less like she lost the Queen and more like she lost herself…”

Ignorant to her sisters depression, Catherine would be among those who chalked her erratic, grief-stricken behaviour to madness. Whatever her belief, Catherine would have to deal with the repercussions of her sister’s continual sadness over the next year.

Finally, after a few fights over various minute issues, Catherine was found a husband in the Duke of Lorraine. The young man was not to the taste of his bride, who was said to have travelled to Lorraine with a portrait of the Prince of Wales sent that year and have kept it in her apartments. Despite this distaste, Isabella over the match and in July of 1506 the couple arrived in Bar-le-Duc, where they awaited their first child, a stillborn daughter often referred to as Jeanne de Lorraine. After this unfortunate event, Catherine and Antoine joined the French Court, where the Duchess of Lorraine found herself a favourite of both Anne of Brittany and her daughter, the young Claude of France.

Over the next decade, Catherine would give birth 6 more times, with only her 3rd child Francis, Duke of Lorraine (b.1511) and 5th child Marguerite of Lorraine (b.1514) surviving infancy. Comforted by her friend the Queen, Catherine treasured the children she was given and even learnt to be affectionate to her husband, however she would never claim to love him and was eventually buried next to her dead children in a separate grave to her husband, forever the mother but not the wife.

During her time in France, she clung to those who she could find comfort in. In particular, any Englishman or Englishwoman who came to the French Court found themselves in the rooms of the Duchess of Lorraine, as she demanded information on the (now) King, the Queen and anything else that might sit in her memory. In particular, she found the Lady Anne Boleyn, a girl that moved into the French Court in 1517 as part of Claude of France’s ladies to be a good companion. The girl brought her news of her sister in Brussels, where she spent her time after her husband’s death of illness in 1512. Anne would eventually find a good match in France with Catherine’s brother-in-law, Louis, Count of Vaudémont, who left the faith in 1522 and asked his sister-in-law to find him a good wife. The couple would have only a daughter in 1523, named Catherine de Lorraine, with a series of miscarriages and stillbirths after until Louis’ death in 1528.

Her son, in 1530, was for a time betrothed to the French Princess Madeleine de Valois, as a way of preventing her from leaving the beneficial weather of France. However, that match fell through and instead Catherine, under the instruction of her husband, began looking for a match that would not cause trouble for the French King, as the match with Madeleine had. Thus in 1533 her son married Maria Philiberta of Savoy (or, as she was known after the marriage, Marie Philiberte of Savoie). Their eldest two children, Marie and Catherine de Lorraine, were born in 1534 and became favourites of their grandmother.

Catherine was arranging a match between her daughter and a young son of her former betrothed during this time as well, seeing her daughter off in 1536 before she died. Marguerite de Lorraine would marry Edward, Duke of York (b.1518) and have 4 children: Henry of York (b.1537), Anne of York (b.1540), George of York (b.1542) and William of York (b.1545). All of her children would survive infancy and grow up to be quite healthy.

Catherine died in late 1536 of cancer, although some claimed the second wife of Francis I of France, her niece Eleanor of Austria, had had her aunt poisoned after she had refused a match between Eleanor’s only daughter (Isabelle de Valois, born in 1527) and the future Duke of Lorraine, citing the extreme age difference as a negative at the time. Eleanor would get her way in 1542, after Marie Philiberte’s death in 1540 of childbed fever. However, the couple would never have children.
 
Catherine of Aragon (b.1485: d.1536) m. Arthur Tudor, Prince of Wales (b.1486: d.1502) (a), Antoine, Duke of Lorraine (b.1489: d.1544) (b)

1b) Jeanne of Lorraine (b.1507: d.1507)

2b) Marie of Lorraine (b.1509: d.1510)

3b) Francis, Duke of Lorraine (b.1511: d.1550) m. Marie Philiberte of Savoy (b.1511: d.1540) (a), Isabelle de Valois (b.1527: d.1596) (b)

1a) Marie de Lorraine (b.1535)

2a) Catherine de Lorraine (b.1535)

3a) Louis, Duke of Lorraine (b.1538)

4a) Stillborn Daughter (c.1540)

5b) Miscarriage (c.1543)​

4b) Miscarriage (c.1512)

5b) Marguerite of Lorraine (b.1514: d.1599) m. Edward Tudor, Duke of York (b.1518: d.1546) (a)

1a) Henry of York (b.1537)

2a) Anne of York (b.1540)

3a) George of York (b.1542)

4a) William of York (b.1545)​

6b) Stillborn Daughter (c.1516)

7b) Miscarriage (c.1518)
Henry VIII of England (b.1491: d.1547) m. Maria Magdalena of Portugal (b.1501: d.1572)

1a) Henry IX of England (b.1517: d.1551) m. Maria Isabella of Castile (b.1516: d.1545) (a)

1a) Anne Tudor (b.1534)

2a) Miscarriage (c.1537)

3a) Edward VI of England (b.1541)

4a) Miscarriage (c.1544)​

2a) Edward Tudor, Duke of York (b.1518: d.1546) m. Marguerite of Lorraine (b.1514: d.1599) (a)

1a) Henry of York (b.1537)

2a) Anne of York (b.1540)

3a) George of York (b.1542)

4a) William of York (b.1545)
3a) Miscarriage (c.1520)

4a) Mary Tudor (b.1521: d.1524)

5a) Stillborn Son (c.1523)

6a) Elizabeth Tudor (b.1526: d.1540)

7a) Stillborn Girl (c.1528)

8a) Miscarriage (c.1529)

9a) George Tudor, Duke of Bedford (b.1532: d.1550)​
 
A Short Biography of Maria of Aragon, Duchess of Savoy (Part. 1)

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Maria of Aragon, Duchess of Savoy

Maria of Aragon lost her chance to be a Queen to a young English princess in the early 1500s and would grow to be grateful for that very quickly, for she was not a great stateswoman. Born in 1482 with a stillborn sister, she was yet another daughter in a family desperate for a second son that ultimately never received one. Thus, her marriage was the one with which her parents showed the least consideration. And in 1504, the Infanta was married to a suddenly available bachelor with no regard for any other match and then set upon a failed career as the regent of a chaotic period of history.

The first steps of her marriage were not unhappy. A successful pregnancy 10 months after the wedding in the form of Isabella of Savoy (b.1505) and a handsome, somewhat younger husband set everything right in the world, and with her dowry the couple were able to travel from her sister’s court in Toledo to Brussels, where they stayed for over a year as guests of her brother-in-law, who had actually named his most recent daughter after this sister-in-law. While there she met the previous Duchess, the perpetually mourning Margaret of Austria, who successfully persuade the Duchess Maria to allow her to raise Isabella for time, until the child had grown strong enough to travel to Chambéry, where the couple travelled to establish themselves in the Duchy which they ruled.

Maria, through many loans granted to her, began her rule by taking the fortress of Château de Chambéry, which she transformed into a great Palace that could also withstand sieges, as she knew by stories that the French would come for her family. The building began in 1507 and the renovations would not be complete until 1523, although Maria and Charles did move their growing family into habitable areas of the structure in 1511. However, for a time they travelled through to Turin, where Maria also began the building of a great residence in the form of “Palazzo del Piacere”, commonly referred to in Italian due to the Italian influences in the design. Finally, a third residence was renovated at Castle of Moncalieri, which Maria envisioned as a restored pleasure house, separate from the Palazzo del Piacere in that it was to be a place for her and her children to stay outside of the actual administration of Savoy. Château de Chambéry was fortified and a place for ruling, the Palazzo del Piacere was for impressing and entertaining people and the Castle of Moncalieri, for family life.

As the Duchess, Maria enjoyed much freedom, particularly in terms of her spending and movements. While she and her husband enjoyed an active sex life, illustrated by a visitor’s claim that:

“…and the Duke and Duchess are prone to continual caresses, as if in private…”

she did not prove pregnant a second time until 1508, giving birth late in the year to an heir in the form of Emmanuel Philibert of Savoy. The child, a strong and healthy child, would grow to be the centre of Maria’s life, particularly after a stillbirth in 1510 of a nearly full born girl left the couple distraught. Emmanuel was a robustly healthy child and in 1511, shortly after her second and only other daughter’s birth, Maria arranged a match between her son and the year elder Catherine of Austria, the youngest of the Austrian Princesses. However, fate would prevent the match and in 1513, after a second stillborn child, this one a son, Maria celebrated the betrothal of her son to the younger daughter of Louis XII, Renee of France.

Two more sons would follow as the Royal Family of Savoy grew. The first, a sickly lad named Charles after his father, born in 1515, would survive his first days despite worries to the contrary. The second was named Phillip after the now dead Philip, Duke of Burgundy and would be Maria’s last child at the age of 34. Then, in 1517, everything changed.

The death of Charles III, Duke of Savoy during a minor skirmish with French troops in May of 1517 was a blow to both French/Savoy relations. After the betrothal between the Princess Renee and the now Duke Emmanuel Philibert, it had seemed the alliance might bring peace to Europe. However, with this new development, it was Maria of Aragon standing at the helm of her husband’s legacy. And she found herself unequipped for the task.

Her first action was to break the news to her child, or at least those still in her control. Isabella had never actually left Brussels and Maria Philiberta had joined her Aunt Catherine in Lorraine, where she was being raised with her cousin Marguerite. But Maria had her sons, who all wept at the news of their father’s death. The eldest, Emmanuel, in particular looked to his mother for guidance. With this grief, Maria looked not to continued peace, but vengeance. She begged her sisters for troops so that she might be able to satisfy her need to attack those who had taken what was hers from her and in 1518 managed to make a fairly small attack against a French fortress, before Maria decided that war was not the way. However, the damage was not reversible and, for her actions, Maria set upon her path. And the first loss was her son, the Duke.

The young Duke, only 10 when he was removed from Maria’s custody and into the hands of Francis I of France, had been the centre of the Dowager Duchess’ universe since birth. And with him gone, she lost all control of her Duchy. Left with only two children, the Dowager Duchess moved out from the Château de Chambéry and into the recently finished Castle of Moncalieri, where she moved the Princes Charles and Philip. It was during this move that the prince Charles, barely 3 years old, fell ill with pneumonia. This would take his life despite his mother’s tender nursing and Maria would bury her son. Now left with only Philip, she began to look for his prospects.
 
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