Once upon a time in Spain there was a very beautiful princess, daughter of some Christian kings who fought against the Moors to unify their kingdom, who married the most beautiful European prince... No, the story of that princess was not a fairy tale . The princess was Joanna, born in 1479, the third daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. The only real thing is that she fell madly in love with a Flemish prince, Philip, from the House of Habsburg, Count of Flanders, Luxembourg and Burgundy, among other titles he would inherit, who was immortalized by history as Philip the Handsome.
The fairytale wedding of Joanna and Philip the Handsome took place on October 20, 1496, in Lier, a city in Flanders (now Belgium). The union was a political alliance meant to strengthen the bond between Spain and the House of Austria and expand their influence in Europe.
The encounter between Joanna and Philip was passionate. It is said that Joanna fell in love with Philip upon seeing his portrait before their meeting and that, upon meeting, both were immediately attracted to each other. The wedding ceremony was an event filled with pomp and circumstance, with numerous royal and European noble guests.
Unfortunately, the initial love that Philip displayed for Joanna was not the fairytale everyone had hoped for. Although the couple had six children, the marriage was affected by Philip's infidelities and the growing political animosity between the Catholic Monarchs and the Austrian House. Joanna, facing her husband's betrayal, began to suffer from extreme jealousy and show signs of emotional instability.
After the deaths of her older siblings, Juan and Isabel, and Isabel's son, the Portuguese infant Miguel de Paz, Joanna became first in line to the throne of the Kingdom of Castile, which together with the Kingdom of Aragon would form the foundations of modern Spain. While Isabella I acknowledged her daughter Joanna as the rightful heir to the Kingdom of Castile in her lifetime, she followed the advice, perhaps of her husband Ferdinand II, and established that Joanna's husband, Philip the Handsome, would only be recognized as king consort, without the right to govern the kingdom.
At the same time, the queen made it clear that if Joanna were incapable of governing the kingdom, Ferdinand II would rule until Joanna and Philip's eldest son, Charles, reached the necessary age to govern.
Unintentionally, Joanna's mother had condemned her daughter to a life of subjugation and captivity, first by her husband, then by her father, and later by her son Charles I of Spain and V of the Holy Roman Empire.
Philip the Handsome, seeking to gain full control of the Kingdom of Castile, spread rumors that his wife was unstable and incapable of ruling, requesting the Courts of Valladolid to declare her unfit to govern the kingdom. However, the Courts of Valladolid refused to declare her incapacitated. The main reason the Courts of Valladolid did not acknowledge Joanna's madness was the lack of convincing evidence of her mental incapacity. Despite rumors and stories about her erratic behavior, the Courts did not find sufficient evidence to justify removing the queen from her throne. Additionally, the Courts' refusal to declare her incapable may have been influenced by the desire to protect Castile's sovereignty. Declaring Joanna unfit would have allowed her father, Ferdinand, king of Aragon, or her husband, Philip, a Habsburg, to take control of Castile, which could have led to the loss of the kingdom's independence in the face of two foreign royal families.
Despite this, Joanna's reputation as the woman who lost her sanity for love has endured for centuries. The hidden side of this story is that her father, Fernando II, sought to maintain control of Castile, and continue with his project of unifying the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, while Philip, her husband, wanted to become king of Castile. For both of them, declaring Joanna crazy was just one more step in her rise to power.
However, this game of thrones between Philip the Handsome and Ferdinand II of Aragon, had a surprising, or suspicious outcome, Philip died suddenly in 1506 in Burgos, he was 28 years old. Many to this day consider that his father-in-law killed his son-in-law, preventing with his death Philip from completely ruling Castile, and he would continue as regent.
Philip's funeral took place in Burgos, where his body was embalmed and placed in a lead coffin, being buried in the Cartuja de Miraflores, a few kilometers from Burgos. Soon after, his body was exhumed and transferred in a carriage, in a bizarre pilgrimage, through Spain. In each town through which they crossed, the nobles and the clergy had to watch over the body of their beloved Philip. Some witnesses say that Joanna opened the coffin on many occasions to see the face of her deceased husband and make sure that no one had desecrated it. Other testimonies assert that the queen kissed the corpse of her lover.
This wandering journey of the corpse of Philip the Handsome lasted several months, it is the strangest and most macabre episode in the life of Joanna the Mad. Her obsession with the body of her husband and her refusal to allow her final burial were used by her political enemies to cement her reputation as a queen crazed with love and mourning. Fernando II interrupted that macabre trip, forcibly transferring the queen to Tordesillas, to a prison castle, and deposited the body of his son-in-law in the Santa Clara de Tordesillas convent, where it remained until 1525, when Carlos I, son of Philip and Joanna, I buried him in the Royal Chapel of Granada.
But was Joanna the Mad really crazy? Recent research has led historians to reassess his history, suggesting that his mental health problems may have been deliberately exaggerated or even fabricated by his close family to prevent him from ruling Castile, and subsequently, on his father's death, the kingdoms he ruled. they would understand modern Spain.
Undoubtedly, Joanna's life was marked by tragedy, and the ambition of her family. Her father had her imprisoned in the Castillo de Tordesillas to maintain the regency of Castilla. Later, when her son, on the death of Fernando II, arrives in the peninsula, seeking to be recognized by the courts as King of Castile and Aragon, the nobles refuse to recognize him as the only king, keeping Joanna as queen. This fact sentences the fate of Joanna, condemned to continue being a royal prisoner, this time of her son, in Tordesillas.
Joanna lived her entire life under the domination of her family, sheltered in a castle, with all the comforts, but a prisoner. Her only consolation was staying with her last daughter, Catalina, born shortly after the death of Philip the Handsome, in that seclusion. Not for long, when Catalina was 18 years old, she was separated from her mother, her brother, already absolute king of Spain, arranged her marriage with Juan III of Portugal, in 1525, leaving Joanna in solitude until his death on the 12th of April 1555.
