Isabella of Austria was born on 18 July 1501 as the daughter of the future Queen Joanna of Castile and King Philip I of Castile. She was their third child, following Eleanor (born 1498 – later Queen of Portugal and France) and Charles (born 1500 – later Holy Roman Emperor). She would have three younger siblings as well: Ferdinand (born 1503 – later Holy Roman Emperor), Mary (born 1505 – later Queen of Hungary) and Catherine (born 1507 – later Queen of Portugal).
Isabella was born in Brussels, where her parents were living at the time. She was baptised in the Cathedral of Brussels in honour of her grandmother, Queen Isabella I of Castile. Following Isabella’s birth, Joanna began to prepare for her journey to Castile to be sworn in as its heiress following the deaths of her brother John, her elder sister Isabella and Isabella’s son Miguel de la Paz. Joanna and Philip left Flanders in November 1501, leaving their three young children in the care of their paternal step-grandmother, Margaret of York. The children’s aya or governess was Anne of Burgundy, an illegitimate daughter of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. Margaret took the children to Mechelen.
Joanna fell pregnant again while in Castile, and so she remained behind after being sworn in as Princess of Asturias while Philip returned home to Flanders. He arrived in Flanders in November 1503. Joanna gave birth to Ferdinand on 10 March 1503 at Alcalá de Henares. In 1504, Joanna finally received permission to leave Castile to rejoin her husband and children. She left Ferdinand in the care of her parents. At this time, Joanna was reportedly already showing signs of mental illness, although the extent of this has been under debate. Nevertheless, she gave birth to a daughter named Mary in Brussels in 1505. By then, her mother had died, and Joanna became the Queen regnant of Castile in 1504.
In January 1506, Joanna and Philip again left for Castile, and a storm forced them to the English coast, which allowed Joanna to meet up with her sister Catherine, who had been married to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and widowed just months later. She would marry King Henry VIII in 1509. Once again, the children were left behind in Flanders, now in the care of Margaret of Austria, Philip’s sister, as Margaret of York had died in November 1503.
Isabella would never see her parents again. Philip died suddenly in September 1506, and Joanna would never return to Flanders. She would also never meet her sister, Catherine, who was born in Castile in 1507. Under the care of her aunt Margaret, Isabella, Charles, and Eleanor received the best possible education one could imagine. Margaret of Austria also became Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1507.
Besides an education, Margaret instilled a love of music in the siblings, and Isabella learned to play a number of instruments, such as the flute. Their religious education was entrusted to Pierre Dalma and Jean de Lampier. From 1509, they were also tutored by Adrian of Utrecht, the future Pope Adrian VI. Isabella was confirmed in 1508 when she was only seven years old. Isabella became fluent in French, Latin, Spanish and Flemish. She also knew some German.
Several suitors were considered for the young Isabella, from the son of the King of Navarre to the Duke of Guelders. Finally, her grandfather Maximilian and aunt Margaret settled on King Christian II of Denmark to extend the Habsburgs’ influence into northern Europe. Her elder sister Eleanor may have seemed the more obvious choice, but Maximilian wanted to keep her in reserve for a better offer. King Christian was 20 years older than Isabella, and his road to the Danish crown had been anything but easy. He was eventually crowned King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden.
Negotiations for the match took place in early 1514, and the marriage contract was signed in April 1514. The later Treaty of Brussels, which also included the marriage, was signed on 5 June 1514. On 11 June 1514, as Christian was being crowned King of Denmark and Norway, the proxy wedding took place in the palace in Brussels. Isabella was led to the altar by her brother Charles, where Mogens Gjø, a member of the Danish Council of State, stood in for the groom. The ceremony was led by the Bishop of Cambrai. A ceremonial bedding was then performed, where both lay in bed fully clothed.
While the Danish delegation left not much later, Isabella remained in Flanders for a bit longer to attend her brother Charles’s coming-of-age celebration on 6 January 1515. Rumours were already flying that Isabella refused to leave because Christian refused to leave his mistress. In June 1515, the Danish delegation returned to Flanders to retrieve Isabella and bring her to her new home. On 16 July 1515, Isabella left from the port of Veere and she celebrated her 14th birthday shortly before leaving. Finally, on 9 August, the ship docked in Hvidore, and from there, she travelled in another boat to Copenhagen.1
Upon her arrival, she wrote to her aunt, “I must tell you that we landed here last Saturday, after having been in great peril and distress at sea for the last ten days. But God kept me from harm, for which I am very thankful.[…]Madame, if I could choose for myself I should be with you now; for to be parted from you is the most grievous thing in the world to me, and the more so as I do not know when there is any hope of seeing you again. So I can only beg you, my dearest aunt and mother, to keep me in your heart, and tell me if there is anything that you wish me to do, and you shall always be obeyed, God helping me. That He may give you a long and happy life is the prayer of your humble and dutiful niece.”2
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