The Year of Isabella I of Castile – The death of Isabella’s mother

On 15 August 1496, Queen Isabella I of Castile’s mother, Isabella of Portugal, died at Arévalo.

The elder Isabella was born sometime in 1428 as the daughter of John, Constable of Portugal, the fourth son of King John I of Portugal, and his half-niece, Isabel of Barcelos. She married King John II of Castile on 22 July 1447, who had previously been married to Maria of Aragon. She was around 19 years old while he was 42. He also had one surviving son, the future King Henry IV of Castile.

At the time, Isabella was described as beautiful, sweet-natured and demure. The poet Íñigo López de Mendoza described her as a “genteel person and face” worthy of a Giotto fresco.¹ John was infatuated with her, and on 22 April 1451, she gave birth to her namesake daughter, Isabella. A son named Alfonso followed on 17 November 1453.

Isabella’s genteel personality did not stop her from entering politics. One observer wrote, “The young lady found opportunities to counsel him in secret, which was good for both the king’s own honour and the security of the throne.”² She also managed to bring about the downfall of one of the King’s favourites, Alvaro de Luna. Isabella was widowed on 20 July 1454, and he was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry.

Isabella and her two young children moved to Arévalo, where she reportedly “shut herself in a dark room, condemning herself to silence.” She was apparently showing signs of “growing madness.”³ Her “madness” likely had its origins in postpartum depression as she had not been the same since the younger Isabella’s birth after which she reportedly launched into a “profunda tristeza”⁴ and would speak to no one but her husband.⁵

Her mental health did not improve when her children were asked to come to court in 1461. The younger Isabella later wrote, “Alfonso and I, who were just children at the time, were inhumanely and forcibly torn from our mother’s arms and taken into Queen Juana (Joan)’s power.”⁶ The elder Isabella remained behind at Arévalo with her own mother, Isabel, who was “a notable woman of great counsel” and a “great help and consolation to her daughter.”⁷ Isabel died on 26 October 1466.

The younger Isabella and Alfonso returned to Arévalo in 1467 after Alfonso had become the face of the rebellion in the face of the possible illegitimacy of King Henry’s daughter, Joanna. They celebrated Alfonso’s 14th birthday with the three of them. They stayed there until they were forced to flee due to an outbreak of the plague at the end of June 1468. Alfonso died not much later at the age of 14, and the younger Isabella became the new face of the rebellion. The younger Isabella continued to visit her mother once or twice a year after she eventually became Queen, but the elder Isabella was mostly a recluse.

The elder Isabella died on 15 August 1496, just as her granddaughter Joanna was preparing to leave for Flanders. Although the elder Isabella had been “worn out and enfeebled by age”, the younger Isabella was hit hard by the news of her mother’s death.⁸ She was only sick for a few days before her death.⁹

The younger Isabella said goodbye to her daughter and immediately turned her attention to arranging her mother’s funeral procession and burial. She wanted to ensure her mother was “carried honourably as became a Queen.”¹⁰

Queen Isabella ordered her mother’s body to be transferred to the Carthusian monastery near Burgos, “where she laid her to rest near her father King Juan [John] and her brother Alfonso, who had died so young himself.”¹⁰

1. Isabella of Castile by Gilet Tremlett p.14
2. Isabella of Castile by Gilet Tremlett p.15
3. Isabella of Castile by Gilet Tremlett p.19
4. Deep sadness
5. The Royal Facts of Life: Biology and Politics in Sixteenth-Century Europe by Mark Hansen p.139
6. Isabella of Castile: Europe’s First Great Queen by Giles Tremlett p.25
7. Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kirstin Downey p.28
8. Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kirstin Downey p.321
9. Cañas Gálvez, Francisco de Paula (2017). «¿El ocaso de una reina? Gobierno, administración patrimonial, muerte y exequias de Isabel de Portugal (1454-1496)». Anuario de Derecho Español (87): 9-54
10. Isabella: The Warrior Queen by Kirstin Downey p.322