The sudden death of Queen Isabella I of Castile’s only son, John, Prince of Asturias, and the subsequent stillbirth of his daughter made Isabella’s namesake eldest daughter the new heiress presumptive.
The younger Isabella married Afonso, Prince of Portugal, in 1491, but he died in a horse-riding accident a few months later. After returning home to her parents, she eventually married Manuel I, King of Portugal, in 1497.
By the time Manuel and Isabella returned to Castile to be sworn in as heirs to Castile in August 1498, she was pregnant. This was a relief for the Aragonese, who would have preferred a man to inherit. If Isabella had a son, he would inherit everything. While at Zaragoza to discuss this matter, Isabella went into labour and gave birth to a son on 23 August 1498.
However, she was still very malnourished from all the fasting she had done during her mourning, and she died within an hour of giving birth. A historian at court wrote to the Archbishop of Braga, “The mother [Queen Isabella] was large, while the daughter [Isabella] was so consumed by her thinness that she did not have the strength to resist the birth… Scarcely had the child emerged from her uterus than the mother’s spirit was extinguished… Despite this, let’s fix it so that this tragic tale ends with a (more) musical refrain. There is compensation for so much misfortune, an important lightener to such a deep pain: she gave birth to a son.”1
Isabella asked to be buried dressed as a nun and to be interred at the Convent of Santa Isabel in Toledo. Queen Isabella held her daughter in her arms as she died.2 Isabella had reportedly foreseen her death in childbirth, and “she made sure that the final communion was well prepared and continually made priests come to her so that she could confess. And if, by mistake, she made some error, she would plead, weeping on her knees, to be given absolution.”3
Isabella had requested that if she gave birth to a girl, she would be named Ana, and if it was a boy, it should be Miguel. And so the little boy became Miguel de la Paz. He was granted Aragonese succession rights on top of the rights he had in Castile and Portugal. He was a sickly child, and Manuel left him in the care of Queen Isabella when he returned to Portugal.
In July 1499, Queen Isabella travelled to the Alhambra in Granada, taking with her little Miguel and her two remaining daughters, Maria and Catherine. She found solace in the little boy’s presence as “with the child’s birth, whatever the state of his health, all debate over primogeniture is over.”4 She kept Miguel close, but he remained a sickly child.
On 19 July 1500, Queen Isabella held her young grandson as he, too, died. He was just 22 months old. Isabella’s grief was so great that one observer wrote, “So great grief has swept over our most Christian princes and the whole court that no one has been able as yet to approach or even address the Queen. For the King and Queen are bowed down with great distress, as is no wonder since within so brief a time they have lost three renowned princes, all legitimate heirs.”5
The new heiress was Isabella’s second daughter, Joanna.
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