The Year of Isabella I of Castile – The wedding of Ferdinand and Isabella

On 14 October 1469, the formal betrothal between Isabella and Ferdinand had taken place and the marriage agreement and the papal dispensation had been read aloud by the archbishop. This papal dispensation was actually a fake – supposedly issued by an earlier pope, Pius II. The papal nuncio’s silence had been bought with Aragonese gold.¹

On 19 October, Isabella and Ferdinand were formally married in the great hall of the Palacio de los Vivero in the city of Valladolid. They had very little money and had to borrow to meet the expenses of the wedding.

The wedding ceremony was followed by a nuptial mass, which was observed by up to 2,000 people. Ferdinand promised to honour the customs, laws, and privileges of Castiles and reiterated the Capitulaciones de Cervera.

The marriage was consummated that very night, and the bloodstained sheets were proudly displayed to the waiting crowds. Seven days of celebrations in Valladolid followed.

Ferdinand wrote to the grandees of Valencia that “there was a high nuptial mass. And last night, in service to God, we consummated our marriage.”²

Just a few days later, they jointly wrote a letter to King Henry describing themselves as “truthful younger siblings and obedient children” who wanted to bring “harmony and peace” to Castile. They agreed that they ” should have waited until seeing your Highness’s consent and the vows and counsels of all the prelates and great men of all these kingdoms…” but “were it necessary to wait for everyone’s agreement and consent, this would be very difficult to obtain or else so much time would have passed that in these realms great danger would arise because of the absence of children to continue the succession.”³

King Henry stayed silent for a long time. He had dismissed Ferdinand and Isabella’s messengers without responding. A few weeks later, he publicly denounced their wedding as invalid because of the false papal dispensation.

When Isabella became pregnant the following year, they once again wrote to King Henry, and they received the diplomatic response that he would need to consult with his advisers. Meanwhile, Henry was slowly stripping her of the privileges he had granted her. She was being slowly disinherited. It would be a while before she returned to his favour.

1. The real papal dispensation was eventually signed by Pope Sixtus IV by December 1471.
2. Isabella of Castile, The First Renaissance Queen by Nancy Rubin Stuart p.84
3. Isabella of Castile, The First Renaissance Queen by Nancy Rubin Stuart p.85-86