Queen Isabella Essay Research Paper Queen IsabellaQueen

Queen Isabella Essay, Research Paper

Queen IsabellaQueen Isabella Live in midevil times, or in, “The Dark Ages,” as some referred toit. She lived in a time when the majority of the population was catholic, and shedid her best to see to it that those who weren’t a part of that majority, became apart. The queen was born on April 22, 1451. She was born in Madrigal, Castile,which is why she later became know as Queen Isabella of Castile. Her father wasJohn II of Castile and her mother was Isabella of Portugal. Her marriage was a politically arranged marriage. What I mean by this isthat it wasn’t a marriage where guy meets girl and they fall in love, it means thatthey were wedded for certain political reasons, sometimes against their will. Isabella was fortunate enough to actually fall in love with her husband, manypolitically arranged marriages where arranged by the couple’s father, and marriedagainst there will because they could not stand one another. This was not the casein queen Isabella’s situation. She was married to Ferdinand II of Argon in Octoberof 1469 in Segovia. Their marriage was intended to unify the two countries,Castile and Argon. The odd part about this was that Isabella almost forfeited herrights to the throne by marrying Ferdinand. It all started when Louis XI of France, a very clever king, made separatetreaties with both Castile and Argon in hope of someday gaining control of a placecalled Catalonia. Louis realized that Isabella was going to become heir to thethrone and so if she married Ferdinand, the rulers of the two countries that hemade treaties with might join forces against him. Not only that, but they mightdestroy his dream of taking over Catalonia. So what Louis figured he would dowas see to it that they never became married, and that would solve all of hisproblems. He did this by strongly urging King Henry Iv of Castile, the current onein the throne, Isabella’s brother and, most importantly, the one who would choosethe heir to the throne when he died, to reject his permission for Isabella to marryFerdinand. However, even though he rejected them his permission, they stillmarried. Now Louis was becoming very nervous that now they were married andthey were only one step away of becoming king and queen. Becoming verydesperate, he now came back to king Henry and reminded them that they marriedagainst his will, and should therefore forfeited their rights to the throne. He addedthat he should consider the rights of Henry’s daughter, Juana la Beltraneja, be ofbecoming queen. Louis made his proposal to Henry even more tempting byoffering the same brother of Louis, that Isabella had rejected earlier, as a husbandfor Juana. Henry agreed that Isabella had forfeited her rights to the throne by marryingagainst his will, however, making a big mistake, he never actually said that Juanawas going to be the new heir to the throne. Well, this cause and enormous uproar throughout Castile about who thenext queen should be, Isabella or Juana. As a part of the uproar, old feuds wererevived, armies were raised, towns were burned down, And crops were destroyed. Isabella started campaigning throughout Castile in hope that a personal appearancewould create enthusiasm and support for her. Louis, again being the clever kingthat he is, he took advantage of this situation to take Roussillon and Cerdagne(located in the northeast pyrenees of Argon) from Argon while this civil war wasgoing on in Castile. Because of this, Ferdinand couldn’t help rally up support forIsabella because he was busy with his father fighting France for the possession ofRoussillon and Cerdagne. When King Henry died in 1474, like I said before, without specifying theheir to the throne, Isabella immediately had herself proclaimed Queen of Castile inSegovia. Once queen, the cortes met in Segovia to swear allegiance to her. Ferdinand immediately rushed over to be at her side as king consort. Once Queen, she and Ferdinand accomplished and took part in many smallthings, as well as many large things such as the Conquest of Granada. In 1478,they established the Spanish Inquisition. The Inquisition was intended stop all

unorthodox opinion towards Spain and strengthen the Church. It was also used toeither expel, or kill, all Moors and Jews depending upon whether they agreed toconvert, leave the country, or both. They tried to unify the country by persuadingthe pope to revive the inquisition and put it under their control. However, theSpanish Inquisition really turned out to be a bad idea because while they obtainedreligious uniformity, they also lost most, if not all, of their best artisans andbusinessmen. Their expulsion accentuated the economic weakness of Spain. In the conquest of Granada in 1492, Isabella hoped for a few small Islandsto conquer, instead she received vast kingdoms that could be conquered andmanaged by a few thousand soldiers and officials. The conquest, however, wasvery expensive, so the queen had to do a lot of collecting money and taxes tosupport it. Once she ran out of tax money, she sent letters to all of the cities,villages, knights, ladies, merchants, and other asking them for loans to support thewar. Believe it or not, each and every one of them did. Then once she used up allof that money, she again sent out letters, this time apologizing, but again asking forloans to support the war. And again the people sent in their money. The reasonthat they did this without the slightest bit of hesitatio