One of the most tragic wives of King Henry VIII was his first wife Catherine of Aragon,
who despite being married to the infamous Tudor Monarch for the longest, was shunned
and dumped out of her house and marriage with shocking brutality.
She was banned from seeing her daughter, the future Mary I all because the King was obsessed
with Anne Boleyn and his quest to divorce and annul his marriage with Catherine.
The Tudor Monarch treated Catherine awfully, and she died practically under house arrest
living out her final years in complete misery and solitude.
But she had a sister who became the nominal Queen of Castile and Queen of Aragon who despite
being incredibly powerful in Spain became known in history as Joanna the Mad.
But what is the story behind the madness of Catherine of Aragon’s sister?
Joanna was born inside of Toledo in Castile, and was the third child and second daughter
of Isabella of Castle and Ferdinand of Aragon.
She was known to have had strawberry blonde hair, brown eyes and fair skin, and she had
a number of siblings including Isabella the future Queen of Portugal, Maria and also Catherine
of Aragon who later became the Queen of England.
She was raised in a royal manner meaning that she received the best education that was befitting
a girl of her royal status.
It was hoped that later she would marry a man who would secure an alliance between her
family and another European dynasty, and she was raised in this way.
She was not expect to have become an heiress to the throne of Castile or Aragon, but she
later did inherit both through deaths of others.
Her education consisted of a wide range of topics including history, languages and writing,
and she read well.
She benefitted from the stewardship of many of Spain’s greatest writers and teachers
at the time, and she also received lessons in court etiquette, dancing and horse riding,
as well as sewing and music.
She did rebel against her mother and her mother’s strict catholicism as a young girl, and showed
signs of religious debate.
Her mother had established the brutal Spanish Inquisition, the regime that executed and
tortured violently many people who were suspected of being heretics and those who questioned
religion.
Joanna was terrified of her mother because of this.
It’s believed though that Joanna was tortured and subjected to punishment for her religious
skepticism, and was forced to undergo the rope.
This was where someone was suspended by a rope with weights attached to the feet, which
could cause immense pain and also death.
The Queen said that she would not allowed her country to be polluted with heretics,
and the defiance of her child in the fact of her mother and the Catholic monarchs would
not be tolerated.
But when Joanna was 16, she was betrothed to the 18 year old Phillip of Flanders, also
known as Phillip the Handsome.
His parents were the Holy Roman Emperor and the Duchess of Burgundy, and a marriage brought
together the Habsburgs are the Trastamaras royal families.
She travelled to Flanders, and then the formal marriage took place on the 20th October 1496
near to Brussels, and throughout her marriage she have birth to 6 children, and all of these
went on to be emperors or Queens.
However her brother John, and his daughter both died, along with Joanna’s older sister
and Isabella’s son Miguel made Joanna the heiress to the Spanish Kingdoms.
She had never intended to have been the heiress to these, but through the deaths of her older
siblings and their heirs she secured this.
She was recognised as the heiress to the Castilian throne in 1502, and her husband Phillip was
the Consort.
She was named the Princess, and important Spanish governors swore an oath to her.
Following the death of her mother, Joanna became the Queen regnant of Castile, and her
husband Phillip greatly also wanted to be King.
Her father was not happy with this and he refused to be pushed aside.
Her father even remarried to try and produce a new heir to the throne, but this only made
people support Joanna and Phillip more.
The pair had been living in the Low Countries for some time, and Phillip considered taking
up arms and going to war with Ferdinand of Aragon, Joanna’s father.
However to many people’s surprise, Ferdinand did hand over the government of Castile to
his ‘most beloved children,’ and retired to Aragon.
However Phillip and Ferdinand signed a secret treaty, claiming that Joanna’s ‘infirmities
and sufferings,’ made her incapable of ruling.
What is meant by this, is that many believe that Joanna of Castile, was mad and suffered
throughout her life with serious psychological illness and mental health problems.
As a young woman and child, it was said that she was highly intelligent, and historians
have debated whether she was actually mad or not.
She may have been portrayed as mad by her husband Phillip and by her Father so that
they could try to get her declared incompetent and unfit to rule as Queen, wishing to take
power themselves.
She was certainly a woman who suffered throughout her life.
Many of her siblings whom she was close to died suddenly, and she was surrounded by significant
amounts of tragedy and misfortune.
The succession of the deaths didn’t give Joanna time to take in what had happened,
and along with this she quickly found herself as the heir to the throne of Castile.
In 1504, Joanna had started to display signs of mental instability when her mother was
stricken with a fever.
She didn’t sleep or eat whilst her mother was ill, and regularly did this also.
She also at one time wished greatly to see her Husband in Flanders, but during this journey
she would have had to pass through France and Spain and France were at war at the time.
Joanna was prone to outbursts, and one of her most shocking displays of mental instability
occurred in September 1506.
Her husband Philip had died following a 5 day illness and battle with typhoid fever.
Rumours circulated that his father in law had him poisoned, and at the time Joanna was
pregnant with a sixth child.
Following learning of his death, she refused to part with the remains of her dead husband
for a long amount of time.
She remained with them closely and travelled with her husbands body from Burgos to Granada
where he was buried.
This was a distance of 668 kilometres and took many days to get there.
During the journey she was known for constantly opening the casket, and kissing and embracing
her dead husband’s body.
Whilst Philip was alive she was also known for flying into jealous fits of rage involving
her husband’s mistresses, and she even attacked one of them physically.
Many historians believe that she may have suffered from depression, psychosis or even
schizophrenia which may have been inherited.
But others have said she was unfairly said to be mad by her father and husband in the
hope that her instability would make her unfit to rule.
This was the case also as following her husband’s death, the country fell into disorder and
she later had to meet with her father to yield power back to him.
With this, she became a Queen in all but name, and her father was the King again and acted
like this.
Following this, Ferdinand her father had her confined to the royal palace and all her faithful
servants were dismissed.
When her son Charles I ruled Aragon and Castille, Joanna was forced again into confinement spending
the rest of her life inside the Royal Palace.
She became obsessed with the thought that some of the nuns that were caring for her
were trying to kill her, and she became unable to feed herself, sleep, wash herself and change
clothes.
Her son stated that, ‘It seems to me that the best and most suitable thing for you to
do is make sure that no person speaks with Her Majesty, for no good could come from it.’
Joanna of Castile died on the 12th April 1555 at the age of 75.
She was buried alongside her parents and also her husband.
The claims regarding her mental health are disputed, but we know that throughout her
life she did display some rather strange episodes of behaviour such as hanging on to her husbands
dead body for as long as she could.
She refused to bury her husband for a considerable amount of time, and she seems to have been
a troubled woman who was never trained or prepared to become a Queen or a ruler.
In a country filled with dominating personalities involving her husband and father, she seemed
to have sank.
Thanks for watching
To support our channel, please subscribe to her remarkable history.