Spanish Monarch with Isabella I
1452 – 1516
May I introduce from the Conquest of Liberty, Ferdinand II of Aragon.
To me, the story of Ferdinand II of Aragon is a story of royal succession as much as anything. His historian fans may argue, but most of the cool stuff in his life was when Isabella I was his queen.
You must wonder when kingdoms are at stake if the many dead bodies that are lying around are coincidental. Let me try to sum up Ferdinand’s life.
Ferdinand’s father was John II of Aragon and Navarre. At twenty-seven Ferdinand became king of Aragon. The Crown of Aragon that Ferdinand inherited in 1479 when he became king, included the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, Sardinia, and Sicily, as well as the Principality of Catalonia. You’d think with all that, he’d be busy enough. Nope,
With his marriage to Isabella I of Castile, he was also king of Castile and is considered de facto the first king of Spain, even though legally, Castile and Aragon remained two separate kingdoms for two hundred more years. That’s another story.
But following Isabella’s death the couple’s daughter Joanna became the queen of the Crown of Castile. So, Castile wasn’t ever really his. But lots of folks thought Joanna was touched in the head, so Ferdinand became the regent of Castile on his daughter’s behalf. But he was a widower, so in a treaty with France, he then married a young French noblewoman, Germaine de Foix. Now get a load of her ancestry – it illustrates the mess back then.
Ferdinand’s second wife, Germaine’s mother was Marie, sister of King Louis XII of France, her paternal grandmother was Queen Leonor of Navarra and older sister of Ferdinand. So, Ferdinand married his own great-niece. After Ferdinand died, the sad widow Germaine went on to marry three more times. I guess she was beautiful enough. She didn’t mourn his death too much.
Ferdinand was nominally succeeded by his daughter Joanna but not really. Quickly Joanna’s son Charles who was just a pre-teen child got dragged up into the spotlight. It didn’t hurt that Joanna died as did her husband Phillip before Ferdinand re-married. One more tidbit, Ferdinand was 54, and Germaine, his new wife was only 18. In The Conquest of Liberty, I couldn’t help but quote the historian Pedro Mártir de Anglería –
“Our [k]ing, if he does not rid himself of his appetites, will soon give his soul to the [C]reator and his body to the earth; he is already in the 63rd year of his life and does not allow his wife to separate from him and she is not enough for him, at least in his desire.”
This is enough to get those who love Ferdinand upset and those who don’t care to see how I may or may not cast a historical figure incompletely. Sorry.
