Queen of Castile

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6626, 12 August 1931, Page 10

Queen of Castile

Who: QUEEN ISABELLA. Where: Spain. When: Fifteenth to sixteenth centuries. Why famous: Queen of Castile and Leon. Until she was 12 she lived and studied quietly with her mother; then began that urging of political ambitions which centered a'bout her marriago. But in an era when royal princesses married as their elders decreed, Isabella refused several suitors. In the end, she accepted the hand of Ferdinand, Prince of Aragon; they were married at' Valladolid in October, 1469. upon the passing of her brother, Isabella was declared Queen of Castile and Leon in her own right. Ferdinand and Isabella, husband and wife and joint rulers of two mighty provinces of Spain, often held separate courts and acted as independent sovereigns; yet they united in the general administration of their affairs of their realms, acts of sovereignty requiring both their signatures. Isabella consented reluctantly to the establishment of the institution of the Inquisition, believing it would further the cause of Roman Catholicism, which was dear to her. In the zeal of her faith, too, she laboured with Ferdinand in the endeavour to rid Spain of the alien Moors, riding sometimes at the head of her own troops. She was rewarded by the Moorish surrender of Granada in 1492. From Teligious motives, also, Isabella befriended the poor navigator, Christopher Columbus, he having professed a desire to spread the Christian faith among the heathen. So, when the King declared that the public treasury had been drained by the late wars and would not warrant a loan to Columbus, Isabella with decision and dispatch offered her jewels. The union of Castile and Aragon, together with' the tremendous influx of gold from the New World resulting from the voyages of the Spanish discoverers and explorers, made Spain chief military power in Europe throughout the succeeding 100 years.