Queen Isabella was born in 1451, in Madrigal de Las atlas, Spain, and died April 22, 1504. She was the Queen of Castile and Aragon, and was the daughter of John II, King of Castile, by his second wife, Isabella of Portugal. Being only a little more than three years of age when her father died {1445}, she was brought up carefully and overly protected by her mother until her thirteenth year. Her brother King Henery IV then took her together with her younger brother and older sister. When Isabella was very small, they thought of her little brother, Alfonso, who died of poison. It is believed that on July 5, 1468, they sought to obtain the crown for the infant Isabella, rejecting the kings presumptive daughter, Joan, who was called “La Beltra Neigh” on the supposition that Don Beltran was her real father.
Isabella I (1451-1504), queen of Castile, called la Católica ("the Catholic"), and a sponsor of the voyages of Christopher Columbus. She was the daughter of John II of Castile and León by his second wife, Isabella of Portugal. In 1469 Princess Isabella married Ferdinand of Aragón, known also as Ferdinand V, the Catholic. On the death of her brother, Henry IV, Isabella and Ferdinand jointly succeeded (1474) to the throne of Castile and León. Isabella's succession was contested, however, by Alfonso V of Portugal, who supported the claim of Henry's daughter Juana la Beltraneja. Alfonso attacked Castile and León but was defeated by the Castilian army in 1476. Three years later Ferdinand succeeded to the throne of Aragón. This union of the two main Spanish kingdoms laid the foundation of Spain's future greatness. They had five children, including Catherine of Aragon, the first wife of Henry VIII of England, and Joanna the Mad, who was the mother of Charles V, king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. Isabella and her husband (known together as "the Catholic kings") are remembered for initiating the Inquisition in 1478, for completing the reconquest of Spain from the Moors and for their ruthless expulsion of the Spanish Jews, both in 1492. That same year they sponsored Christopher Columbus's voyage, which led to the creation of the overseas Spanish colonial empire, bringing great wealth and power to Spain.
She was known as a friend of Christopher Columbus. Following the ten-year war with Granada, Ferdinand and Isabella financed the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus in his exploration of a trade route to the East. Isabella was one of the few people who saw merit in the plan of Christopher Columbus to find the Indies by sailing west. Their support of Columbus gave Spain its first claim to America. This led to the growth of the Spanish Empire. In 1479 John II of Aragon arranged a marriage between his son Ferdinand and daughter of John II of Castile, Isabella. The union was intended to unite the Eastern and Western kingdoms of Spain in response to the French aggression in northern Spain. The result of this political union allowed Spain to grow into a dominant power in Europe and in the New World. She married Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469. The marriage led to the union of Spain’s largest kingdoms, Castile of Aragon, in 1479. The union laid the foundations for Spain’s future greatness. After Ferdinand and Isabella’s marriage, their son Ferdinand was born on March 10, 1452. The Castilian Nobles had been constantly increasing in power during the repeated minorities through which the crown had passed, and had taken advantage of the weakness of kings like Henery II and John II. At this period they had reached the point completely stripping through of its authority. As it went on, they still refused the powers of the Nobles. They availed themselves of Henery IV’s incredible ignorance and of the scandoulous relations between Joan of Portugal, his second wife, and his favorite, Beltran de la Cuveu. They were defeated at the Almedo, and deprived of their leader. Isabella was also known to school children as the Queen who funded Columbus’s voyages to the New World.
Queen Isabella, by her example, led the way in fostering the love of study, and in many respects her Court recalls that of Charlemagne. When she was already a grown woman she devoted herself to the study of Latin, and became an eager collector of books, of which she possessed a great number. Her Castilian has been ranked as a standard of the language by the Spanish Royal Academy. She was extremely solicitous for the education of her five children (Isabella, John, Joan, Maria, and Catherine), and in order to educate Prince John with ten other boys, she formed in her palace a school similar to the Palatine School of the Carlovingians. Her daughters, too, attained to a degree of education higher than was usual at that epoch, and they so combined with their learning the industries peculiarly appropriate to their sex, that Ferdinand the Catholic could imitate Charlemagne in using no article of clothing that had not been spun or sewn by his consort and his daughters. This example of the queen, a model of virtue, piety, and domestic economy, who mended one doublet for her husband the king as often as seven times, exercised a great moral influence on the nobility in discouraging inordinate luxury and vain pastimes. It also fostered learning not only in the universities and among the nobles, but also among women. Some of the latter distinguished themselves by their intellectual attainments: Beatriz Galinda, called la Latina, Lucia Medrano, and Francisca Nebrija, the Princess Joan and the Princess Catherine (who afterwards became Queen of England), Isabella Vergara, and others who reached great proficiency in philosophy, Latin, and mathematics, and became qualified to fill professional chairs in the universities of Alcalá and Salamanca.
By 1479 both
Ferdinand and Isabella had claimed their royal titles and together won a war
against Alfonso V of Portugal. By outlawing all religions except Catholicism,
they became known as the “ Catholicism Monarchs.” They even received from
the Pope the right to appoint all high church officials. Unfortunately, their
religious reforms exploited the cruelty of the Spanish Inquisition in an effort
to enforce uniformity within the church. This caused the exile, torture, and
death of many Jews, Moors, and other groups in Spain that were deemed heretical.
Soon after that Isabella died
on November 26,1504, in Medina Del Campo. Her death and the earlier
deaths of two elder children left the succession of the throne to her daughter
Joan (known as Joan the mad) and her husband. However, Joan’s husband died in
1506. Ferdinand married Germaine de Foix, a niece of Louise XII of France. They
had a son, but he died in 1509. Ferdinand was thus left the ruler of Castile
until his death in Madigalejo on Jan. 23,1516. The crowns of all the Spanish
kingdoms passed on to his grandson, Charles the I, ruler of the Netherlands and
heir to the Holy Roman Empire as Charles V.