of Aragon Queen consort of Henry VIII King of England - Sister queens : the noble, tragic lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile

Copyright 2011 by Julia Fox

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Ballantine Books,
an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,
a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

B ALLANTINE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in Great Britain by Weidenfeld & Nicolson,
a division of Orion Publishing Group, Ltd., London, in 2011.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Fox, Julia.
Sister queens : the noble, tragic lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile / Julia Fox.
p. cm.
Originally published in Great Britain by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2011.
Includes bibliographical references.
eISBN: 978-0-345-53231-2
1. Catharine, of Aragon, Queen, consort of Henry VIII, King of England, 14851536.
2. Juana, la Loca, Queen of Castile, 14791555. 3. QueensEnglandBiography.
4. QueensSpainBiography. 5. Great BritainHistoryHenry VIII, 15091547.
6. SpainHistoryHouse of Austria, 15161700. I. Title.
DA333.A6F69 2012
942.052092dc23

[B]
2011042757

www.ballantinebooks.com

Title-page illustration: iStockphoto

Jacket design: Victoria Allen
Jacket photograph: Jeff Cottenden

v3.1

O ver the centuries Katherine of Aragon has become an icon: the Betrayed Wife, the Perfect Queen, the Devoted Mother, a woman callously cast aside by a selfish husband besotted by his strumpet of a mistress. While much of this may be true, it turns a woman into a cardboard caricature. By endowing her with almost saintlike attributes, we not only lose sight of the real Katherine, we strip away her basic humanity and we demean her. Her sister, Juana, is also a woman of myth. She is Juana the Mad, the wife so in love with her husband that she could not bear to be parted from him even by death, keeping his coffin with her for year upon year, sometimes opening it to gaze lovingly at his decaying corpse, and driving herself mad in the process. Or so we are told.

When I began this book about three years ago, I wanted to peel back the legends to reveal the flesh-and-blood women behind them. And I became convinced that the only way to do this was to place them squarely back into their family and Spanish contexts and, crucially, to try to re-create their interior worlds. Only then would I have any chance of getting to know them, of discovering what made them tick and how they gained the values by which they lived and died. And they lived in a turbulent age. It was one of religious warfare, of heroism, of family honor, of vast wealth and grinding poverty, of suffering, of ambition, of romance, of beauty, of ideas, of Machiavellian intrigue. Above all, it was one in which women, especially royal women, were readily sacrificed upon the altar of dynastic politics.

Katherines downfall as a consort came because she failed in that most basic of female functions, that of bearing a son and heir for her powerful husband. Juana produced children with apparent ease, but that was not enough to ensure success as a sovereign queen. To rule in her own right, she needed the consent of the men around her; it was her tragedy that in her father, her husband, and her son she faced opponents, not allies. She deserves to step forward from their shadows, just as Katherine deserves to step forward from that cast by Henry VIII.

The more I delved into the lives of these two remarkable women, the more I realized that looking at their stories together enriches our understanding of both, even though Juanas long years of incarceration inevitably prevent a totally equal allocation of space within the pages of this book. The sisters complement each other, they epitomize their era. They are linked not only by blood, but by their fight against the forces ranged against them, for they were born female in a male-dominated society. I hope I have done them justice.

As ever, I stand on the shoulders of giants, to all of whom I owe an immense debt. Among them are some I must single out. Although written more than sixty years ago, Garrett Mattinglys biography of Katherine began the process of bringing her back to life. David Starkeys extensive work on Henry VIII and his refreshing reappraisal of Katherine provide an unrivaled exemplar of the best of thoughtful, insightful modern scholarship. Peggy Liss and Felipe Fernndez-Armesto have cast eagle eyes over Isabella of Castile and her family; their studies are indispensable to anyone interested in this amazing dynasty. And in her groundbreaking work on Juana, Bethany Aram has presented a compelling picture of this unfortunate princess.

I also wish to express my gratitude to so many other people who have helped and encouraged me in the writing of this book. I must thank my agents, Peter Robinson in London and Christy Fletcher in New York, for their unswerving support and confidence. My editors, Alan Samson and Susanna Porter, were generous with their time and advice; I could not have attempted this project without them. Emma Guys patient, painstaking deciphering of my scribbled handwritten notes has resulted in an impressive family tree. I am very grateful to my former student, Dr. Jessica Sharkey, for permission to refer to her unpublished doctoral thesis. I must commend too the staff of the various record offices and at the London Library for their courtesy, professionalism, and help. To my dear friend, Glenys Lloyd, whose critical judgment and analysis are second to none, I am extremely grateful. It is through Glenys that I had the good fortune to meet Dr. Dafydd Wyn Wiliam, who introduced me to the Welsh poetry and literature of the Tudor age, and who so willingly gave of his time to transcribe and translate the beautiful and relevant examples that grace the pages of this volume. I would also like to give special thanks to Margaret Riley, with whom I spent many a happy hour discussing Katherine and all her activities. And to my other family members and friends, who strove to keep me sane over the past few years, I offer my sincerest thanks and appreciation. But, as always, my deepest gratitude and my love must go to my husband, who has welcomed Katherine and Juana into our hearts and into our lives. He has read every word of this book and offered invaluable comments and advice. I owe him an immense debt.