"Crazy" Joanna... the Spanish queen who was tortured for refusing the Andalusian Inquisition
On April 12, 1555, Joanna Mad, the last sons of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, died. Joanna passed away at the age of 75. She spent 50 of those years holding the title of Queen of Castile, but 45 of those 50 were spent in a solitary, heavily fortified prison, for things she had not committed.
As for her twenty-five years preceding her inauguration as queen; She did not differ much from her years in solitary confinement except in the name of the prison. Her imprisonment in her early years was called a palace, but it was not ordinary. With the marriage of her father and mother and then their conquest of Granada, the palace was in control of Andalusia (Spain) as a whole, and as Julian Marias says in the book “Spain in a Clear” way, that marriage was the starting signal for the “Spain of Castile”.
“Crazy Joanna” .. In the beginning was the criticism of the Christian religion and the rejection of the Inquisition
Toledo, the capital of the kingdom, witnessed the birth of Joanna in 1479. A girl of white skin, blue eyes, crowned with loose, slightly reddish hair, like that of her mother Isabella and her older sister Catherine. But the later years proved that she shares with her family only the external appearance, as her star emerged in the palace as the smartest in it. She learned ecclesiastical and civil laws, and along with them she learned philosophy and mathematics, and mastered French and Latin, as well as the local dialects of the surrounding kingdoms under her parents' suzerainty.
Her parents saw nothing but her shyness and tendency to isolate in her. Then she began to ask some questions that sometimes amounted to criticism in the Christian religion and some of its rituals. She did not go to church, and did not attend any mass. Asking these questions was not a simple matter in the presence of highly religious Isabella and Fernand; Who resulted from their marriage five sons and the fall of Andalusia.
Isabel grew up in a fanatical Catholic environment, following the news of the wars between Christian Castile and Granada, the stronghold of Muslims, and fell under the influence of her confessor, Tomas de Torquemada, the Dominican, whom she promised to devote her life to eradicating Muslims from everywhere under her authority. Later, on the basis of his father's desire to unite the two kingdoms, Fernand accepted his marriage to her, as Muhammad Yahya al-Madwahi says in the book "The Andalusian After the Fall of Granada".
joanna
Isabella was a year older than her husband Fernando (or Fernando), but she appears to have been more resourceful as well, attracted by her religious fanaticism. Fernando was known for his treachery and lies, and he only cared about the king and the luxury around him, and the question of war for religion was not one of his priorities, but if the path to the king of Spain was religion, he was fine to wear his cloak. That is why we find Saadoun Nasrallah in the book “The Political History of the Arabs in Andalusia” places that marriage at the top of the reasons that ended the civil war between the Spain parties and united their ranks to hasten the fall of Andalusia.
After this brief tour of her parents' mindset, it wouldn't be surprising to learn that Joanna began her life with "la corda" or what is sometimes known as "manquerda", which means a method of torture in which hands are tied up with a rope, then the body is thrown in the air to stagger, increasing pressure On the hands were weights tied to the feet.
Her mother Isabella once declared that she would prefer her country to be completely depopulated, rather than have any heretics, even if her daughter were among them. At the same time, she silenced any rumors of Joanna's opposition to the Inquisition, or even her daughter's hostility to Catholicism, and instead spread rumors about her daughter; "Crazy Joanna", that is easier.
The rebellious daughter becomes the "rightful heir"
A hard life in the family home is borne by the girl, in the hope that the husband who will rescue her from the hell of the family will come to the marital paradise.
Joanna's marriage is fulfilled, but for the second time her story is similar to the stories she knows, an arranged marriage with the "handsome" Philip. Philip was then Duke of Burgundy, which was really rich, so we shall know the lands which it now comprises by the names of Belgium, France, Germany, and Holland.
In August 1496 , seventeen-year-old Joanna was betrothed to Philip, but he did not come to pick her up, so her father sent her to him. After a month at sea with her retinue of 22,000, after the sinking of three ships from the fleet that accompanied Joanna, the bride arrived at her long-awaited bridegroom. She was not received by Philip himself, but by his sister, Margaret of Habsburg. Margaret was the wife of Juan, Joanna's older brother, and the daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor, so Joanna's brother and father wanted to strengthen their relationship with him more so they married her to Philip.
Joanna and Philip
A year after Joanna's marriage , her brother Juan died , shattering her family's hopes for control of the Holy Roman Empire. Then hope came back to caress them when they learned that Margaret was pregnant, but months later gave birth to a stillborn child, and the family returned to despair. After Juan was the future heir to the throne of his parents, the throne passed to their eldest daughter, Isabella. But two months after Juan's death, Isabella died giving birth to her child, Megan.
Megan became the rightful heir to three full thrones, the throne of his grandfather, his maternal grandmother, and the throne of his father. Megan was too young to realize the enormity of what awaited him, perhaps if he did, for the death knell that befell him on July 19, 1500, just before his second birthday. Now the king and queen had no choice but to acknowledge that their daughter; "Crazy Joanna", became the only legitimate heir to power.
In the same year of Megan's death, Joanna gave birth to her second child, and her first son, Charles, who would later be known in history as " Charles V" . From 1498 to 1507 Joanna bore six children, but Charles was distinguished in that he would inherit Castile, Aragon and Burgundy, as well as his paternal grandfather's possession in Central Europe.
An enormous pressure falls on Joanna, who must keep her son away from intrigue and murder. But the union of the parties added to her tragedy that she would not take the throne of her parents, or that she would become the guardian of her son when he assumed the throne of his father and grandfather. Catholics do not want her because she is too open and less Catholic than she should be, and her in-laws do not want her, because she is a Spanish alien to him and too Catholic.
The awaited marital paradise turns into hell
Do you know the traditional story that tells of a girl who suffers in her family's home and waits for marriage to save her from her suffering, and then the girl falls into a marriage more tragic than her family's home? Joanna was no exception to this historical irony. Philip abandoned his wife, left for a different country and did not take her to any country. When she objected, he sent her to her mother, who locked her in La Mota Castle.
Joanna spent days wandering the castle gossiping and refusing to sleep or eat; A request to return to her children and her husband, and after her insistence, she returned, only to discover, a few days after her return, her husband's repeated infidelities. In that era, women were turning a blind eye to their husbands' actions, but because they were different; She screamed "Crazy Joanna" at her husband, and complained about him to all who could hear her voice.
On one occasion she stumbled in the night upon a woman who was with her husband, who was not mentioned in the history books except that she was a very noble lady, and Joanna grabbed her and cut her hair completely. Joanna tried to get her husband back, but she never succeeded. On the other hand, Philip ordered Joanna's wealth custodian, who was responsible for an inventory of her possessions, to record all her actions in detail. Philip then sent these details to her mother, and Isabella revolted.
Isabella revolted against her daughter, not against Philip, but she did not trust Philip either. Together with her husband, Fernando, she attempted to decree that Joanna would be the governor of Castile until her son, Charles, would be 20, should Isabella die before that, but Fernando categorically refused.
Isabella died in 1504, and Joanna became a two-sided chess piece . The power struggle over Castile arose between her husband and her father, both of whom minted coins, putting their name and photo next to Joanna's. All those struggles and 25-year-old Joanna don't know what to do? Her father and husband pressure her to formally abdicate the throne.
Joanna refused to concede, so her father ordered his ministers to read the details that Philip had previously sent her mother about her actions, reviving the old rumor that the parents had spread about "Crazy Joanna". Then Philip, Fernando and her sister Catherine met and agreed on a division of power and wealth in Castile, without consulting Joanna or informing her, who revolted when she knew this, but the three made sure that as many people as possible would witness to inform her of the news; Let the public believe what is said about her madness.
Two years after that agreement, in September 1506, Philip fell ill and died within six days, at the age of 28. But 10 years of cruel treatment did not change the historical truth that historians have reported about Joanna's love and fondness for Philip from the first moment. But the rest agreed upon, was that Philip had never reciprocated her love. Joanna never left her husband's body, and accompanied him all the way to Granada, where he was buried . It is narrated that she opened his coffin more than once and kissed his head, and some sources say that she preferred to travel with his body at night and bury him at night so that women would not be fascinated by him!
"Crazy Joanna" is imprisoned in the palace.. The son continues the path of his grandfather and father
A long way to go, pregnant Joanna with her sixth child, and the last traces of her husband Philip. The scene became empty for her father, Fernando, on the death of his rival for power, so he ordered the expulsion of all Joanna's supporters from the palace, and also ordered her imprisonment in the royal monastery of Santa Clara in Tordesillas. In January 1507, Joanna went into labour, with no midwife to help her and no one to share the pain, and gave birth to her daughter Catalonia. Joanna did not know that her son had become Charles or Charles V, King of Spain after her husband's death, and did not even learn of her father's death until 11 years later. After 11 years in prison, she was released briefly, pending a visit by her son, Charles V.
Charles V
Charles' visit made her even more painful; He ordered her imprisoned again and prevented her from meeting anyone. On that visit Charles saw his younger sister Catalonia, who had been her mother's only friend for her 16 years. Seeing an opportunity for a new political alliance, the girl was stolen from her mother at night in 1525 and married to the King of Portugal, Juan III. Joanna no longer had any desire to survive, so she surrendered to her imprisonment and befriended the castle rocks for an additional 20 years after her daughter was kidnapped from her, truly becoming "Crazy Joanna". Her years in the castle were not calm, during which she was forced to perform Christian rites often under the pressure of torture and physical abuse.
Mad Joanna died in 1555 and was buried away from her parents, to be next to her husband, whom she remained in love with. Her going through all these tragedies makes her madness logical, and historians have agreed that she may have suffered at the end of her life from mental illnesses as a result of successive injustice and isolation, but at the time when her father, mother and husband announced that; It wasn't Crazy Joanna.
Currently, some of the behaviors of "Crazy Joanna" can be explained by her suffering from diseases such as schizophrenia or severe depression after experiencing repeated crises in her life, as well as postpartum depression. But the three emperors who surrounded it made sure that all this falls under one name “madness.” They may be excused for their ignorance of the types and details of mental illnesses, but they do not excuse that they were the main, or perhaps only, cause of what happened to them, and they do not, of course, excuse their use of Joanna and hadith Her madness is a pawn on a chessboard, in order to tighten the grip on power.
Source: websites