With the adjective “Catholic Kings” we know the marriage between Isabella I of Castile and Fernando II of Aragon, in a period that lasted from 1475 to 1516. It supposed the dynastic union of Castile and Aragon, the origin of the Hispanic monarchy and , for many, of Spain itself.
The title of “Catholics” is not that it is a nickname or later invention to refer to them. It was granted by Pope Alexander VI to recognize:
“His contribution to the spread of Christianity after the fall of Granada, the religious unification of the peninsula after the expulsion of the Jews, and the support that King Ferdinand’s armies gave to the Papal States in Naples and Sicily in their rivalry with France, in addition to the campaigns in the squares of North Africa against the Barbary pirates”.
A title, which is still recognized in the current king of Spain.
Notable characters in history
Possibly the most famous kings in the history of Spain, and two of the most famous characters in the history of humanity due to the context in which they ruled: in the midst of the formation of the modern world, with the discovery of America, which integrated the new continent. on the world circuit and ended up consolidating the birth of globalization.
As is obvious, much has been written about them, their union, their lights and their shadows. But what happened to its end? What happened during the last years of the reign of the Catholic Monarchs? How did Isabel and Fernando die?
As in any court with so much power, intrigues and political problems are always present. Even more so when the death of a monarch implies succession problems. Isabel’s death took place twelve years before Fernando’s, more than a decade in which events occurred that could well fit into a Sunday afternoon soap opera.
The death of Isabella the Catholic
Isabella occupied the throne of Castile in 1474. Thirty years later, on November 26, 1504, she died in Medina del Campo. According to sources, she died of dropsy (fluid retention in the tissues) caused by uterine cancer.
With the medical knowledge of the time and the written sources as the only evidence, it is difficult to be able to ascertain the reality after the death of Isabel de Trastámara. The chronicler Pedro Mártir de Anglería, a courtier at the service of the Catholic Monarchs, wrote:
“Humor has spread through the veins and little by little dropsy is declaring itself. She does not leave the fever, already penetrated to the marrow. Day and night he is dominated by an insatiable thirst, while her food nauseates him. The deadly tumor spreads between the skin and the flesh”.
Of course, the eventful life suffered by the Queen of Castile did not help at all. She was 53 years old when she died, but she seemed much older by the standards of the time. Not in vain did she suffer important difficulties: the war against Juana la Beltraneja to seize the throne; the death of two of her children and her grandson; she survived malaria or malaria; the infidelities of Fernando el Católico; the incipient mental illness of her daughter Juana of hers; and all this, it is speculated, with a disease that could have come from her determination to always travel riding a horse through her Castilian territories.
succession issues
Isabel was clear in her will: although the heir to the throne of Castile was her daughter Juana, due to her incapacity, King Ferdinand would rule the kingdom until the infant Carlos (future Emperor Carlos V) came of age. But Juana’s husband, Felipe de Habsburgo, did not allow the fulfillment of this testament.
Known as Felipe el Hermoso, son of Emperor Maximilian, he landed in La Coruña in 1506 to take over the government of Castile together with the legitimate heir, his wife, Juana la Loca. Fernando had to retire to his Aragonese lands, harassed by a nobility that immediately sided with Felipe el Hermoso. But circumstances favored the Catholic. In September 1506, Felipe died and the path to control of Castile was cleared.
The death of Ferdinand the Catholic
He resumed his position as regent on behalf of his daughter Juana, whom he imprisoned in the castle of Tordesillas until his death in 1555. During the two years that he was removed from Castilian power, Fernando played his cards so as not to lose his political pre-eminence: he allied himself with his archenemy, Louis XII of France, and married his 17-year-old niece, Germana de Foix, who is accused of having a part in Ferdinand’s death.
The chroniclers recounted that the queen administered “pottages that would help the generation”. That is to say, the death of the Catholic king was attributed to the abusive use of aphrodisiac concoctions to strengthen his vigor, based on bull testicles and cantharidin, a substance produced by beetles.
However, the historian Jaime Elipe and the doctor Beatriz Villagrasa published a study in 2018 in which they questioned this theory and, after analyzing the written sources, concluded that Fernando died of heart failure.
Be that as it may, in 1513, he fell ill and never recovered until he died on January 23, 1516, in Madrigalejo, a village in Extremadura. The tomb of the Catholic Monarchs is located in the royal chapel of the Cathedral of Granada, curiously next to the tomb of Juana la Loca and Felipe el Hermoso.
References:
Cervera, C. 2014. Cancer of the uterus killed Isabel “la Católica”, the most powerful queen of her time. abc.es.
Elipe, J and Villagrasa, B. 2018. The end of a myth: clinical causes of the death of Fernando el Católico. Stvdivum. Journal of Humanities 24, 41-60. DOI: 10.26754/ojs_studium/stud.2018242605.
Ortega, J. 2020. Fernando el Católico died of heart failure and not from taking aphrodisiacs. the world is.
Soria Mesa, E. 2013. The last years of King Ferdinand the Catholic. History National Geographic 107, 80-91.