Sister Queens by Julia Fox

Author:Julia Fox [Fox, Julia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-0-345-53231-2
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-30T16:00:00+00:00

Indeed he would. On coming of age in January 1515, he had changed the personnel of his council and his household, and while he retained his love for his aunt Margaret, her days as Regent of the Netherlands were, for the moment at least, over.

Initially, however, it was his mother whom he “plucked.” Stories of Juana’s incapacity had been allowed to circulate periodically. John Stile had heard them, and so had the Venetians. In one dispatch back to Venice, the ambassador had written that Juana was “considered mad and the king [Ferdinand] says so.” Ferdinand had said so for some years; it was only because of her alleged madness that he had been able to rule Castile in her name. The Venetians had been treated to a very full account of just how mad poor Juana was. “She expects her husband to come to life again,” continued the ambassador, “and carries his body about with her in a coffin.” It got worse: “she says that this resurrection will take place at the end of ten years.” But the king who had said she was unbalanced was dead. Juana’s future now lay in her son’s hands.

So as Katherine grieved for her father, her nephew was deciding the fate of her sister. If Katherine, in her sorrow, tried to write to Juana in an effort to bring mutual consolation—and there is no proof that she did—it would have been to no avail. As young brides far from home, they had communicated, occasionally simply with notes about their own health, but such personal sisterly correspondence had dwindled after Philip’s death; when Katherine had written to her sister after that, it had been to urge marriage with Henry VII. Sometimes Ferdinand had told Juana what was going on outside the castle walls at Tordesillas, as he had early in Katherine’s marriage to Henry, and he had always scrupulously included Juana’s name in official treaties and documents, but he was never inclined to allow Juana to write to people, even her own sisters, herself. Indeed, once she was imprisoned in Tordesillas, there are no records of her ever writing anything again. And this precedent was one that Charles intended to continue.

For upon one thing Charles was determined: he, not Juana, would rule Spain. At the solemn funeral requiem held for Ferdinand in Brussels, he accepted the acclamations for “Queen Juana and King Charles,” but there could be no doubt where the true power would lie. This was to be no equal partnership. Juana, friendless and helpless, deliberately left ignorant of Ferdinand’s death in case it made her more truculent, was to find that losing her father merely meant that her son would take over the role of jailer that he had vacated. The true irony is that in the man who could imprison his own mother, Katherine would one day gain the most supportive and powerful of protectors.

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