Boadicea's Chariot

Sometimes, something or someone catches my attention and I would want to know more, much more. Don’t ask me why this particular lady caught my attention, but she did. She wasn’t English, although she visited England once. She was the third child and second daughter of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain and the sister of Catherine of Aragon. She died in 1555 in a windowless room in the castle of Tordesillas. Her name was Juana.

Google Juana and you will find that she is known as Juana la Loca, the insane queen of Castile. I would refute that, and assert that she was the victim of powerful and ambitious men: her husband, Philip the Handsome, her father Ferdinand, and her son, Charles V Holy Roman Emperor.

Juana was born in 1479 in Toledo. Little is known of Juana’s childhood, she was too far removed from the throne to be given much importance. One chronicler said she was the only one of the family who lacked physical charm, whilst another said that she was the beauty of the family. They all noted her precocity and were unanimous in their praise of her intelligence. She outshone her siblings being especially gifted in languages and music. Isabella and Ferdinand delighted to show her talents to visitors, but it was obvious that she did not like such attention. She was, it is claimed, aloof, subject to moods, melancholia and drawn to solitude. Unlike the rest of her family who were prolific writers, none of Juana’s letters, if she wrote any, have survived.  However, most of her recorded comments show a sharp-wit tinged with scepticism and an independence of mind. Continue reading “Juana Queen of Castile, Aragon, Sicily and Naples”

On the 24th of March 1603 Elizabeth I died at Richmond Palace. It was the eve of the annunciation of the Virgin Mary,  an appropriate day for the Virgin Queen to die, and, according, to the Julian Calendar in use at the time, it was the last day of the year 1602.

In the late winter of 1602/3 Elizabeth was feeling unwell. She had caught a chill after walking out in the cold winter air, and complained of a sore throat as well as aches and pains. “I am not well” she declared, but refused the administrations of her doctors.  She also refused to rest in bed and stood for hours on end, occasionally just sitting in a chair. Her condition became worse and her ladies-in-waiting spread cushions across the floor. She lay on the floor for nearly four days – mostly in complete silence and eventually grew so weak that when her servants insisted on making her more comfortable in her bed she was unable to argue.  Contemporaries thought that she would have recovered had she fought against her illness, but she was did not want to. She was old, she was tired, and she was lonely.  As her condition deteriorated, Archbishop Whitgift (her favorite of all her Archbishops of Canterbury) was called to her side, and the Queen clung tight to his hand. When he spoke to her of getting better, she made no response, but when he spoke to her of the joys of Heaven, she squeezed his hand contentedly.  By this time she was beyond speech and could only communicate with gestures. She finally fell into a deep sleep from which she did not wake. Continue reading “On This Day – 24th March 1603”