Table Of ContentQUEENSHIP AND POWER
J I
UANA
Legitimacy and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Castile
Gillian B. Fleming
Queenship and Power
Series Editors
Charles Beem
University of North Carolina, Pembroke
Pembroke, NC, USA
Carole Levin
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Lincoln, NE, USA
This series focuses on works specializing in gender analysis, women’s
studies, literary interpretation, and cultural, political, constitutional,
and diplomatic history. It aims to broaden our understanding of the
strategies that queens—both consorts and regnants, as well as female
regents—pursued in order to wield political power within the structures
of male-dominant societies. The works describe queenship in Europe as
well as many other parts of the world, including East Asia, Sub-Saharan
Africa, and Islamic civilization.
More information about this series at
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Gillian B. Fleming
Juana I
Legitimacy and Conflict
in Sixteenth-Century Castile
Gillian B. Fleming
Brighton, UK
Queenship and Power
ISBN 978-3-319-74346-2 ISBN 978-3-319-74347-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74347-9
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This statue of Juana I, by the Zamoran sculptor Hipólito Pérez Calvo, stands on the
site of the royal palace of Tordesillas (Valladolid). Here she is shown with the church
of San Antolín in the background (Source Alberto Paredes / Alamy Stock Photo)
To the memory of Peggy and Lynda
P
reface
In December 2003, in his column in El Mundo, a well-known Spanish
writer, journalist and polemicist, who had recently seen and enjoyed
Vicente Aranda’s film Juana la Loca, was moved to declare that the
“whole of Spain is Juana la Loca.” Francisco Umbral argued that great
and lucid locos have tried, and invariably failed, to rule or influence a land
that remains, stubbornly and ungovernably, in the grip of a d isparate
multitude of regionalisms and particularisms. He used Juana as a
metaphor for a madness and failure that is, in some sense, both heroic
and inevitable.
Although the “beautiful madness” of Umbral’s Juana is not the
subject of this book, it does accept that failure, heroic and inevitable or
not, is at least as important a subject as success. The focus here is on
Juana as a political figure; on the strategies she pursued; and on the long
crisis of legitimacy that arose out of her political marginalisation. In other
words, it focuses on Juana I rather than Juana ‘the Mad.’ Popular as that
latter figure became, reflected back to us by ‘historical’ painters of the
nineteenth century such as Pradilla Ortíz, Rosales and Vallés, these con-
vey far less about the reality of the situation than, say, Velázquez’ Black
Servant, or Kitchen Maid with Christ at Emmaüs—a painting which, as
Norman Bryson writes in his magnificent book of essays, Looking at the
Overlooked (1990), expresses, perhaps more eloquently than any other,
“the suppression and confinement of those outside the charmed circle of
history or greatness.” Like Velázquez’ black servant, Juana was eventu-
ally confined to her “woman’s things,” to the rhyparos of everyday life,
ix
x PREFACE
so that she could not fully grasp—though perhaps overheard—the sub-
jects of great import being discussed in the other room. Nonetheless, she
belongs within the charmed circle of history to the extent that she, and
her use and representation of power, mattered to her kingdoms a great
deal. The purpose of this monograph is to explore how and why.
The natural constraints imposed by the choice of a relatively narrow
focus on a multi-dimensional subject have obliged me to deal only
summarily with much that a traditional biography would include, such
as Juana’s early childhood experiences and education; the personal and
cultural aspects of her life; the different milieux in which her six children
were raised; her queenly patronage; the successive households built
around her, but with which she had little contact; the impact of her
marriage and motherhood on the world beyond Castile, and so forth.
As the title indicates, the focus here is on the realms of Castile, not those
of Aragon, nor the lands that Juana knew in her capacity as countess
of Flanders, duchess of Burgundy and archduchess of Austria; nor yet
the lands across the ‘Ocean Sea,’ from which, in her fleeting period in
government, she drew financial support. Evidently, in the realms and
crown territories of Aragon and elsewhere there was also great conflict,
and I am well aware of the continuing need for an in-depth examination
of the impact, whether direct or indirect, of Juana’s life on such areas.
Given that her political role remains widely unknown, I have adopted
a chronological and narrative structure on which to base an analysis of
her use and experience of power at a time of tremendous dynastic and
political crisis. The unevenness of pace and time span in the narrative
reflects the uneven pace of Juana’s own life. Some chapters are densely
packed with significant events that tumble together within a brief period;
others cover years in which Juana was imprisoned and isolated from
events and the 1540s remain largely a blank. Very few letters emerge
from the palace of Tordesillas during that decade and very little directly
affecting her was reported. One exception is the royal family’s concern
with the queen’s irregular and unsatisfactory spiritual practices, and the
two last chapters explore further the effects on Juana of her imprison-
ment and its connection to the concepts of ‘melancholy,’ ‘possession’
and ‘penitence.’
As regards the use of sources, I would echo the former director of the
Archivo General de Simancas, José Luis Rodríguez de Diego, when ask-
ing how it is possible, with respect to Juana, to “follow the vital trail of a
person isolated and marginalised, on whom silence and confinement
PREFACE xi
were imposed.” Important letters of Juana’s were sometimes deliberately
destroyed, and the problem of her documentary footprint was compounded
by her sense of the traps and fictions that beset her, and her refusal to sign
acts of government while a prisoner. The sixteenth-century Aragonese
historian, Zurita, who manipulated a vast mass of archival documents,
nonetheless refers to the bafflement of those who “knew that the Queen
wrote letters with such facility and ease that few of the kings of Castile and
Aragon, her antecedents, could write better.” Precious material then avail-
able to him and stored in the Diputación Provincial de Zaragoza perished in
flames in 1809; only a small fraction of Zurita’s original ‘Alacena’ remains.
An inventory of Juana’s possessions in 1545 indicates the existence of chests
and letter cases full of writings (escrituras). Of these only a few are specif-
ically mentioned, such as “a royal order (cédula) that the queen our lady
sent to the bishop of León”; a navigation map; a “brief that the cardinal
of Santa Cruz sent to her highness”; a “memorial that her highness wrote
for the testament of the king her father about certain things that she had
to send,” and so on. References like this one, from Ferrandis, suggest that
Juana, at least for part of her life, was a more active correspondent than we
know.
While material may yet come to light, not least from private archives
currently unavailable to researchers, the paucity of letters to and from
Juana inevitably shifts attention to other, less direct sources, including
Royal Council provisions; private correspondence; key Cortes and Junta
proceedings; histories, chronicles and despatches. But diplomats were
only extremely rarely granted access to Juana, whereas they enjoyed
constant access to her husband, father or son, and relied greatly on
hearsay. Nonetheless, some of the information conveyed by envoys
and ambassadors is invaluable, not least when it is the only source for a
particular event or expression of opinion.
This monograph uses a variety of documents in their source
languages (Spanish, Italian, English, French and German), fleshing
out the bones of a doctoral thesis awarded by the London School of
Economics and Political Science in 2012. Some sources are inevitably
familiar. Others have been widely overlooked in previously published
studies. They include a series of recently restored and transcribed letters
from Simancas, addressed to Juana as archduchess (for which all credit is
due to Rodríguez de Diego); John Stile’s despatches and other English
contemporary accounts; formerly unpublished material from Diego
de Guevara’s despatches and Pedro Fernández de Velasco’s memorial
