For Isabella was claiming the right to rule most of modern-day Spain – a move that, when her husband Ferdinand inherited the neighbouring crown of Aragon, would give the young couple control of almost the entire territory.Īhead of Isabella walked one of her gentlemen, the robust and ruddy-faced Gutierre de Cárdenas. Those who lined the narrow streets of this wind-swept central Spanish city were impressed by Isabella’s glittering jewellery and rich clothes, but were even more amazed by this young woman’s boldness. She owed her colouring and, perhaps, some of her steely ambition to an English grandmother – John of Gaunt’s strappingly-built daughter, Catherine of Lancaster, who had married a king of Castile and acted as regent for her son. She had, rather, soft green-blue eyes and the kind of pale auburn hair that, even today, is categorized by Spaniards as “blonde”. Isabella of Castile was no black-haired, dark-eyed, Spanish beauty. The dazzlingly dressed 23-year-old woman who processed down the chilly streets of the Spanish city of Segovia in order to claim the crown of Castile in December, 1474, was peculiar in many ways. N o woman in history has exceeded her achievement,’ Hugh Thomas.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |