Today is the birthday of Katherine of Aragon’s mother, Isabella of Castile.
She was the Queen of Castile from 1474 and, as the wife of King Ferdinand II, Queen of Aragon from 1479 until her death, reigning over a dynastically unified Spain jointly with her husband Ferdinand; together they would be known as the Catholic Monarchs because they finally completed the reconquest of Spain from the Moors, which had taken seven centuries to complete.
It was in 1492 when the city of Granada fell, and the monarchs would live in the Alhambra Palace for several years.
But they also negotiated the marriage of their daughter Katherine to the son of Henry VII, so she is the grandmother to the future Mary I, the first woman to independently rule England – fitting, coming from a woman to independently rule in Spain.
That’s your Tudor Minute for today. Remember you can dive deeper into life in 16th century England through the Renaissance English History Podcast at englandcast.com.
Suggested links:
Episode 060 Sarah Gristwood on Game of Queens: The Women Who Made 16th Century Europe
Episode 69: Supplemental – Chat with James Boulton on Katherine of Aragon
Episode 122: Christine Morgan on The Spanish Princess
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.