Introduction to Isabella’s life, historical evaluation of Isabella, how did Isabella die?
Isabella (1451-1504), Queen of Spain, the founder of the Spanish feudal autocracy and the founder of the modern Spanish nation-state. She and her husband Ferdinand II were known as the "Catholic Monarchs" because of their stubborn adherence to Catholic orthodoxy.
On April 22, 1451, Isabella was born in Madrigal. Her father was King Juan II of the Kingdom of Castile, and her mother, also named Isabella, was from the Kingdom of Portugal. Princess. Her father died shortly after Isabella was born, and her half-brother Enrique succeeded him as Henry IV (reigned 1454-1474). Isabella moved to the countryside of Arevalo with her mother and lived a quiet pastoral life. In her youth, Isabella received a good education. Most of her teachers came from the University of Salamanca, which was in Spain at that time and was also very famous in Europe. Under the guidance of these teachers, she studied grammar, rhetoric, painting, history, philosophy and poetics. Among the courses, she especially loved poetry. In addition, she also knows some natural sciences. The altarpieces she embroidered are still preserved in the Cathedral of Granada. She read "Homer" and the works of Aristotle, Dante, Thomas Aquinas and others. However, in the first half of the fifteenth century, Spain was in division and turmoil. As a royal princess, Isabella could not live a quiet life for a long time. When she was 17 years old, she was involved in the whirlpool of social politics.
Spain at that time was full of profound class struggle, national struggle and religious struggle. In addition to Portugal, there are three countries on the Iberian Peninsula: the Kingdom of Aragon in the center of the peninsula, the Kingdom of Castile in the northeast of the peninsula, and the Kingdom of Granada in the south of the peninsula, ruled by Arabs who believe in Islam. Among these four countries, Castile accounts for half of the peninsula's territory and is the largest country on the peninsula. The kingdoms of Castile and Aragon have long maintained a state of war and confrontation with the Arabs. The feudal nobles who grew up during the war had their own armed forces and castles; the monks who specialized in fighting also had a large amount of real estate. These people enjoy various privileges and often use their own strength to rebel and cause rebellion. On the one hand, Spanish cities, in order to meet the needs of the war, many of them had their own armies and administrative agencies, enjoyed extensive autonomy, and were important forces supporting the royal power; on the other hand, the cities' economies were mostly controlled by Arabs and Jews. . They lent money to the king in exchange for the right to tax, and exploited the vast majority of the Catholic urban lower class with usurious interest rates of 20-30%, thus intertwining class contradictions with religious contradictions. During the reign of Henry IV, these contradictions became even more acute. Henry IV was ignorant and arrogant about national politics and was called "Enrique the Incompetent". He was defended by a guard composed of 200 Moors. The government was controlled by Marquis Villena, a man of humble origin but arrogant and domineering, and the power of taxing the country was controlled by the wealthy Jewish businessman Jasef. In addition, Henry IV suffered repeated defeats in the war with Granada, and the rewards and punishments of his subjects were unbalanced in peacetime. Therefore, in 1468, the great nobles headed by the Archbishop of Toledo Caroli and the naval commander Henriques A meeting in Burgos deposed Henry IV and proclaimed Isabella's brother Alfonso King of Castile. In this way, the Kingdom of Castile had a situation where two kings coexisted and fought with each other. Soon after Alfonso died, the opposition brought out Isabella as their agent. In September of the same year, Henry IV suppressed the rebellion of the nobles, but because the opposition still had great power, he was forced to sign the "Peace of Tolos de Quisando". According to the peace treaty, Isabella was recognized as the heir to the throne; the king could not force Isabella to marry someone, but Isabella's marriage must be approved by the king; all Alfonso nobles must swear allegiance to Henry IV . In this way, the dispute for the throne of Castile was temporarily settled.
At that time, Isabella was over 17 years old. The marriage of the heir to the queen's throne has become an issue of common concern to various forces in both the government and the public. A group of nobles who favored the unification of Spain hoped that Isabella would marry Prince Ferdinand of Aragon in order to use the power of Aragon to maintain Isabella's inheritance rights and realize Castile after Ferdinand ascended the throne. Merge with Aragon. Isabella clearly realized that a union with Ferdinand would be beneficial to the development and prosperity of Castile and Spain. Henry IV hoped to use the power of Portugal to resist the power of Aragon and forced Isabella to marry King Alfonso V of Portugal. Henry IV's decision was supported by the large nobles who owned their own lands. These nobles were afraid that after the merger of Castile and Aragon, the royal power would be strengthened, their independent status would not be guaranteed, and their fiefdoms would be in danger of being confiscated. Isabella decided to marry Ferdinand despite Henry IV's firm opposition. In the autumn of 1469, she sent someone secretly across the border to inform Ferdinand of her decision. Their wedding was held in October of the same year at the Juan Vivero Palace in Valladolid. The combination of Isabella and Ferdinand met the objective needs of Spanish social development and accelerated the formation of a unified Spanish country. This action angered Henry IV, King Alfonso V of Portugal, and some of the great nobles.
Henry IV deprived Isabella of her right to the throne on the grounds of disobeying the king's orders, awarded it to his daughter Joanna, and ordered Isabella's arrest. On the contrary, this action was supported by the people of Castile and Aragon who longed for unity and stability. When the king's army came to Oca?a to arrest Isabella, the local people took to the streets, shouting: "Castile - Aragon!" Waving the flags of both countries, they stopped the king's army and Allowing Isabella to escape.
On December 12, 1474, Henry IV died. The next day, Isabella succeeded to the throne in Segovia. Some big nobles who stubbornly insisted on their feudal privileges were very dissatisfied with this. They decided to collude with King Alfonso of Portugal, let Alfonso marry Joanna, and put the former king's daughter on the throne to compete with Isabella. Castile. In May 1475, Alfonso led more than 20,000 troops across the Portuguese-Spanish border, occupied Palennia, and announced his engagement to Joanna. The forces opposing Isabella gathered under his banner, and the young queen had neither an army nor enough money, nor fighting experience, but she had the determination and perseverance not to succumb to external forces. She ran around calling on people to defend their country. Soon an army of 40,000 men was formed. The people of Castile have long hated the rule of their previous king, and they do not want a king supported by foreigners to ride on them again. Therefore, they behaved very bravely in battle. The war lasted four years, and Alfonso's army was completely defeated at the Battle of Toro in 1479. On February 24, the two sides signed the Treaty of Trujillo, which included the dissolution of the marriage contract between Alfonso V and Joanna; Spain and Portugal became allies; when Queen Isabella's daughter grew up, , married Alfonso V's son; the Portuguese army withdrew from Castile.
On January 19, 1479, King Aragon died and Prince Ferdinand ascended the throne. Castile and Aragon declare union. Spanish history has entered a new stage of development.
The joint rule of Isabella and Ferdinand faced a serious situation from the beginning: Jews and Catholics continued to have bloodshed; the great nobles did not want to have a powerful person who could threaten their own interests. The king of Granada in the south also continued to harass the Spanish border. Isabella and Ferdinand calmly and resolutely took a series of steps to eliminate internal and external troubles.
At the beginning of the founding of the country, Spain's treasury was empty and its military strength was insufficient. Isabella adopted the policy of relying on cities and small and medium-sized nobles to gradually weaken and attack the big nobles. First, the king tightened his control over the city. The mayor of the city is nominated and appointed by the king. The king intervened and guided the city's finance and administration by sending government officials such as financial investigators and administrative tax officers to each city. In addition, Isabella also gradually reorganized the city's administrative institutions to get rid of the control of the nobles and obey the king's orders. Before 1493, the Barcelona Hundred was almost entirely controlled by nobles and knights. After the reorganization in 1493, among the 114 seats, merchants occupied 32 seats, craftsmen occupied 64 seats, and nobles only occupied 48 seats. Among the central and provincial officials appointed by Isabella, many came from small and medium-sized noble and merchant families, and were university-educated people. Because these people did not have strong economic and political strength behind them, they were often able to serve the royal court conscientiously.
Secondly, the Queen took a series of measures to combat the arrogance of the great nobles who ignored the royal power and weaken their economic strength. In 1480, Isabella ordered the forcible recovery of the royal lands granted to the nobles during the reign of Henry IV. He also explicitly ordered the nobles not to build castles privately. If there was any violation, they would immediately send people to demolish them. The Queen brought feudal laws to bear on some law-breaking and rebellious nobles. She enforces the law fairly and harshly. A wealthy nobleman named Alva killed a notary, and in order to avoid death, he bribed the queen with 4,000 maravids. Isabella refused to accept this huge sum of money and killed Alva. She did this not to uphold justice, but to establish the authority of feudal law and the authority of an autocratic monarch in a turbulent society.
During the reign of Isabella, the Spanish royal family re-established the "Holy Brotherhood" that existed in the middle ages to be responsible for supervising the nobles and the people everywhere and maintaining feudal order. This organization actually became a police force. Isabella also recruited some big nobles into the palace and granted them false positions to keep them away from the territory so that they could be supervised and controlled.
In addition to the powerful nobles in the Kingdom of Spain, the power of the Monk Knights also threatened the consolidation of royal power. Isabella strives for leadership of the Order of Monks. At that time, there were three major knights in Spain: Calatraval, Alcantara and Santiago. They all have thousands of soldiers, own large territories, and enjoy many privileges. Among them, there are 16 monasteries under the Knights of Calatrava stationed in the province of Andalusia, with an annual income of 50,000 Malawid. The Knights of Santiago can field 400 cavalry and 1,000 pikemen in one battle. If these knights are controlled, internal troubles can be eliminated and national power can be greatly enhanced. In 1487, Isabella personally attended a meeting of the Knights of Calatrava and used her prestige to force the order to accept King Ferdinand as the leader of the order. In the following years, she used the same method to win two other knights to the king. This move alone increased the royal family's annual income by 1 million maravid.
Isabella not only used high-pressure means to make the monks and knights submit to the royal power, but also obtained the right to appoint priests from the Pope on the condition of supporting Pope Sixtus to quell the Italian civil strife. This allowed the king to manipulate and control the church, and the royal power was greatly extended.
In this way, after more than ten years of unremitting efforts, Isabella established a relatively solid autocratic rule in Spain. The Parliament, which had played an active role in the struggle against the separatist forces of the great nobility, no longer convened after 1480. All power is controlled by the Royal Council, which is obedient to the king.
Another tool Isabella used to quell civil strife and enhance national power was the "Inquisition." There were 4 million Jews in Spain at that time. Many of them were engaged in commerce, handicrafts, and loan sharking, and accumulated a large fortune in their hands. The feudal lords, large and small, headed by the Spanish royal family, have been coveting this for a long time. The inquisition established by Isabella was also the best place for openly plundering the Jews. In 1477, the "Inquisition" was first established in Seville, Castile. In 1480, it appeared in Catalonia, Andalusia. Over the next ten years, the "Inquisition" spread throughout every province in Spain. And in 1483, the Supreme Inquisition of Spain was formed, with the Queen's confidant Trustee Mada as the chief inquisitor. The history of the Inquisition is a bloody one. In court, the plaintiff is also a witness, and no one is willing or dares to defend the defendant. Anyone who is sent here will face disaster. At worst, their property would be confiscated, and at worst, they would be burned at the stake. During the 15 years that Torquemada presided over the Inquisition, 9,000 people were burned to death and 100,000 were tried. The forfeited property further enriched the treasury. This approach of the government intensified the conflicts between Catholics and Jews in the country. In order to stabilize the situation, Isabella issued an order in 1491 not to violate Jewish property, otherwise a fine of 10,000 maravids would be imposed. However, after winning the war against the Kingdom of Granada in 1492, Isabella tore off the mask and began to fully expropriate the Jews. It was announced on March 31 that Jews must be baptized before July 1. Otherwise you will be expelled from Spain and will not be allowed to take any property with you. It is estimated that 160,000 people were forced to leave Spain at that time. This incident had a serious impact on Spain's economic development. A large number of Jewish merchants and craftsmen fled, taking away advanced technology and strengthening the competitiveness of neighboring countries. This was also an important reason for Spain's economic decline in the seventeenth century.
After Spain's national power had increased to a certain extent, Isabella and Ferdinand set out to realize their long-cherished wish-to drive the Arab power out of the Iberian Peninsula. At the beginning of Isabella's accession to the throne, King Ismael of Granada continued to recognize his already established status of vassal and tribute. By the time of Ismail's son Abu Hassan, Granada no longer paid tribute. Moreover, Hassan also used a surprise attack to capture the Castilian city of Zahara in 1481, thus provoking war again. However, the ruling group of the Kingdom of Granada is full of internal contradictions. In 1481, Prince Abdallah launched a palace coup, deposed his father and proclaimed himself king. As a result, father and son were at war with each other. Isabella took advantage of the enemy's internal strife to send troops to conquer. Abdallah was captured in battle in 1483, and Isabella decided to release him and return him to her homeland, recognizing him as the legitimate king of Granada. The purpose was for him to continue fighting against his father after returning home and to pay tribute to Spain every year. Isabella's policy did have the desired effect. The hatred between Abdallah and his father deepened, and the civil war continued. At this time, some Arab chiefs in Granada deposed Hassan and his son, and appointed Hassan's younger brother Azizaga as the new king. After Hassan's death, the war raged between uncle and nephew. Taking advantage of the enemy's civil strife, Isabella decided to defeat them one by one.
In the war against Granada, Queen Isabella showed great courage and intelligence. On the one hand, she sent envoys to lobby everywhere to win the support of Christian countries in Western Europe. On the other hand, she mobilized the whole country to invest in the war. She often visits the front lines in person to boost morale, and the Queen attaches great importance to military logistics. In 1485 she established the Queen's Hospital, the first military hospital in Europe. In order to capture the fortress city of Barcelona in Granada in 1485, the Queen pledged her gold and silver jewelry to loan sharks. These actions of hers inspired the fighting spirit of the Spanish army. In 1491, the Spanish stormed Basel, and Azizaga surrendered because they ran out of ammunition. After capturing Basel, Isabella and his wife concentrated all their forces to attack Granada. In January 1492 Abdallah announced his surrender. On February 2, Isabella and Ferdinand led their troops into the city of Granada, ending Muslim rule in Western Europe and finally achieving the unification of Spain and establishing the territory of Spain.
The Arabs invaded Spain from 711 AD to 1492 AD, and ruled Spain for 781 years. During these nearly eight centuries, the Spaniards fought continuously with the Arabs to regain their homeland. The Spanish called this struggle "Leconquista," which means "reconquest." Because this struggle contained the justice of resisting foreign rule, it received support from all strata of Spanish society. This was the fundamental reason for Isabella's victory over the Arabs.
In 1485, when Spain was at war with Granada, Isabella received a letter from the Duke of Medina Seri. The letter recommended to her an Italian with great plans. This man is Christopher Columbus, who is famous in history for discovering the New World. In 1486, Columbus was invited to the palace and met with the king. The Queen listened to Columbus's plan with great interest, but because this plan required 2 million maravides, which was not easy to raise in wartime Spain. So Columbus's plans were put aside, and he was placed in the palace and received a monthly salary of 3,000 maravides.
In 1492, the war ended. Isabella met with Columbus again, formed a committee to discuss Columbus's plan, and signed the Treaty of Santa Fe (see Columbus Treaty) with Columbus, regardless of the objections of King Ferdinand and some nobles, and agreed to his condition. Later, the queen allocated 1.14 million Malavid brotherhood funds as Columbus's expenses, and ordered the port of Palos to prepare for Columbus. On March 15, 1493, when Columbus's expedition returned triumphantly, Isabella and Ferdinand went to the port of Palos to welcome them.
Isabella's support of Columbus was not out of personal preference, but to expand overseas, develop Spanish power, and consolidate her autocratic rule. This in turn placed Spain among the great powers of Europe. At the same time, it was also to get rid of those knights who were martial and chaotic but had nothing to do after reunification. History shows that this policy indeed enabled Spain to reach its peak in the sixteenth century and become a prominent empire.
Isabella's career can be described as vigorous, and her later years can be described as miserable. She had 5 children in her lifetime, and she once attempted to consolidate Spain's position in Europe through marriage. In fact, she did so, but in the four years from 1497 to 1500, her only son, grandson and one daughter died one after another, and the other daughter also suffered from mental illness. This was a heavy blow to Isabella. On November 26, 1504, in a castle in Medina del Campo, Isabella, the most accomplished monarch in Spanish history, died in melancholy.
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