Joanna (Juana) of Castile (6 November 1479 – 12 April 1555) was Queen of Castile and Aragon. She is also known as "Joanna the Mad" ("Juana la Loca").
Joanna was the daughter of Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon. Born to two reigning monarchs, Joanna was already a valuable asset in the marriage policies of her parents, although it was not expected she would inherit as she grew up, as she had both an older sister and a brother.
Her parents were devout Catholics and horrifically persecuted any non-believers of the Catholic faith, such as Jews and Muslims. As a teenager, Joanna questioned her Catholic faith and was not pious or devoted to God. Her parents were horrified at the idea of a Heretic for a daughter, and her mother believed the only way to save Joanna was through torture. She had Joanna’s arms tied up by rope, having her held up in the air, with heavy weights tied to her feet, with the weights just above the ground. The torture was incredibly agonising and Joanna was questioned about her faith, however even under this brutal and horrific persecution she refused to admit to Heresy nor reveal anyone’s name who may have influenced her new beliefs (like her Spanish mother, she was strong and stubborn).
Joanna was beautiful, with long Red hair and a fair complexion which she inherited from her mother, as well as her father’s dark Brown eyes. She departed to Flanders aged 16 to be married to 18 year old Philip of Habsburg, also called "Philip the Handsome", ensuring an alliance to the Holy Roman Empire against France. Falling in love with him instantly, the couple very quickly went to bed for a night of passion. Philip had more lust rather than love for Joanna. Their marriage would turn volatile and her outbursts of jealousy were well known, Philip took many mistresses and at one point Joanna stabbed one of his mistresses in the face with a pair of scissors. Despite his father Maximilian I 's attempts to turn them into a Ruling Couple, Philip still needed Joanna, as she stood to inherit in Spain when her brother, sister and nephew all passed away. For their part, the Habsburgs depended on Spain to keep France from attacking what remained of his Burgundian inheritance from his mother Mary the Rich. The couple managed to have six children, Eleanor, Charles, Isabella, Ferdinand and Mary were all born in their father's lifetime, as well as a posthumous daughter, Catherine (b. 1507), after Philip's death in 1506.
Following her mother's death in 1504, Joanna was quickly acclaimed Queen of Castile. However, this made her a pawn in a tug of war between her father and husband. Ferdinand had never liked Philip, and as if this was little, the Handsome had also started showing Francophile policies, which has marked him as a traitor to the Monarchs' eyes. Philip was King of Castile by right of their marriage, but Isabella's will allowed Ferdinand to be her regent in the event she was unable or unwilling to rule until Joanna's heir, her son Charles, reached 20 years of age. Ferdinand tried to invoke this, claiming her "illness is such that the said Queen Doña Joanna our Lady cannot govern."
As Philip and Joanna were still in Flanders at this point, the Castilian Cortes agreed, appointing Ferdinand Castile's administrator and Joanna's guardian. However, at this point Ferdinand began to pursue his own pro-French policy, even marrying the niece of Louis XII, in the hope to at least keep Aragon away from Philip's hands and stay in a position of power in Europe if he couldn't keep Castile. This move, clever but possibly too drastic, made the Castilian nobility turn against Ferdinand, and when Joanna and Philip landed at A Coruña, they abandoned him en masse.
However, their reign over Castile was brief, as Philip died of typhoid just four months later (rumor had that Ferdinand had him poisoned, but this is unlikely - at the very least, he would have done it much earlier). Despite her best efforts and those of a regency council gathered against her wishes, Castile fell into disorder until Ferdinand returned from Aragon to once again take up the government. The general disorder, and her peculiar habit of taking Philip's coffin with her where ever she went, did not dispel concerns about her supposed illness, and was confined to the palace at Tordesillas for the rest of her life.
Throughout all this, four of her children were taken care of by their paternal aunt Margaret of Austria in the Low Countries. While two of her children, Ferdinand and Catherine, grew up in Spain, with the latter serving as her companion at Tordesillas.
After her father's death in 1516, Joanna's son Charles became her co-regent. Originally he was only recognized as Joanna's heir, but the Spanish nobility relented under pressure from her father-in-law, the Holy Roman Emperor and the Pope to proclaim him king alongside his mother. Throughout her son's reign, Joanna remained confined to Tordesillas and had little to no influence on her son's government.
In 1520, there was a revolt in Castile against her son on the grounds of his foreignness, who turned to her for support and legitimacy, she refused.
When her daughter Catherine got married to King John III of Portugal in 1525, she lost her one companion. She still lived to the grand old age of 75, dying in 1555, just seven months before her son, Charles V, would abdicate his vast empire to Philip II. Technically, this would make her the longest reigning Castilian monarch at 51 years (she was only Queen of Aragon following the death of her father in 1516), ahead of Philip V (45 years) and her son and co-regent (40 years), even if it would be in name only.
It is believed that she was mentally unstable, with medical historians believing she may have suffered from Melancholia, manic depressive disorder, Bipolar disorder or Schizophrenia. However, in more recent years, some historians have come to the conclusion that Joanna (known for being very intelligent as a young woman) may have not been mentally ill, but that her father, husband and son exaggerated or simply lied all together about her mental health. Henry VII, the father-in-law of her younger sister, Catherine of Aragon, met her once, and he is reported to have said “they treated her like she was mad, but all I saw was complete sanity.” While Joanna did go through trauma and did show some very odd behaviours, like kissing her dead husband’s corpse, but according to legend, Peter I of Portugal did something similar, having his wife exhumed from her tomb, dressed in robes and put on a throne next to him. Yet he was not labelled as madnote . But when Joanna did something similar to this, this was used as part of proof of mental illness.
Portrayals of Joanna of Castile in fiction:
- Pilar López de Ayala in Spanish movie Mad Love (2001)
- Irene Escolar in Spanish series Isabel (2012).
- Irene Escolar reprised the role in movie La Corona Partida (2016)
- Laia Marull in series Carlos, Rey Emperador (2015)
