The couple married in secret on 19 October 1469. As cousins, it became necessary to forge a papal bull which allowed them to marry within the forbidden degrees. Many people were strongly opposed to the marriage including Louis XI who had been hoping to secure Castile by a union between his brother and Isabella. There were also other nobles led by the powerful Mendoza family, who supported as heiress, Henry’s infant daughter Juana (born 1463) known as La Beltraneja since it was rumoured that her real sire was Beltran de la Cueva, Duke of Albuquerque.
When Henry IV heard of the event he disowned Isabella and recognised Juana as his heir. Nevertheless the king’s death in 1474 eased the crisis that Isabella would have to take to become Queen. Isabella was crowned Queen of castile in Segovia on 13th December 1474, the first step of the five year upward struggle for the throne. In May 1475, encouraged by her adherents, Juana, now married to Alfonso V of Portugal duly claimed the throne. Portuguese troops crossed the frontier into Castile, and risings broke out against Isabella and Ferdinand all through the country. What followed was a genuine civil war with Juana not only backed by Old Castile and most of Andalusia but also had the assistance of the Portuguese troops. Isabella was eventually victorious however with the assistance of Ferdinand who negotiated and used his militaristic skills giving Isabella advantage and maintaining the theory that Juana was not the true daughter of Henry IV. It was a slow process but eventually in 1479 Castile came under Isabella’s control. The same year Juan II of Aragon died and Ferdinand and Isabella eventually became the joint sovereign of Castile and Aragon.
The Union of Crowns was regarded as a union of equals although each kingdom preserved its own social, political, and economic realities.. Aragon was an empire in decline while Castile's empire was just beginning to rise under its energetic young queen. Isabella was a devoted Christian and this religious conviction motivated her campaign to expel the Moors and Jews from Spain and spread Christianity to the rest of the world. Ferdinand, on the other hand, focused on Aragon's Italian possessions and a series of royal marriages with the other royal houses of Europe.
Even so Ferdinand and Isabella worked together to reform Spain. Until Queen Isabella's victory, politically Castile had been in turmoil. During the opening years of the fifteenth century the Castilian kings had become pawns in the hands of the Castilian aristocracy who exercised a great deal of political power as they had gained control over the majority of the land taken from the Moors. They represented only 3 per cent of the population but owned almost 50 per cent of the land in Castile, leaving the remaining land divided between the Crown and the Church. Once Isabella and Ferdinand had firmly pacified the country, they planned to change this. They began restricting the power of the aristocracy by centralising their government and expanding their judicial system. Hence the monarchy was reformed and it was no longer in turmoil and firmly under the Crown's control.
This stabilized the monarchy's authority enough so that they could then focus on the completion of the reconquest. United, Ferdinand led the forces of Aragon and Castile to triumph thanks to his military and diplomatic skill. He and Isabella walked together in victory through the gates of Granada, the last Muslim place of defense, in Spain 1492. To Isabella this was a very important demonstration of her very strict Catholic faith and inspired the beginning of the Spanish Inquisition. The results included the expulsion of Muslims from the peninsula and the expulsion of Jews from her kingdoms in order to create a homogeneous population of Christians. That same year, 1492, Isabella sponsored an expedition by Christopher Columbus that located America and signaled the beginning of a new era for Imperial Spain when he discovered America.
Although the Monarchy had been unified in the sense of crowns it failed to emerge the kingdoms in the sense of people and in the sense of a national identity. Other than the fact that the two kingdoms would share the same monarchs, but in other respects they carried on leading the same lives. The only difference now would be that they were now partners, not rivals. Throughout their reign, the word ‘Spain’, referred to as it had done in medieval times, to the association of all the peoples in the peninsula, and had no specific political meaning and because of its imprecision they never used ‘Spain’ in their official title calling themselves instead ‘King and Queen of Castile, León, Aragon, Sicily ...and so on’. Beyond the personal union, no attempt was made to change the complete autonomy of Castile and Aragon, and the achievement of a united Spain was never an objective of theirs. Minor improvements such as easing transport of goods between the realms, and decreeing equality between the three principal gold coins of Spain, helped economic exchange. But all the custom barriers that separated the kingdoms remained fully on force, and their institutions were kept separate.
Going back to the medieval ages the crowns of Castile and Aragon had evolved in dissimilar ways, had different ideals and distinct institutions. The major differences were Castile was much larger, occupying almost four times that of Aragon and holding almost 80 per cent of the population, castile was essentially a united state with a single government; it had one Cortes, one tax structure, one language and one coinage, all this added to its size and population gave it greater political initiative than Aragon where each realm was governed independently by its own Cortes.
With these major distinctions in mind it would and no attempt to change any of them, it is hard to say that Isabella and Ferdinand are the founders of an emergent Spain. It is true that they consolidated the thrones and pacified their kingdoms. But the only real unification was made by the crowns, not by the people. Also it is true that if it wasn’t for them, it is likely that there would be no Spain today. If Juana had become sovereign, the world as we know it today may have been very different as it was Isabella who funded Columbus’ trip to America and without her Spanish America may not exist. They may not have set out to unify Spain but given time that is precisely what has happened. Along with the peace and order they brought, the emergence of Spain they can also take responsibility for.
Bibliography
Kamen, Henry. Spain 1469-1714: a society of conflict. London: Longman, 1983.
Elliot, John Huxtable. Imperial Spain, 1469-1716. London: E. Arnold, 1963.
