Indisputably one of the most powerful women in history, Isabella also profoundly influenced, for better or for worse, both her kingdom and the world from her own times until our own.

      The daughter of John II of Castile and León by his second wife, Isabella of Portugal, Princess Isabella married Ferdinand of Aragón in 1469. On the death of her brother, Henry IV, Isabella and Ferdinand jointly succeeded (1474) to the throne of Castile and León, a succession which was contested by Alfonso V of Portugal who supported the claim of Henry's daughter, Juana la Beltraneja. Alfonso was defeated by the Castilian army in 1476. Three years later Ferdinand succeeded to the throne of Aragón as Ferdinand V, The Catholic. Several events which would change the course of the world history marked their joint reign. At home, their marrriage, a union of the two main Spanish kingdoms, along with the reconquest in which the Moors were driven from Spain, laid the foundation of Spain's future greatness. To unify their kingdom under one God, their Catholic majesties drove the Jews and later the Muslims from their country and instituted the Spanish Inquisition, where conversos (converted Jews who secretly practiced Judaism), then moriscos (converted Moslems who secretly practiced Islam), heretics (a general catch-all for anyone who opposed the Catholic church), and eventually Protestants were tried (often including confessions extracted using torture), condemned, and burned at the stake. In the same year that the Moorish kingdom of Granada fell to the reconquest, Isabella sponsored the ocean voyage of an obscure, and some thought lunatic, Italian sailor, Christopher Columbus. The rest is history.

      Their legacy to Spain itself is mixed: the money in gold, silver, and gems that poured into Spain from the New World ushered in the Spanish Golden Age, the Spanish Renaissance, and should have propelled Spain to greatness for centuries to come. Yet, their Golden Age was rather short lived; and when the money stopped flowing into Spain from their new lands, the Golden Age came to a halt. The use of slave labor abroad and the intellectual straight-jacket imposed by the Inquisition along with the loss of some of their greatest intellects to the Spanish Inquisition at home served only to stifle creativity and innovation, the keystones of the new world economy. Indeed, to this day Spain is still struggling to overcome the effects of the Spanish Inquisition.

      As an additional note, their Catholic majesties' daughter, Catherine of Aragon would become the first wife of Henry VIII of England. Henry, unable to father a son by Catherine and afraid that his only child by Catherine, a daughter Mary, would not be able to keep the English crown, divorced Catherine to marry Anne Boleyn, precipitating the Reformation in England. Anne Boleyn was the mother of the woman who would become one of the greatest English queens, Elizabeth I.

Reference

      "Isabella I," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.

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