Another marriage proposal

While I'm on the subject of Henry VII's marriage
proposals, I'd like to ask if anyone on the list
can tell me whether Catherine of Aragon's sister,
Juana was or was not insane.

In high school I heard that she became insane after
Philip's death, with no suggestion that anyone had
doubts about it.

S.B. Chrimes' biography of Henry VII gives the first
suggestion I've seen that there is reason to doubt
Juana was insane.

Chrimes says that Juana was not insane and that Henry
VII thought Ferdinand was lying about Juana's
insanity.

On p. 292 Chrimes writes: "...Ferdinand could
dissemble and assert several times that if Joanna
married anyone it should be Henry VII, but time passed
without any outcome, and the project faded away, not
surprisingly because in fact Joanna was being kept in
close confinement, first by Ferdinand and then by the
archduke, later the Emperor Charles V, in harsh and at
times brutal conditions, and the story of her
'madness' was never, until perhaps towards the end of
her long life, more than very successful propaganda
put out by her ruthless and unscrupulous father and
son. It is probable that Henry VII knew or suspected
the truth, wich oddly enough appears largely to have
evaded the serious consideration of modern
historians."

He cites G.A. Bergenroth, 1868, "The supplement to
volumes I and II of letters, despatches, and state
papers (Spanish),} 47-430, respectively, and
xxiv-lxxx.

Is there any evidence that other contemporaries
thought Juana wasn't insane? Is there evidence from
anyone besides Ferdinand and Charles V that she was?

TIA!

Marion






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>>>From: marion davis [mailto:phaecilia@...]
While I'm on the subject of Henry VII's marriage
proposals, I'd like to ask if anyone on the list
can tell me whether Catherine of Aragon's sister,
Juana was or was not insane.<<<
-------------------------------
Not at first, and possibly not until she fell under the power of her
son, Charles V. Unstable yes. Insane no. Brilliant yes.

>>>In high school I heard that she became insane after
Philip's death, with no suggestion that anyone had
doubts about it.

S.B. Chrimes' biography of Henry VII gives the first
suggestion I've seen that there is reason to doubt
Juana was insane.

Chrimes says that Juana was not insane and that Henry
VII thought Ferdinand was lying about Juana's
insanity.<<<
----------------------------
Juana fell into a profound depression after Philip's death, and did lose
sight of reality; also could not take the reins of government into hand
-- it was one reason that Fernando was able to come back to Castile.
However, the depression eventually lifted. Henry had met Juana during
the shipwreck of the Flemish fleet on the way to Spain after Isabel's
death, and was apparently quite taken with her. Fernando probably did
not see it to his advantage to marry Juana to Henry, probably for the
same reasons I spouted in the last post I just sent: it was politically
and logically unfeasible to marry a young princess trained to rule to a
man who would be unlikely to let her do so, and which might prove an
obstacle for Catherine's marriage to Henry VIII. It is unlikely that
Henry VII "knew" what was going on Tordesillas, where Juana was kept,
but he did harangue Fernando a great deal for Juana's hand, and said he
didn't care if she was crazy, so long as she was fertile, which she
obviously was.


>>>Is there any evidence that other contemporaries
thought Juana wasn't insane? Is there evidence from
anyone besides Ferdinand and Charles V that she was?

TIA!

Marion<<<
--------------------------
There is evidence that she was unbalanced, but also that she was bright,
quick and sharp, and that had matters gone differently, she might have
been able to ride things out better. Bergenroth discovered letters in
code between Charles and the keeper at Tordesillas, the Marques de
Denia, and when he decoded them discovered that the two of them were
deliberately attempting to overthrow Juana's reason because she was the
rightful ruler of Castile (Aragon followed Salic Law so she wasn't queen
of that kingdom), and in fact she was listed as co-ruler with Charles
all her life (which ended only a few years before his). Charles, who
destroyed all the positive ends that Isabel and Fernando had worked for,
and made Spain his piggybank for his other schemes, destroyed not only
his mother but his first kingdom, and one of the few triumphs of Juana's
miserable life, though she wasn't aware of it, was that he could never
hold Castile completely on his own, at least in name.

Maria
Elena@...
(people on this list will tell you Charles is not my favorite person).