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checkmateroxy · 2 months ago

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Ferdinand II of Aragon: Cold-Hearted Bastard?

Ferdinand II of Aragon and V of Castile, in short, King of Spain after it was reluctantly handed it over to him by his daughter Juana (though the Cortes) gets a bad rap in English speaking dramas. As previuosly established in other posts, he was no angel, but neither was he the moustache twirling villain or amoral figure that Niccolò Machiavelli painted him as (in his best known work The Prince. In fact, far from being the cold and distant figure of countless costume dramas and historical fiction, the man was more in touch with his humanity than his other contemporaries. His marriage to Isabella was a marriage of equals. And while it was not the first union of a ruling King and a Queen Regnant, it was the first where husband and wife were on equal footing. Look back to the contemporary sources, and even secondary ones written a few decades after his passing, and you are going to find many episodes of where the two fought over their course of the war to win the Reconquista and retake the last Taifa Kingdom (Granada) in the Iberian Peninsula, and other important matters of state. Isabella was good at keeping her opinions to herself, but she had a breaking point. Where it concerned these issues, there were times when Isabella told Ferdinand that if she were him, she’d be a far better general and a braver soldier. Ferdinand’s calculating and ambitious nature is reflected in his unending patience when speaking to his wife to convince her of the best strategy of handling certain events.So labels such as cheat, two-faced cannot be used as a descriptor of the King of Aragon without applying it to describe his contemporaries, including his son-in-law, Henry VIII.

But let’s go to what everyone - historians and history buffs - alike love to use as ‘proof’ that he was a self-serving douchebag: Katherine’s dowry. What the hell was up with that? Why didn’t he do something? First thing’s first. There was a war going on. He and his daughter Juana with her husband Philip “the handsome” were at each other’s throats. Furthermore, this was an ongoing issue that prior to Isabella’s death, the Catholic Kings sought to resolve by getting a papal dispensation so she could marry the next in line to the English throne. Katherine was a young woman who had a strong sense of destiny and whether you believe or not her story of the unconsummated marriage, she was never going to change her story. Her parents, despite dealing with many problems at home and trying to convince Juana to stay and leave her husband so she could be her own mistress by the time Isabella died, tried to send her some capital but everyone’s hands were crossed. Nevertheless, both of the Catholic Kings worked themselves to the bone - especially Isabella. She was extremely ill at this time but she would not rest until pope Julius II issued the papal bull. It is a testament of how much they cared for their youngest daughter, that Isabella allowed herself to die when the papal bull finally came. Trapped in time, neither Isabella or Ferdinand had the gift of foresight to see that this wouldn’t be the end of her troubles.With the country split into two camps - three, is you count the minority of courtiers who later sided with Juana for a brief period of time - Ferdinand had very little to choose from. The options were simply: Be Catalina’s knight-in-armour and as a consequence, lose Castile forever, and his hold over his own kingdom, or send a miserly help to his daughter and appoint her as his ambassador to make her situation a less grim so he could focus on the domestic affairs that affected the lives of millions of people.

The only series that has come close to showing Ferdinand’s calculating nature and methodical personality has been the Spanish series Isabel and its sequel film La Corona Partida. In these he is played by Rodolfo Sancho. Sometimes you love and admire him, at other points you are just apalled by his actions and hate his guts which is how many of his contemporaries felt.

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checkmateroxy · 4 months ago

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