As I wrote about Joan the Mad the last time, I would like to write now about one of my favourites, the beautiful Isabel of Portugal, wife of Charles I and V.
Isabel was born the 23 October 1503 in Lisboa. She was the second child (first daughter) of King Manuel I and his second wife, infanta María of Aragon, a younger sister of Juana la Loca. King Manuel had previously been married to the eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, Princess Isabel, but their only child, Miguel, died aged 2. King Manuel and his beloved second wife, María, had many children: Juan, who would succeed his father as Juan III; Isabel, who would marry Charles V; Beatriz, who would marry the duke of Savoy; Luis, who would die unmarried; Fernando, who would die very young; Alfonso, who was Cardinal and also died young; Enrique, also a Cardinal who would become King of Portugal in 1578; María, who died being a baby; Eduardo, whose descendants perpetuated the Royal line; and Antonio, who died short after being born.
Isabel's infancy was quite a happy one, as Portugal was a growing country in those times and her parents were an example of marital faithfulness. Her education, personally managed by her mother, was wide, including History and Music and, as usual, a lot of Religion. Queen María was very keen on her children being extremely influenced by religion. (I suppose all of Isabella's children thought in the same way, going even beyond their contemporary fellow Catholic kings and queens).
When Queen María died in 1517 Isabel and her siblings were devastated and Manuel was heartbroken and desperate. Isabel and her sister Beatriz acted like some sort of adoptive mothers for their younger brothers. A year later their father remarried. His new wife, Leonor of Austria, was Isabel's polite and charming cousin. Leonor became another fairy godmother to the small orphans.
After Manuel's death in 1521, Leonor and Isabel continued to bring up the King's children until Leonor's return to Spain, a few months afterwards. Beatriz had already been married to the Duke of Savoy and King Juan III was looking for a convenient husband for his favourite sister, Isabel, of whom he said that she was "the most rare and precious of jewels". In 1525 their cousin Carlos I of Spain and V of Germany broke his betrothal to Mary Tudor, Princess of Wales, and negotations for a marriage between Carlos and Isabel began.
They were married the 11th March 1526 in Seville's Cathedral, and they spent their honeymoon in Granada. They fell in love with each other almost immediately, something quite unusual within Royalty of those times. Isabel was pregnant soon afterwards and she would give Carlos a total of seven children:
1. Felipe (1527-1598 ): He would succeed his father as Felipe II.
2. María (1528-1603): She would marry her cousin archduke Maximilian in 1548. They would become Holy Roman Emperors in 1564.
3. Fernando (1529-1530).
4. A stillborn son in 1534.
5. Juana (1535-1573): She would marry her cousin Prince Juan Manuel of Portugal in 1552. They had an only son, Sebastian, born after his father's death, who would become King of Portugal.
6. Juan (1537-1538 ).
7. A son who died soon after his birth in 1539.
Isabel was a virtuous and good woman through all her life and her faithfulness and absolut desperation when Carlos had to travel out of Spain is totally proved, although many slanderous ''historians'' have written, without ANY proof, that Isabel had several affairs, including the painter Tizziano as one of them! She was blonde and her eyes were bluish green. She danced perfectly well and she was an intelligent and quick woman. She was one of Spain's greatest Regents, a job she did brilliantly in several times and for long periods, as Carlos was constantly travelling to his many states.
Isabel only had a spot: she was a fervorous and fanatic Catholic, but, of course, we can't judge her actions and feelings about this with our modern minds. It would be unfair.
When Isabel died soon after giving birth to her last child, Carlos and all his realm were shattered.
