All rights reserved. Isabella of Castile should never have been queen. Her sex and her birth order should have kept her from the throne, but Isabella was a woman who defied the odds. Tough, determined, and iron-willed, Queen Isabella of Castile deftly maneuvered dynastic feuds and political rivalries.
Together with her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon, she politically and religiously united Spain , routed the last Muslim stronghold in western Europe, and launched the age of exploration by backing Christopher Columbus.
His voyages would lay the foundation for what would become the Spanish Empire. Queens of ancient Egypt say yes. When Isabella was born, Spain was not united. Instead, it was fractured into several small kingdoms. Her father, John II, ruled Castile. These three other territories had their own royal families, who were deeply interrelated and constantly quarrelling over questions of succession.
In negotiating these disputes, Isabella would prove to be as cunning as her older brother Henry was inept. See also: Meet the 'difficult' women who wrote their own rules.
Isabella was nevertheless given an education fit for a princess, and she was surrounded by a select group of ladies-in-waiting and tutors appointed by her father before he died. From them she received a substantial education of rhetoric, painting, philosophy, and history. Struggling as king, Henry was unable to provide an heir. His childless first marriage was annulled, but not without having had his sexual prowess or lack thereof exposed before an ecclesiastic tribunal.
