It is usually written that the House of Austria began to reign in Spain in 1516 with the advent of Carlos I. In reality, the first sovereign of the House of Austria was Felipe I el Hermoso, father of the Emperor . Philip I officially reigned for less than two years, from the death of Queen Elizabeth, on November 26, 1504, until his own death, which occurred on September 25, 1506; but the effective reign of him was even shorter, since Philip I only arrived in the Peninsula on April 26 of the same year.
Strictly speaking, after the death of Isabella the Catholic, the throne was not occupied by Felipe I el Hermoso, but by his wife, Doña Juana . A series of family misfortunes caused the inheritance of the Catholic Monarchs to fall on her, who was her third daughter.
Process of Succession of the Crown of Castile and Aragon
On October 4, 1497, the crown prince, Don Juan, died when he was barely nineteen years old. The heiress of the Catholic Monarchs then became the eldest daughter of Don Fernando and Doña Isabel, the Infanta Isabel, born in 1470, married, first, to the crown prince of Portugal, Alfonso; then, with King Manuel of Portugal. The Courts of Toledo (1497) swore her as heir to the Crown of Castile. The princess died giving birth on August 23, 1498, to the infante Don Miguel, who at that time became the sole heir to three crowns:Portugal, Castile and Aragon, and as such was sworn in by the respective Courts in 1498 and 1499. But the prince died before he was two years old, on July 20, 1500. The inheritance of the Catholic Monarchs then fell to his third daughter, Doña Juana, born in 1479, and married since 1496 to Archduke Felipe I el Handsome, son of Emperor Maximilian.
Marriage of the Infanta Juana with Felipe I «El Hermoso»
As a result of the trip that she then undertook to join her husband in the Netherlands, she began to show signs of mental imbalance. It seems that in the early days the two husbands loved each other very much. Then, Felipe I gave the impression of separating from his wife and resumed the relationships that he had with several mistresses. This situation filled Doña Juana with jealousy, who also did not feel comfortable in those lands and she believed she was surrounded by rivals and spies. She then began to show a certain propensity for melancholy and a life withdrawn from her. This situation did not stop worrying her parents, informed by her ambassadors. Circumstances demanded that Doña Juana come to Spain to be officially recognized as the future queen. She undertook the trip with her husband in January 1502. The Courts of Toledo did not make any difficulty in swearing Doña Juana as heir to the Crown of Castile . Felipe I el Hermoso returned to Flanders on December 14, but Doña Juana, pregnant, had to wait until the spring of 1504 to join him.
As soon as they arrived in Flanders, her jealousy flared up again. There were many conflicts with her husband and with the people of the palace. The correspondence of the ambassador of the Catholic Monarchs in Flanders, Gómez de Fuensalida, echoes such disputes. It frequently alludes to confusion, dissatisfaction and lack of love, disagreements and harsh words between the spouses. The situation greatly worries the Catholic Monarchs. Felipe I el Hermoso sends Spain detailed information, in which mention is made for the first time of Doña Juana's mental health.
Felipe I el Hermoso then thinks that his wife should be confined in some fortress. These circumstances explain the clause in Queen Elizabeth's will, granted on October 12, 1504, a month and a half before she died. Said testament establishes Doña Juana as heir to the throne of Castile, but with an important limitation:in the event that the new queen "cannot or does not want to attend to the government", King Don Fernando would be in charge of the government in Castile until that Doña Juana's eldest son, Prince Don Carlos, has reached the age of majority —"at least twenty years old."
Doña Juana, «La Loca»
Was Dona Juana really crazy? Some describe her as a hysterical woman, driven mad by her jealousy and her erotic passion. Others lean towards the conspiracy thesis:Doña Juana would be the victim of the reason of State and of a political machination destined to remove her from power:her husband, her first; her father, later, and then her son managed to rule in her name. Clearly, Doña Juana suffered from some mental illness like her maternal grandmother, Isabel de Portugal. She was not crazy in the ordinary sense of the word, but she lacked the will and energy that are required of rulers. Neither her mother, nor her father, nor later her son resigned themselves to seeing the kingdom entrusted to such weak hands.
Queen Isabella dies on November 26, 1504. Ferdinand the Catholic prepares to govern Castile on behalf of his daughter . But, from Flanders, Felipe I el Hermoso opposes the thesis of madness. His calculation is evident:confessing that his wife is crazy would mean sticking to Queen Elizabeth's will and entrusting the regency to Ferdinand the Catholic; On the other hand, if the thesis that Doña Juana is in a position to govern is accepted, Fernando el Católico is ruled out and Felipe I el Hermoso, as command of the queen, may have a part in the government of the kingdom. It is, therefore, a struggle for power between Fernando el Católico and Felipe I el Hermoso, between the father and the husband of the unfortunate queen. The Cortes, gathered in Toro, in January 1505, are divided; They ended up recognizing Doña Juana as queen of Castile and Don Fernando as "legitimate curator, administrator and governor of these kingdoms and lordships" .
Conflict between Fernando, «the Catholic» and Philip I, «the beautiful»
Fernando el Católico then becomes the target of fierce criticism from the felipista party. It soon becomes clear that there is no possible agreement between him and Don Felipe I, especially from the moment in which the King of Aragon is abandoned by a wide sector of opinion in Castile. There are many who want to take advantage of the circumstances to settle past due accounts. Almost all the great lords dream of regaining the positions lost since the advent of the Catholic Monarchs and hope that Felipe I el Hermoso will be grateful to them if they help him to reign alone, throwing out the Catholic King. Finally, international politics came to further complicate the Castilian political landscape. In September 1504, months before Queen Elizabeth died, without consulting her or her husband, a treaty had been concluded in Blois between Louis XII, King of France, Emperor Maximilian and Archduke Philip I the Fair, a treaty that constituted a threat to Spanish interests in Italy. It was clear that, in the struggle for power in Castile, Don Felipe I sought the support of France. The reply of the Catholic King was withering:in October 1505 he signed peace with France and, what was more unusual and serious, he promised to marry Germana de Foix, niece of the King of France; In exchange, Luis XII ceded to don Fernando the rights that he claimed to possess over the kingdom of Naples. Already at that time, Don Fernando gave up the fight to stay in Castile as governor. Don Felipe I and Doña Juana arrived in La Coruña on April 26, 1506. Almost all the great lords of Castile went out to meet with Don Felipe I and to place themselves under his orders; the Catholic King had no choice but to renounce sovereignty in Castile and march to his domains in Aragon and Naples. But in September Felipe I el Hermoso fell ill in Burgos and died six days later, on September 25, 1506.
Succession of the Crown in favor of Carlos I
The very brief reign of Felipe I el Hermoso shows us how fragile the ordering of the kingdom carried out by Queen Isabella, jointly with King Ferdinand, was still after his victory in the War of Succession of 1476-1479. What could have disappeared then was the union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon. In 1505, when Don Fernando married Germana de Foix, the niece of Louis XII, he accepted that the children born of this marriage would inherit the Aragonese kingdoms and manors. The Castile-Aragon double monarchy was, therefore, threatened with death; Castile and Aragon would be separated again as before the marriage of the future Catholic Monarchs. Fortunately for the political future of the monarchy, the son of Don Fernando and Germana de Foix, Don Juan de Aragón, born on May 3, 1509, only lived for a few hours, and Don Carlos, son of Doña Juana and Felipe I el Hermoso , was able to collect the two crowns in his day.
