C.W. Gortner's The Last Queen is a novel about the infamous "Juana la Loca", Catherine of Aragon's sister & would-be Queen of Castile. We all know the hype on Joanna of Castile....driving around Spain with Philip the Fair's corpse in her train for years, mad as a hatter & unfit to do anything, let alone play at queenship. Well, according to the author, there was a method to Joanna's madness & she was probably the sanest peep dangling off the Trastamara family tree  It all went wrong for her when her older siblings, Juan & Isabella, plus Isabella's son Miguel, all shucked off their mortal coils like toppling Spanish dominoes about 4 years or so into Joanna & Philip's marriage. Joanna being the middle child (Catherine & Maria of Portugal were younger), she became Isabella's heir to the Castilian throne by default after Isabella, the last domino in this gruesome game of death, keeled over. Up until that point, except for being a lil upset with Philip's inability to keep it in his codpiece, twas all just dandy for Joanna. Fabby scene where Joanna physically kicks butt on one of Philip's GFs  which is where the madness gossip began. Because surely any upper class woman who objected to her husband's infidelities & said husband's giving said mistress leave to pick through her jewelry & help herself (& then have nerve to prance into the palace wearing it to a banquet) to the point where said harlot got said jewelry ripped off her & pummeled to a pulp must be crazier than a bedbug....how dare she not close her eyes as her betters had done before her & take it? Perforce, mad she is! Afterwards, she was beset on all sides by greedy males lusting for power who thought snatching it away from a woman was like taking candy from a baby. Gortner asserts the persistent rumor of Joanna's madness was retaliation for her standing her ground & refusing to be walked all over. 1st by Philip who was determined to enjoy the crown matrimonial rather than consort status & who even got the Spanish ambassador to Flanders to play along with his schemes to dethrone his wife, 2nd her own father, Ferdinand, who was jumping up & down in glee after Isabella's demise, having been regulated to 2nd banana in Spain for too long & determined to emerge on top, even going so far as to contract a matrimonial alliance with hated France (Germaine de Foix, a cuz of whatever Louis was squatting on the throne at the time, I can't keep em straight with like 18 of em) in hopes of breeding up a new male heir to take the place of the sickly Juan (tis rumored to enhance his virilty ol Ferd drank juice made from bull testicles YUCK....hey ya think this is where that children's book Ferdinand the Bull came from? LOL). The perpetually pregnant Joanna, who had 6 children in the 9 years she was married to Philip, found out kids were really good pawns to be played with. Eleanor, Charles, Isabella, & Mary were kept in the Low Countries & raised by Philip's sister Margaret (later Charles's regent & formerly Juan's wife, the same Margaret who had Lil Anne Boleyn at her court). Lil Ferdinand (whom Philip never even met as the kid was born in Spain & kept there) was held hostage by Big Ferdinand. Only her youngest, Philip's posthumous daughter Catherine, was allowed to stay with her mother until she was 16. OK who gives a crazy lady an infant to keep....unless, as the author thinks, Joanna really wasn't a whack job? Hmmm..... Philip was kept unburied (o the stink) in the chapel at Joanna's final prison of Torsedillas for years n years. When Joanna got bored she used to toddle over & have a chat with him. She kinda felt bad about that poison she slipped into his wine that kilt him  Tis written in that annoying 1st person narrative, but Gortner does it a whole lot less intrusively than Philippa Gregory, so it's not too bad & pretty easy going. Never read anything on Joanna where she wasn't portrayed as a drooling lunatic, so this was quite interesting. At least Catherine got a few good years outta Henry before it all went sour, poor Joanna just couldn't catch a break from the get-go. Go read it, it's nice  |
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