0:01

Welcome to Noble Blood, a production

0:03

of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild

0:05

from Aaron Minkie listener discretion

0:08

is advised. Culturally,

0:14

we are obsessed with the idea

0:16

of women going mad. It's

0:19

a theme that's pervaded literature for

0:21

hundreds of years. It's

0:24

a woman sometimed, young, usually

0:26

beautiful, who becomes a

0:28

tragic figure hold away

0:31

in a gothic, decrepit mansion.

0:34

The woman loses her mind and

0:36

then usually her life.

0:39

There are too many examples to name,

0:42

the Lady of Shelot, Cathy from

0:44

Weathering Heights, Bertha and Janier,

0:47

Miss Havisham, and of course,

0:50

perhaps most iconically, Ophelia.

0:53

Feminist literary critic and Princeton

0:56

professor Elaine show Walter wrote,

0:58

Ophelia became the prototype

1:01

not only of the deranged woman

1:03

in Victorian literature and art, but

1:06

also of the young female asylum

1:08

patient. In fiction.

1:10

The madwoman usually comes from

1:12

a society of rigid gender rules.

1:15

Take Ophelia again. Ophelia's

1:18

madness is the thing that allows her

1:20

to break free of the limitations

1:22

and restrictions on women in her

1:24

society. In the play, her

1:26

hair that was once neatly covered

1:28

and pulled back is after

1:31

she goes mad, let down, wavy

1:33

and untamed at its full length,

1:36

and, as Elaine show Walter points

1:38

out, Ophelia also breaks

1:41

free of her sexual propriety.

1:43

Ophelia becomes provocative, singing

1:46

body songs and giving away flowers

1:48

in a not so subtle allusion

1:50

to her deflowering herself.

1:54

That brings up another aspect of

1:56

the pop culture portrayal of the

1:58

woman gone mad, that madness

2:01

is the inverse of proper female

2:03

decorum when it comes to sexuality.

2:06

A mad woman is one

2:08

who wants, one who has explicit

2:12

female desires. In

2:15

essay on Ophelia, Emmy Harmana

2:17

writes about the idea of mad women

2:20

as a rado maniacs. She

2:22

writes this is based on masculine

2:25

assumptions that women are more inclined

2:27

to go mad since they are closer to the

2:29

irrational by nature, and that

2:32

young women's madness is more

2:34

often than not caused by sexual

2:37

frustration of unrequited

2:39

love. There it is the

2:42

woman who goes crazy because

2:44

she wants a man she cannot have.

2:47

Perhaps it's even the origin of a particularly

2:50

sexist modern trend of dudes

2:52

telling their friends that all of

2:54

their clingy x is are quote

2:57

crazy. The link

2:59

between sexual frustration

3:01

or desire and madness or hysteria

3:04

in women might also help

3:06

to explain the Victorian invention

3:09

of the vibrator, used to

3:12

induce what doctors called paroxysms

3:15

in women in order to restore

3:17

their sanity. But the

3:20

stories when it comes to our fictional

3:22

heroines don't usually end

3:24

well. Mad women get

3:27

a brief chance to break free

3:29

from social conventions, to scream

3:32

in a society that forced them to whisper.

3:35

But then these women's are disposed

3:38

of. They die by beautiful

3:41

suicide in flowy white gowns

3:43

and water if they're beautiful like Ophelia

3:46

or the Lady of lat or

3:48

by fire if they're not as beautiful

3:51

like Miss Havisham or Bertha in

3:53

Jane Eyre, or more

3:56

sinisterly, they're disposed

3:58

of, deposited in a asylums

4:01

or the attic, like the heroine

4:03

of the Charlotte Perkins Gilman story

4:06

The Yellow Wallpaper. If

4:08

you've never read The Yellow Wallpaper, you

4:10

absolutely should. It

4:12

was written in eighteen two,

4:15

and the story is framed as the diary

4:17

of a young woman who suffers from

4:19

what might be in modern parlance called

4:22

postnatal depression, and

4:24

so, after this woman gives birth, her

4:27

husband decides that the best treatment

4:29

for her is isolating her

4:31

in an attic room. Over

4:33

the course of the story, the narrator

4:36

begins to hallucinate, to

4:38

become as mad as her

4:41

either sinister or misguided husband

4:43

believed her to be. Was

4:46

the narrator mad all along? Or

4:48

did the prolonged period of boredom

4:51

and isolation drive her crazy?

4:54

That brings us to the unlucky

4:56

subject of today's podcast.

4:59

Want To of Castile, or as she's

5:01

known more colloquially, Juana

5:03

la Loca. The Juanna

5:06

was technically Queen of Castile for over

5:08

fifty years and of Argon for thirty

5:10

of those. Her title was

5:12

in name only. For

5:15

the vast majority of her reign. She

5:17

was imprisoned in a castle in tordisse

5:20

Us, declared insane by

5:22

the men in her life who wanted to rule

5:24

in her place, first her

5:26

husband and then her father and

5:29

then her son. As

5:31

a literary figure, Juanna is irresistible.

5:34

Her supposed madness was

5:37

brought on by her obsessive love

5:39

for her husband. After

5:42

his death, they say that Wanna refuse

5:44

to let them bury the body so

5:46

that she could continually open the

5:48

casket and kiss his cold

5:50

face. There maybe

5:52

couldn't be a better example of an Ophelia

5:55

archetype in real life, love

5:57

sick over a man to the point

6:00

that it destroyed her sanity. But

6:02

it's impossible to note to what extent

6:04

the stories are true, or

6:06

whether they were just convenient propaganda

6:09

for her father to use in his

6:11

claim to her kingdom.

6:13

There are versions of Juana's story

6:16

that try to paint her as a maligned

6:18

feminist of history, a woman

6:20

who was perfectly in her right mind,

6:23

wrongfully accused of madness on purpose

6:26

by men who knew that they could have that power.

6:29

But some of one's behavior was genuinely

6:32

strange, and as an heir

6:34

of the deeply inbred Hapsburg family,

6:36

mental illness was an occupational

6:39

hazard for European monarchs. By

6:42

the end of Juana's imprisonment, after

6:44

decades in isolation, it's

6:47

irrefutable that her mental condition

6:49

had collapsed, but

6:52

plenty of kings ruled freely, even

6:54

as they behaved in ways that were charitably

6:56

called eccentric. Being

6:59

a woman made it easy for Juana's

7:01

rivals to dispose of her and

7:04

to turn her life into easy,

7:06

appealing fiction. She's

7:09

the type of story about a madwoman

7:11

that we can't help but want to tell over

7:14

and over again. I'm

7:17

Danish Schwartz, and this is

7:20

noble blood. Even

7:31

if you've never heard of Juana before, you've

7:33

probably heard of her parents, Ferdinand

7:36

and Isabella, the King and Queen

7:38

of Argon and Castile, respectively,

7:41

but their union meant that the pair of

7:43

them ruled a dynastically united

7:46

Spain. The two of them

7:48

are famous for funding Christopher

7:50

Columbus's exploration of what was

7:53

then called the New World, and

7:55

for being the Catholic monarchs that began

7:57

the Spanish Inquisition, and for

8:00

the conversion of all of the Jews and Muslims

8:02

in Spain. You've probably

8:05

also heard of Juanna's younger sister, Catherine

8:07

of Aragon, who became Henry

8:09

the eighth first wife. Juanna

8:12

was never supposed to be a queen. She

8:15

had an older brother and an older sister

8:17

in line before her, but still,

8:20

when she was young, she was incredibly

8:22

well educated, so that one day she

8:24

would be ready for an advantageous

8:26

marriage. That means that she was

8:28

taught all of the languages of the

8:30

Iberian Peninsula, Castilian,

8:33

Catalan and Galico Portuguese, as

8:35

well as French and Latin to

8:38

her religious parents Dismay.

8:40

As she was educated, Juanna became

8:43

something of a religious skeptic, but

8:45

none of that mattered really When she turned sixteen

8:48

and it was finally time for her to fulfill

8:50

her real purpose marriage.

8:53

Juanna was betrothed to Philip

8:55

of Flanders, Duke of Burgundy,

8:58

also known as Philip the Handsome.

9:01

This is where I will say, if you are

9:03

near your phone or a computer, you

9:06

should absolutely google a photo

9:08

of Philip the Handsome, just to

9:10

get an idea of what passed for good

9:13

looks in the fifteenth century. Baby

9:15

bangs on men were clearly

9:18

a look that worked back then, but

9:20

by all accounts, Philip was quite

9:22

the charmer, and the pair were married

9:25

first by double proxy and

9:28

then in person in four when

9:31

Juana arrived in Flanders with a

9:33

fleet of over one hundred ships.

9:38

Their marriage was supposed to be on October,

9:41

but the story goes that one arrived

9:44

and met Philip in person on the and

9:47

was so immediately overcome

9:49

with love or lust that

9:51

the pair of them begged to be married that very

9:54

day that they could consummate their relationship

9:57

that night. Philip's handsomeness

10:00

clearly worked on Wana, and the

10:02

two of them had three children while

10:04

they lived in Flanders. It

10:06

was during this period that something unexpected

10:09

was happening to the line of succession back

10:12

in Spain. A year

10:14

after Juana married Philip, her brother

10:16

Juan, the heir to the throne,

10:19

died, But to the great

10:21

relief of everyone, One's

10:23

wife, Margaret of Austria, was seven

10:25

months pregnant at the time, and the hope

10:28

was that she would have a son and a new

10:30

heir who could take his or

10:32

her father's place in the line of succession.

10:36

But that December, Margaret gave

10:38

birth to a stillborn girl,

10:41

with that line ended. Next in line

10:44

was one as older sister, Isabella,

10:46

the Queen of Portugal, wife of Manuel

10:48

of Portugal. People in

10:51

Spain were a little resisent about

10:53

a female queen, but the

10:55

good news for everyone was that Isabella

10:57

was also pregnant and she

10:59

had a son that would assuage all

11:01

of those concerns. And

11:04

lo and behold, a son was

11:06

born, Miguel in August. But

11:11

Isabella of Portugal had had a

11:13

difficult pregnancy, during which

11:15

she had traveled extensively and

11:18

that might partly explain why

11:20

hours after childbirth Isabella

11:23

died. The kingdom

11:25

had little Miguel, but not for long.

11:28

The infant Prince of Portugal

11:30

and the Spanish Kingdoms, the

11:32

boy who would have united all of the Iberian

11:35

kingdoms, died when he was just

11:37

two years old in his grandmother Isabella's

11:40

arms. So

11:46

in just three years, Juana

11:49

became next in line to be queen,

11:51

and she was officially recognized by

11:53

the legislative bodies, the Corteses.

11:57

But during her time away in Flanders,

12:00

rumors had already begun to spread about

12:02

her mental state. Juanna,

12:04

who had been madly in love with her husband

12:06

Philip the Handsome since the moment she saw

12:08

him, was also wildly

12:11

jealous when it came to her husband's

12:13

infidelities. For what it

12:15

was worth, her jealousy was merited.

12:17

He was a philanderer. Once

12:20

Wanna caught her husband in the

12:22

throes of passion with one of her ladies

12:24

in waiting, a woman who was known

12:27

in courts for her luscious,

12:29

shiny, long hair, Wanna

12:32

shared the woman's hair off herself

12:35

and then left the locks on Philip's

12:37

pillows. A tom Hagen

12:40

horsehead maneuver centuries

12:42

before the Godfather. Wanna

12:45

desperately wanted her husband to love

12:47

her to stop his wandering eye.

12:50

She tried love potions and tonics

12:53

literal snake oil, all

12:55

to no effect. Wanna

12:57

and Philip had wild fights.

13:00

Sometimes those fights would end in Philip

13:03

literally confining and locking

13:05

Juana in her rooms, where she would

13:07

refuse food and sleep as

13:09

a tactic for control. That

13:12

was a frequent strategy when

13:14

Juana Tantrum in

13:16

fifteen o four, her mother Isabella,

13:19

was sick with a fever, and Juana

13:21

went to visit her in Castile. It's

13:24

unclear exactly what happened, but

13:26

there was some sort of altercation there,

13:28

either between Juanna and her mother or

13:31

between Juanna and her husband back home

13:33

in Flanders. That meant that Juanna

13:35

wanted to go back home immediately

13:39

through France. The

13:41

problem was Castile was at war with

13:43

France, and it would be incredibly dangerous

13:45

for her to transport herself on land.

13:49

Castile might be at war with France, Juanna

13:51

declared, but I'm not. She

13:54

was completely irrational in her

13:56

determination, so much so

13:58

that her traveling companion in Bishop

14:00

Fonesca, had to physically take

14:03

her horses back to the stables himself

14:05

to prevent Juanna from leaving. When

14:08

Wanna reached the lock stables,

14:10

she screamed and shook the bars

14:13

and stayed up all night, refusing

14:15

the basic comforts of food or

14:18

blankets. So

14:20

that was one as reputation when

14:22

later that year her mother, Isabella

14:25

died, Argon and Castile

14:27

being separate kingdoms, meant that

14:29

upon her mother's death, Juana

14:32

became the Queen of Castile, although

14:34

Isabella had stipulated that if Juana

14:37

was unfit or unwilling to rule, Juana's

14:40

dad, Ferdinand, would be allowed to govern

14:42

until Juana's eldest son turned twenty.

14:46

But Ferdinand had been ruling

14:48

a united Argon and Castile

14:51

alongside his now deceased wife,

14:53

and he was not willing to let that go with

14:57

one and her husband still in Flanders.

14:59

For Ferdinand printed coins that said

15:02

fernand and Joanna King and Queen

15:04

of Castile and tried to persuade

15:06

the Cortes that Juanna was

15:08

so ill that she would not be able

15:10

to govern, which led to the Cortes

15:13

appointing him Ferdinand as

15:15

the kingdom's administrator and governor

15:18

and as Juan as guardian. But

15:21

Philip the Handsome, Juana's husband,

15:24

wasn't going to take that sitting down.

15:26

He wanted to rule Castile,

15:29

and so he also printed

15:31

coins with his and his wife's

15:34

names. For her part, Juanna

15:36

attempted to dispel rumors about

15:38

her insanity. She wrote

15:40

a letter from Brussels to a signor de vere

15:43

that I haven't been able to find translated

15:45

into English, but the general

15:48

idea is that she acknowledges the

15:50

stories about her jealous passions,

15:52

but that jealousy is a trait that she inherited

15:55

from her wonderful mother, whom

15:57

they all acknowledge was just one

15:59

of the most excellent women in the world. But

16:02

Ferdinand had already gotten the Cortees

16:04

to appoint him as one as guardian,

16:07

and Tuana and phil the Handsome were still

16:09

in Flanders, so Ferdinand

16:11

moved in to try to assert his

16:14

power. He was also looking

16:16

to edge Juana out of succession

16:18

entirely by getting married again

16:20

with the intention of producing an air Ferdinand's

16:24

second wife was Germaine de Foix,

16:26

the niece of Louis the twelfth of France,

16:29

and in classic Hapsburg fashion,

16:31

Ferdinand's own grand niece. The

16:34

two never produced an air, and

16:37

the move actually backfired on Ferdinand,

16:40

whose pro French policies only

16:42

bolstered support for the husband

16:44

and wife pair of Juana and Philip. With

16:47

the nobles on their side, Juanna

16:49

and Philip made their way to Castile to

16:52

try to cement their power. Although

16:54

Ferdinand and Philip were rivals

16:56

here, they did put their differences aside

16:59

for the mutue really beneficial arrangement,

17:01

where they met secretly to declare

17:04

Juanna unfit to rule because of her

17:06

quote infirmities and sufferings.

17:09

Ferdinand did briefly attempt to challenge

17:12

Philip for Castile, but knowing a losing

17:14

battle when he saw one pretty quickly,

17:16

Ferdinand retreated back to our gun. So

17:24

Philip the Handsome was King of Castile

17:27

with all of the power that he took

17:29

from his supposedly infirm

17:31

wife. But he wouldn't have the

17:33

power for long. Philip

17:36

got sick, and though the official cause

17:38

of death was typhoid, many

17:40

people thought that he was poisoned, possibly

17:43

on the orders of Ferdinand. Mad

17:46

with love or just mad, Juanna

17:49

was bereft, Philip

17:52

the Handsome was just when

17:54

he died. Juanna was pregnant

17:56

with their sixth child. It's

17:59

at the point that, if you believe

18:01

the stories, Juanna had

18:04

a breakdown. She

18:06

refused to be parted from her husband's

18:09

dead body for months.

18:11

They say, she didn't leave the side

18:13

of the embalmed corpse, and she frequently

18:16

requested that the casket be opened

18:18

over and over again so that

18:20

she could gaze upon her dead husband's

18:22

handsome face once more and

18:25

kiss his cold and waxy

18:27

lips. At least dead

18:29

in his coffin, Philip the Handsome

18:31

couldn't incite his wife's jealousy,

18:34

or so you might think, I

18:36

want to accompanied the casket to its

18:38

final resting place in Granada,

18:41

and she insisted that the procession

18:43

only travel at night so that

18:45

other women wouldn't see Philip the Handsome's

18:48

body and be tempted by the corpse.

18:51

It was during these travels that Juanna

18:53

gave birth to a daughter named Catherine

18:55

for her sister at

19:00

She finally let them put Philip's body

19:02

in the ground for a good Wanna returned

19:04

to a castile plagued by

19:07

disaster, with a literal

19:09

plague first of all, but also famine.

19:12

Juanna was out of her depth.

19:15

On one hand, some of those problems

19:17

would have been impossible for a monarch

19:19

to solve, but Juanna also

19:22

probably did suffer from some mental

19:24

illness that was wildly exacerbated

19:26

by the death of her husband. It

19:29

was a loss that she would never be able to get

19:31

over. For whatever reason,

19:33

Juana was incapable of ruling

19:35

her kingdom effectively against

19:38

her will. The Cortes set up a regency

19:40

council for Juana in fifteen o seven,

19:43

and Juanna just didn't have the resources

19:45

or the tactical ability to raise

19:48

the support she would need in order to protect

19:50

her right to the throne. Just

19:53

as the plague and famine were finally

19:55

letting up the next year, her

19:57

father, Ferdinand swooped in

20:00

he who was promptly placed as regent.

20:04

In fifteen o nine, Ferdinand

20:07

confined his daughter to the royal

20:09

palace at tortoisse Us on the

20:11

basis of her supposed insanity.

20:15

There are rumors about her paranoia,

20:17

suicidal urges, and her

20:19

necrophilia with the dead body of her

20:21

husband, but it's tricky to parse

20:24

out exactly what's true and what

20:26

isn't. It's always challenging

20:28

to retroactively diagnose

20:31

illness in historical figures, mental

20:33

or otherwise. But it's especially

20:35

tricky here because it was in Ferdinand

20:38

and Philip's interest for the general

20:40

public to think that Juana was so insane

20:43

that they could rule in her stead, and

20:45

we know for a fact that both had forged

20:47

letters and documents from her at

20:49

different points to suit their purposes.

20:56

Ferdinand, one his father, was never

20:58

able to have a new heir, and so, though

21:00

he didn't like it, one as eldest

21:02

son, Charles, was the heir to the thrones

21:05

of Argon and Castile. Ferdinand

21:08

especially hated Charles because he was

21:10

raised in Flanders and Ferdinand saw

21:12

his grandson as a foreigner. Fernand

21:15

tried to instead put another one

21:17

of juan as sons, a younger son who

21:20

was raised in Castile, next

21:22

in line for the throne, but

21:24

it didn't Ultimately work, Charles

21:27

and port Juana were left the kingdom's

21:29

jointly when Ferdinand died, although

21:32

for a brief period after his death, Argon

21:34

was ruled by Ferdinand's illegitimate

21:36

son Alonso. They

21:39

say that for the rest of his life, Ferdinand

21:41

only visited his daughter Juana twice

21:44

while she was in prison. Young

21:47

Charles inherited the kingdom and

21:49

also custody of his mad

21:51

mother in tord to see Us, where she

21:54

was kept for the rest of her life.

21:57

Charles the Fifth in Spain would go

21:59

on to be the Holy Roman Emperor

22:01

as Charles the First. For

22:04

forty five years, Juanna

22:06

remained imprisoned. There

22:08

was one year where she was briefly freed

22:10

by rebels against Charles, but he swiftly

22:13

put an end to that and put Juana back

22:15

in toward to see Us. Charles

22:17

instituted a policy of isolation

22:20

for his mother. Quote it seems

22:22

to me that the best and most suitable

22:25

thing for you to do, he wrote to her

22:27

attendants, is to make sure that

22:29

no person speaks with her Majesty,

22:32

for no good could come of it. The

22:35

longer Juana was confined, the

22:37

worse her condition became. Although

22:39

it's hard to pretend that being locked up

22:42

and more or less ignored for a few decades

22:44

wouldn't make someone well lose

22:47

their mind. By the end

22:49

of her life she was paranoid, but

22:51

the nuns wanted to kill her. Juanna

22:54

refuse to eat or sleep, or bathe

22:56

or change her clothes. She

22:59

died at age seventy five on Good

23:01

Friday in fifteen fifty. They

23:04

buried Wana in the royal chapel, beside

23:07

her parents and her husband. And

23:10

even though her life ended there alone

23:12

and all but forgotten, all

23:15

six of one as children would go on

23:17

to become monarchs in their own right France,

23:20

Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, Hungary,

23:22

and Portugal. Whatever mental

23:24

illness they might have inherited from their mother,

23:27

they also inherited her royal

23:29

blood. That's

23:35

the story of Juanna la Loca. But keep

23:37

listening after a brief sponsor break, to

23:40

hear a little bit more about one of her

23:42

most macabre relatives. I

23:44

think you're gonna like this one.

23:54

The part of juan a story that tends to

23:56

get the most attention, perhaps

23:58

justifiably, is the exhimation

24:01

of her husband's corpse and her rumored

24:04

necrophilia. But there's

24:06

another story about a dead body

24:08

in the nobility of the Iberian Peninsula

24:11

that I think is worth our attention.

24:14

Peter, the first King of Portugal,

24:16

was a direct ancestor of Juana, albeit

24:19

one almost two hundred years before she

24:21

was born. He was in love

24:23

with a woman named Inez de Castro, and

24:26

they were forbidden to marry. And though

24:28

the story of their lives are fascinating

24:31

and maybe even a story for another

24:33

future podcast. It's the story

24:35

of Inez's death, or rather

24:38

her life after death, that I

24:40

think seems appropriate to talk about at

24:42

the moment. Inessa

24:44

had only been Peter's mistress in her lifetime,

24:47

and when she died, he wanted

24:49

to find a way to legitimize their

24:51

children in the line of succession. He

24:54

claimed that he had secretly married Annez

24:57

before she died, but there was no proof

24:59

of that. The Pope refused to recognize

25:01

that secret marriage or the legitimacy

25:04

of the children that they had, so

25:06

in an attempt to force the court to

25:08

recognize her as the legitimate queen,

25:11

and as a show of his love for her

25:13

and his power, rumor has

25:15

it that Peter exhumed

25:18

in as his body from her grave, dressed

25:20

the body in all of the regalia

25:23

of a massive coronation dress

25:25

Jules robe for and crown,

25:28

and held a coronation for his

25:31

queen even though she was

25:33

just a dead body. Peter

25:36

then forced every single noble

25:38

in his court to kiss the

25:41

hem of his dead love's robes,

25:43

and then to kiss her cold

25:46

waxy hands. For

25:49

what it's worth, no one ever called him

25:51

Peter a loco, but

25:53

for Juana, maybe it ran in

25:56

the family. Noble

26:02

Blood is a production of I Heart Radio and

26:05

Grimm and Mild from Aaron Mankey. The

26:07

show is written and hosted by Dana Schwartz

26:09

and produced by Aaron Mankey, Matt Frederick,

26:12

Alex Williams, and Trevor Young.

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Noble Blood is on social media at Noble

26:17

Blood Tales, and you can learn more about

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the show over at Noble blood Tales dot com.

26:22

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