Isabella Quotes

“Discovery of new territories was becoming the great new entrepreneurial enterprise, and only a few countries, most notably Portugal and Castille, had recognized the magnitude of what was coming. Those that seized these opportunities would reap the profits and gain the glory. Those who didn't would be left hehind.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Philip made Juana feel fearful, intimidated, confused and disoriented.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“The University of Salamanca was one of the greatest and oldest universities in Europe, and Queen Isabella supported scholarship.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“When she split the world in half, in other words, did she know she was keep half of it for herself and leaving half to her beloved daughter as the queen of Portugal, and that the two halves were likely to come together in the next generation?”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Charles living in faraway Flanders, was now the heir to the kingdom, but was being raised far from the land that Isabella had spent her life so fiercely defending.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Just the same, Margaret was there to watch over things, just as she would have done with her own child.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Not surprisingly, the two allies in the paritition of Naples, Spain and France found themselves too deeply at odds be able to share their troubles amicably. They engaged in border disputes that ultimately erupted into war.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Under the administration of the Spanish Habsburghs, the Neapolitans would not enjoy self-government, and they would suffer from the religious intolerance that by this time was ingrained into the culture. Still the Neapolitans were somewhat protected from uncursions by pirates that were backed and supported by the Turks and, for the most part, from further assault by the French.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“It was a classic abusive marriage, which leaves the subjugated partner confused and disoriented.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“The exploits of Queen Isabella, Juana’s mother, seemed to have attracted attention everywhere as representing a new model of woman as warrior, and clearly Juana’s new subjects expected her to do more of the same in Flanders.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Philip was himself dominated by one official in particular, François de Busleyden, the archbishop of Besançon, who had attained that same kind of control over the archduke that Álvaro de Luna had developed over Isabella’s father and that Juan Pacheco had developed over Isabella’s brother Enrique. Even the language used to describe that relationship was remarkably similiar.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Philip’s advisers controlled him by feeding his vices, as Álvaro de Luna had done with King Juan II of Castile, Isabella’s father. Juana was as little able to handle the situation as her grandmother Isabel had been when she found herself in a similiar predicament, caught between, caught between her husband the king and his favourite.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Under persistent questioning, she admitted that she missed her mother so deeply that it would hurt too much to write.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“For with this dispensation in place, and the marriage blessed by the pope, what could possibly go wrong?”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Isabella’s legacy was visible everywhere in Panama, once the hub of Spain’s colonnial empire, where tons of gold and silver were transported to Europe so that the queen’s descendants could expand their power and dominion in the Old World. There were dozens of sites, mostly crumbling, abandoned ruins, covered in jungle vines, where the Spaniards had lived and worked when they ruled the planet. The derelict Castilla de San Lorenzo and the tumbled-down walls of Panama Viejo were evidence that even awesome political power can be fleeting. This made a vivid impression on me, a child of American empire overseas, then at the apex of its strength, both admired and resented around the world.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“The medieval structure was unprepossessing, not looking at all like a home to monarchs. The site underscored to me how humble Isabella’s beginnings had been, and how unlikely her meteoric rise to power. It seemed almost unbelievable that a young woman from this background at a time when women seldom wielded power, would pave the way to world dominion for her grandchildren.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“The patterns in the Castilian court in the late 1400s are remarkably similar to those that have been revealed in recent public scandals involving the clergy and other powerful figures.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“What I have tried to do is place Isabella within the context of the time and place in which she lived. She was a religiously fervent Catholic, living in an era when the Ottomon Turks seemed on the verge of wiping Christianity off the map, I am convinced that much of what she did was a reaction to this perceived threat, and to her belief that she was being called upon the bolster the faith against a very formidable enemy.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“In the Great Square of Brussels, for example, of series of living tableaux, with actors representing fictitious, mythological, and historical figures, were presented for Juana’s education and entertainment. One tableau depicted Juana’s education and entertainment. One tableu depicted Juana in the guise of the biblical Judith, killing Holofernes to free her people. Similiar scenes also showed women as heroines defying male authority.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“With the nuptial ceremonies concluded, Juana became Archduchess of Burgundy through her marriage to Phillip, who was Archduke of Burgundy. He ruled the land essentially as king, but his title was archduke because of a historical anomaly in how the confederation of states it represented had come together-as a duchy designated by a French king for rule by his son, as duke. This realm was composed of a crescent-shaped set of provinces that included Holland, Belgium, and areas of Northern France, particularly the Burgundy region. To the east was the Holy Roman Empire, which was rules by Phillip’s father and grandfather, but to the west and soutth was France, which was a powerful and dangerous ally.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Juna and her sisters and their mother had studied Latin with a young woman who had been a scholar at the University of Salamanca, Beatriz Galindo. Beatriz had an excellent command of Latin, and people were impressed with Juana’s adept facility with the language of diplomancy.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“When his father died and João became king in 1481, he embarked on the same program of centralized royal administration that other successful European countries, including Spain, France, and England, were employing to stabilize themselves and plane a check on nobles who had grown arrogant and lawless during times of disorganized governments and evil chaos.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“By the time King João II finally inherited the throne, he noted with disgust that the only property his father had left him by right was the land under the roads.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“It was always good to have an ally in a foreign court.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Isabella used the same mixture of flattery and manipulation in her international negotiations as she did in domestic affairs.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“For while both families wanted the match, both were ferociously angling for advantage. Henry VII was always watching his promises, which eventually made his son and heir a very rich man and Isabella had fair daughters to dower. The families dickered over the prices each should pay and the terms of the arrangement from 1488 to 1509, from the time Catherine was three years old until she was twenty-four.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Ambassadors from Spain and England met to hammer out the terms of the deal, which involved determining how much dowry should be paid by Catherine’s parents and how much by the Tudor king Henry VII of England, the father of the prospective bridegroom. Henry VII wanted the marriage to happen quickly so that Catherine’s blue blood would bolster his family’s wobbly claim to the English throne, but he was also notoriously penurious.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“When the way of conscience is also the way of profit, there is little difficulty in following it.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Her religiosity had a dark side. She feared unknown and dangerous things in the spiritual realm. It’s not coincidence that she commissioned the large family portrait that showed her sheltering under the arms of the Virgin Mary while menacing demons danced above their heads.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen

“Without question, Isabella was fervently religious and spent many hours in prayer at her private altar seeking to divine God’s purpose for her life, obsessively attending mass, even living inside a suite of rooms positioned above the chair at the Cathedral in Toledo when she was visiting Castile’s spiritual center.”
― Kirstin Downey, Isabella: The Warrior Queen