Queen Isabella

      I have been having a great deal of difficulty coming up with good websites that tell the whole story of Queen Isabella. She was a very complex woman that lived in an age that is very different than today. I have decided to try to write a 'letter' that I think Queen Isabella might have tried to write about her life.
      This is total FICTION but comes from some of the resources that Mrs. Novak has been able to obtain. The ones from the Internet will have hyperlinks that you can click on and read. I will also add to this 'letter' after I return from Spain. I think I am going to learn MUCH more about Queen Isabella while I visit.
     I hope that you enjoy this but remember that this is fiction.

I am Queen Isabella of Spain

            I am Queen Isabella of Castile ‘La Catolica’. I am dying now and I know it. It is easier for me to write about my life not as my life but rather the life I gave to Castile, my husband, the Catholic Church and my children. I know that my redemption will come through my Catholic faith that is part of my every waking moment.
     I can not tell you all the things that have happened in my life but I will try to tell some that stay in my mind even today. I so wish I had written a diary during my life. Some very important things I should have written about have rather faded in my memory with time. I will do my best.
         I was born on April 22^nd, 1451 in Madrigal de las Altas Torres in a small palace of my father’s Juan II, King of Castile and Leon. My mother was Isabella of Portugal and my father’s second wife. My father died when I was three years old and I can not remember him.
            I can remember my early home with the big dark Hall of Ambassadors with its wooden ceiling, the chapel with the stairway up to my mother’s rooms which were large and bright with large windows and the courtyard beyond. I was born in a small room off of my mother’s living room. My mother told me how she kept me in this small room for the first month of my life. She was afraid that I would die of some disease brought by the servants. She and the mid wife kept me safe from all. She had been very sick while pregnant with me and very worried about my birth.
            My mother told me that I took my first steps in big living room and played in the court yard. I can remember playing in the court yard under the warm summer sun. Yes, I have gone back here many times but my mother’s few happy stories make it much clearer than my memories of this time.

My brother, Alfonso, was born November 15, 1454. My mother became very sad after his birth. My father’s death in July, 1455 deepened her sadness and we left for a small castle in Arevalo, Castile. This is the time I can remember the best of my childhood.

1481 was a long year for me. I spent a great deal of time traveling with my son, Prince Juan, working with my husband and holding courts around Spain. The plague was very bad in many of the big southern cities of Andalusia so we went north. I have been told that I rode nearly 2,000 miles that year.
The day after Christmas will be forever in my memory. That evening the fortified mountain town of Zahara was taken by the Moors with all the people either killed or sold into slavery. It took a week for this information to get to me. I was horrified by this and decided that the final war against the Moors MUST happen when I heard the terrible tale. As hard as it was going to be, it had to be done no matter how long it took. The Moorish infidels had to be expelled forever. I had no idea at the time it would take ten years and much bloodshed.