Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Fair Dowdy and I'm Deblina Choko reporting. And in
Speaker 1: a recent episode we talked about the famous Wanna La
Speaker 1: Loca or Joanna the mad Um, a frequent listener request,
Speaker 1: very frequent request, and, as I admitted in the last show,
Speaker 1: a subject I originally considered covering during Halloween. But I
Speaker 1: don't even really want to call her Wanna Lia Loca anymore.
Speaker 1: Once you research her story, it starts to sound kind
Speaker 1: of mean. For a lot of reasons. Wanna of Castile
Speaker 1: was a queen in her own right, and one who
Speaker 1: seemed to be um pretty badly treated by some of
Speaker 1: the most important people in her life, her father Ferdinand
Speaker 1: as in Ferdinand and Isabella, her husband Philip of Burgundy,
Speaker 1: and her son Charles Um. It's a disturbing story, partly
Speaker 1: because it still is so unclear how bad off was
Speaker 1: Laanna really and why did she make the decisions that
Speaker 1: she made, And we may speculate about that a little
Speaker 1: bit in this part too. But where we left off
Speaker 1: last time, Juanna had come into a very unlikely inheritance
Speaker 1: She was the third child of her parents, Fernand and
Speaker 1: Isabella of Spain, but through a series of unfortunate deaths,
Speaker 1: she became their heir. I Wanna return to Spain after
Speaker 1: receiving that news, along with her husband Philip. For some years,
Speaker 1: Philip and Juanna had had a pretty explosive relationship, one
Speaker 1: where Philip was certainly mentally abusive towards Wanna, perhaps physically abusive,
Speaker 1: and her parents were disturbed, not just because of the
Speaker 1: personal relationship her daughter had with her husband, but also
Speaker 1: because of Philip's own politics. He wasn't unabashedly pro Spanish.
Speaker 1: They were concerned that eventually their kingdoms, Ferdinand's Arragon and
Speaker 1: Isabella's Castille, would come under foreign control, and they weren't
Speaker 1: exactly happy with that. So they tried to get Wanna
Speaker 1: to stay in Spain when Philip went back to Burgundy,
Speaker 1: but for some reason which we can't quite surmise, she
Speaker 1: decided to go back to him anyway, and in fact,
Speaker 1: even through a series of tantrums in order to be
Speaker 1: able to go back to him. So that's sort of
Speaker 1: where we're picking up now. She's gone back to him,
Speaker 1: and those tantrums that are really key part of the
Speaker 1: story too, because they were public. They were disturbing Wanna,
Speaker 1: you know it, first tried to reason with her mother
Speaker 1: about returning to Philip. You know, my children are there,
Speaker 1: it's my husband, it's my duty, um. But Isabella was
Speaker 1: not interested in hearing that, you know. She wanted to
Speaker 1: keep Wanna with her, raise her up to to be
Speaker 1: an independent monarch um. So yeah, Wanna. Wanna reacted by
Speaker 1: not eating and not sleeping and not talk walking and
Speaker 1: standing out in the rain and all of it. Finally
Speaker 1: did result, like you just said, in her being allowed
Speaker 1: to return to her husband. But it also upset Isabella,
Speaker 1: and it gave the public, uh the barest hint that
Speaker 1: maybe Wanna was unstable, and this was kind of a
Speaker 1: perfect setup for Philip. Wanna was back in Burgundy by
Speaker 1: May fifteen o four, and if she thought her public
Speaker 1: demonstration of loyalty to Philip was going to be met
Speaker 1: with love or respect from him, she was dead wrong.
Speaker 1: Rumors about the couple went from bad to worse. She
Speaker 1: physically attacked a woman that she believed Philip was sleeping with.
Speaker 1: He as a result, had her locked up in her rooms,
Speaker 1: and he sent away her ladies and her favorite servant.
Speaker 1: He may have hit her, and he circulated rumors that
Speaker 1: she was mad, unhinged, and unfit to rule, though anyone
Speaker 1: who saw in public I thought that this was pretty
Speaker 1: much entirely untrue. Seemed like a perfectly competent, respectable lady
Speaker 1: and m According to the Women in World History Encyclopedia,
Speaker 1: it's likely that Juanna had manic depression, and that would
Speaker 1: partly explain the ups and downs and the entirely rational
Speaker 1: behavior that she exhibited when she was in public or
Speaker 1: with guests. And uh that entry actually suggested that this
Speaker 1: never would have been reason enough to disqualify a male ruler,
Speaker 1: but in Juanna it could be considered deabilitating madness, something
Speaker 1: that meant Philip or perhaps Ferdinand, her father, should rule
Speaker 1: in her stead. Just months after Juanna's return, though, this
Speaker 1: really became an issue because until now it wasn't. Isabella
Speaker 1: was still ruling Castile, Ferdinand was still ruling Aragon. But
Speaker 1: in November fifteen o four, Isabella suddenly died. Isabella was
Speaker 1: a woman who was certainly interested in looking after the
Speaker 1: future of her kingdom then, especially this fragile unity between
Speaker 1: her kingdom and her husband's and she was concerned with
Speaker 1: what she had seen of Juanna's rages and concerned by
Speaker 1: Philip's influence over her. We just mentioned that as as
Speaker 1: a foreigner, she was afraid he wouldn't be entirely in
Speaker 1: Spain's own best interests, since he didn't act interested at all. No,
Speaker 1: he didn't act interested. That's a that's another good point. Um.
Speaker 1: Isabel also accounted for the possibility that her daughter might
Speaker 1: not be fit to rule, and try to make sure that,
Speaker 1: however that went down, it would be Ferdinand and not
Speaker 1: Philip who stood up in Juanna's place as regent. So
Speaker 1: in her will, Isabella said that Wanna, her quote beloved daughter,
Speaker 1: was her heiress, but in case quote she might not
Speaker 1: like or might be unable to reign or govern, the
Speaker 1: government should be somehow carried on her nominee until little
Speaker 1: Charles came of age. Was Ferdinand, of course, who had
Speaker 1: quote great experience of the government of the said kingdoms.
Speaker 1: And a lot has been made of that wording, especially
Speaker 1: the first part you read to Plina that she might
Speaker 1: not like or might be unable to reign or govern.
Speaker 1: And well, it's clear that Wanna was eventually betrayed by
Speaker 1: her husband, by her father and by her son Charles.
Speaker 1: Her mother's role in that is a little bit less clear, right.
Speaker 1: Was Isabella opening up an official path for Wanna to
Speaker 1: be declared insane or was she honestly concerned by Wanna's actions?
Speaker 1: Was she just worried that Wanna was under Philip's thumb
Speaker 1: and quote might not like to reign because it would
Speaker 1: cause marital strife. I mean, the possibilities are kind of
Speaker 1: endless there, they really are. But even if Juanna and
Speaker 1: Philip did rule, Isabella had a little catch in in
Speaker 1: her orders here that made sure Ferdinand was still in
Speaker 1: the loops somehow. She wrote that they should obey him
Speaker 1: quote as good and obedient children. Um. So it was
Speaker 1: pretty important for Ferdinand to get this official nod from
Speaker 1: his dying wife since he had no personal claim to Castile.
Speaker 1: And we described this a more length than the last podcast,
Speaker 1: but he was just the king of Aragon, and that
Speaker 1: partnership between the two kingdoms than Castile was the more
Speaker 1: powerful of the two and the larger of the two
Speaker 1: really relied on both of them being alive. So at
Speaker 1: first he played humble, you know, he put on a
Speaker 1: show like he accepted this publicly acknowledged his daughter as
Speaker 1: the new Queen of Castile renounced any claims he had there.
Speaker 1: But there was a delay of fifteen months before Juanna
Speaker 1: and Philip again returned to Spain, and that gave both
Speaker 1: Ferdinand and Philip time to make their own plans against Wanna.
Speaker 1: So Philip, for his part, proclaimed himself king, and so
Speaker 1: did Ferdinand. He announced this at the Council of Toro,
Speaker 1: said that his daughter was unfit to rule, so sort
Speaker 1: of like thanks for that convenient insanity story to look
Speaker 1: up that story. He also made a French alliance, marrying
Speaker 1: Germaine de Foix, the niece of Louis the twelfth, and
Speaker 1: so if they had a son, at least Aragon would
Speaker 1: slip out of Juana's inheritance and Philip's control. But Castilian
Speaker 1: nobles were not fans of Ferdinand at all, and this
Speaker 1: new French marriage only made things worse, and so when
Speaker 1: Philip and Juana arrived in April fifteen o six, they
Speaker 1: offered up their support to Philip and Juanna, and finally Ferdinand,
Speaker 1: who was seeing how the situation really was, finally decided
Speaker 1: that it might be better to work with Philip than
Speaker 1: risk war alienating him, and so in June of fifteen
Speaker 1: o six, the two men signed a treaty. Just Juanna
Speaker 1: was not included in this at all, unsurprisingly, and they
Speaker 1: acknowledged that she was unfit to rule. Almost immediately though,
Speaker 1: fernand backed out of the treaty. He said it interfered
Speaker 1: with his daughter's rights. And it's around this point too
Speaker 1: that Juanna, who had been using her best political tactic
Speaker 1: of delay the entire time she was in Spain, you know,
Speaker 1: not signing anything saying that she wanted to meet with
Speaker 1: her father first, she wanted counsel first, most of at
Speaker 1: this point, finally decided that Philip was not working in
Speaker 1: her own interests and attempted an escaped from him on horseback,
Speaker 1: you know, she claimed she was going out for a
Speaker 1: light horseback ride, made a dash for it, trying to
Speaker 1: reach her father, who had by this point left Castile
Speaker 1: for Aragon. She was quickly caught by philips soldiers. So
Speaker 1: this gave Philip a pretty clear sign that Wanna was
Speaker 1: a threat to him or to his claims. And he
Speaker 1: also had the approval of the Castilian Cortes in his favor,
Speaker 1: so he had legitimacy for his regency on behalf of her.
Speaker 1: So he was ready to imprison her, to lock her up.
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about how he had done that
Speaker 1: before back home um and he thought that his stories
Speaker 1: he had been circulating for so long now that she
Speaker 1: is mentally unbalanced, had enough traction that the public would
Speaker 1: accept it, that they would accept him. But just like
Speaker 1: the last episode where there were repeated unexpected illnesses and
Speaker 1: sudden death, unexpected illness struck again and Philip became desperately
Speaker 1: ill with a fever. Wanna, who was five months pregnant
Speaker 1: at this point, nursed him for six days before he
Speaker 1: died September in fifteen o six at only age. So
Speaker 1: what happened next is kind of the core of the
Speaker 1: Wuannala Loca legend. For a period of several months, wanted
Speaker 1: just froze while the country fell into complete disorder. She
Speaker 1: needed to make a plan to find a way to
Speaker 1: claim her throne without arden supporters or any money. So
Speaker 1: by December eighteenth she finally swung into action. She canceled
Speaker 1: Phillip's appointments and concessions and trying to set up a counsel,
Speaker 1: and in a fateful decision, she ordered Philip's body to
Speaker 1: be removed to Granada, where her mother was buried. It
Speaker 1: made sense from a dynastic perspective. While Philip may have
Speaker 1: been abusive and manipulative in life, it would have made
Speaker 1: a statement about him in death that he was this
Speaker 1: powerful ruler from a powerful family that deserved to be
Speaker 1: buried near Queen Isabella. So this was important for Wanna's
Speaker 1: son's future in a way, she thought as a good
Speaker 1: pr move almost but it turned out to be a
Speaker 1: bad decision, especially when the elaborate funeral procession had to
Speaker 1: stop just a few days after starting for wanted to
Speaker 1: give birth to her daughter, Catalina. Her insistence that the
Speaker 1: procession begin again gave her enemies the opportunity to categorize
Speaker 1: her as this deranged widow, someone who would open the
Speaker 1: coffin to look at her husband. But it's interesting to
Speaker 1: add here that Julia Fox, the author of Sister Queen's
Speaker 1: notes that there really is no mention of coffin opening
Speaker 1: from the chronicler who was on the trip, and even
Speaker 1: if it was opened, it was probably just so Wanna
Speaker 1: could I d Philip. Meanwhile, though, with this maccabre procession
Speaker 1: going on and rumors building around it. The country was
Speaker 1: suffering from famine, and civil war seemed imminent, and fernand
Speaker 1: came swooping back into Castile too to handle everything. He
Speaker 1: took over Juanna's money, took over her household, took away
Speaker 1: Prince Ferdinand that was the son who had been born
Speaker 1: when when she and Philip first returned to Spain. Her
Speaker 1: elder children were being raised off in Burgundy still, but
Speaker 1: Wanna didn't and wouldn't actually relinquish her rights to her father.
Speaker 1: She wouldn't sign the papers that renounced her claim as queen.
Speaker 1: I think this is one of the most fascinating parts
Speaker 1: of the story. Um her insistence on this point. I mean,
Speaker 1: clearly being queen was important to her, regardless of anything
Speaker 1: else that happens. That didn't matter though to Ferdinand. He
Speaker 1: could forge the documents, and by the spring of fifteen
Speaker 1: o nine, Juanna's father had her and baby Catalina and
Speaker 1: Philip spot He all sent off to Tortosa Castle. The
Speaker 1: body was put into the care of the nuns of St. Clair,
Speaker 1: which was nearby. Wanna was twenty nine years old, and
Speaker 1: she spent the next forty six years in Tortoise. If
Speaker 1: it was of course important for Ferdinand during this time
Speaker 1: to keep Juanna alive because without her, little Charles would
Speaker 1: become king, and since he was often Burgundy being raised
Speaker 1: by his aunt Margaret, it was likely that Ferdinand would
Speaker 1: have to deal with plenty of interference from the boy's
Speaker 1: paternal grandfather, Maximilian, who was the Holy Roman Emperor, a
Speaker 1: worthy opponent to Ferdinand exactly. But aside from that, there
Speaker 1: were a few considerations made for one at all. Tortoise
Speaker 1: Us was a favorite old retreat of queens, but it
Speaker 1: was extremely isolated, so Wanna had luxurious possessions like tapestries
Speaker 1: and fine clothes, but she only had two rooms to
Speaker 1: live in. She had a large religious library and was
Speaker 1: sometimes allowed out to the convent, and she educated to
Speaker 1: Catalina herself. That was really her her main purpose in life,
Speaker 1: it seemed, educating her daughter Um because nobody else was around. Really. Ferdinand,
Speaker 1: who only visited her twice in seven years, would pass
Speaker 1: on information to her from time to time, but he
Speaker 1: didn't allow her to write, and there are no records
Speaker 1: of her having written anything again from when she goes
Speaker 1: into Torti see Us at age nine. Um. Sometimes she
Speaker 1: did show unhinged behavior. You know, she would refuse to
Speaker 1: eat her sleep, she attacked her women guards. But it
Speaker 1: was also clear by the care that was taken to
Speaker 1: keep her out of the public eye, that she was
Speaker 1: not insane. She was not the woman um rumors had
Speaker 1: her being. If anyone really saw her, Ferdinand was afraid
Speaker 1: that they would know she was being imprisoned unjustly. When
Speaker 1: Ferdinand died in January January fifteen sixteen, having failed to
Speaker 1: have a surviving son with his second wife, it left Wanna,
Speaker 1: technically a queen of Castile and Aragon want a son. Charles, though,
Speaker 1: maintained the same policy that his grandfather had, and he
Speaker 1: quickly claimed throne for himself. And Charles wasn't popular. He
Speaker 1: had been raised abroad, and the Castilians really resented his
Speaker 1: immediate assumption that he would just bypass his mother and
Speaker 1: take the throne. So Charles had an uphill battle to
Speaker 1: gain control over Castile and Aragon. But he had a
Speaker 1: more immediate problem as well. The people of tortoise Us
Speaker 1: rebelled against wanna treatment. They had long heard the rumors
Speaker 1: that want his caretaker, Mossain Ferrer, was abusing the queen,
Speaker 1: and upon Ferdman's death, they decided to chase Ferrer out
Speaker 1: of town. And so after this, Charles sent a cardinal
Speaker 1: Sinairos to stop the riots and to investigate these claims.
Speaker 1: And the cardinal was actually disturbed enough to order Ferrer
Speaker 1: never to be let near the Queen again. And in fact,
Speaker 1: letters from Ferrer do suggest that he was willing to
Speaker 1: put her on the rack and stop her self harm
Speaker 1: protests like starvation, though Fox says it's more likely that
Speaker 1: she was beaten. I mean, still not good. No, And
Speaker 1: this is I think probably a good point to to
Speaker 1: mention that while a lot has been speculated about Juanna's
Speaker 1: mental state, certainly situations like this would not have helped
Speaker 1: it over the years. And what more than forty years
Speaker 1: of imprisonment would eventually do to somebody, especially under circumstances
Speaker 1: like this, where you're possibly threatened or beaten um because
Speaker 1: of protesting and the only way you can it's not
Speaker 1: gonna help matters. But Charles may not have wanted his
Speaker 1: mother beaten. You know, he he removed this guy, but
Speaker 1: he didn't exactly swoop in to save the day either,
Speaker 1: you know, to remove her, to to return her to
Speaker 1: court or certainly to allow her to to rule, and
Speaker 1: in fact, he played off Ferdinand as the bad guy.
Speaker 1: He visited his mother in fifteen seventeen for the first
Speaker 1: time since he was a child. I don't think they
Speaker 1: had seen each other since she left Burgundy to go
Speaker 1: to Spain. But he didn't tell her that Ferdinand was dead.
Speaker 1: You know. It was just around the castle. Thought I'd
Speaker 1: swing by for a visit, um, And in reality he
Speaker 1: just kept her thinking Ferdinand was alive. He was the
Speaker 1: guy behind her imprisonment, and this decision to not tell
Speaker 1: her about Fernand kind of exposes the full duplicity of
Speaker 1: of Charles's story. You know, he proclaimed that Juanna had
Speaker 1: given him her blessing. He was trying to get that approval,
Speaker 1: you know, not looking like he was just completely bypassing,
Speaker 1: bypassing or skipping over his mother. Um said she had
Speaker 1: given him her blessing, But how could she have done that,
Speaker 1: of course, if she didn't even know that Ferdinand was dead. Um.
Speaker 1: Charles did some housekeeping too while he was there. He
Speaker 1: replaced her temporary guard with a guard of his choice.
Speaker 1: The Marquis of Dania and his wife, and the Danny
Speaker 1: is really cracked down on Juanna's already pretty limited life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they no longer even allowed her to visit the convent,
Speaker 1: and she protested this by not hearing mass at all.
Speaker 1: They stopped her also from meeting any of the nobles
Speaker 1: who tried to see her. They even stole from her.
Speaker 1: They wrote to Charles saying, quote, the torture might help
Speaker 1: her condition. There's no record that he approved this though.
Speaker 1: They even tried to avoid doctors coming in in case
Speaker 1: word got out that Wanna was saying. At one point,
Speaker 1: Wanna even had a ten day fever and they wouldn't
Speaker 1: let a doctor come in to help her get well.
Speaker 1: And you know, the same goes for Catalina too, who
Speaker 1: is growing up here. She was sick at one point
Speaker 1: and wasn't allowed to see a doctor for quite some time.
Speaker 1: Daniel was really obsessive to very paranoid. He was obsessed
Speaker 1: with gossiping ladies, maids and servants, and he even wrote
Speaker 1: to Charles at one point, quote it cannot be permitted
Speaker 1: that she speak with anybody because she would convince anyone.
Speaker 1: So that's that's pretty damning, I'd say. But Charles is
Speaker 1: a bit of an enigma because of the way he's
Speaker 1: treating his his mother, but also the close frigard he
Speaker 1: had for a lot of other family members, and of
Speaker 1: course the most famous of those was Catherine of Aragon,
Speaker 1: his aunt, who was in her terrible situation with Henry
Speaker 1: the Eighth, eventually trying to unload her to marry Anne Boleyn.
Speaker 1: He was a staunch supporter of hers, but also with
Speaker 1: his younger sister Catalina, who had grown up in Tortos
Speaker 1: see Us with her mother. She was eleven years old
Speaker 1: at the time Charles inherited, and when he tried to
Speaker 1: remove her, he thought she should be socialized a little bit.
Speaker 1: Want To just spiral deeper and deeper into depression. And
Speaker 1: so Charles at least knew enough to keep his mother
Speaker 1: alive and and to keep her happy enough by returning
Speaker 1: Catalina to her want to. From then on tried to
Speaker 1: keep her daughter in sight and told Dania that she'd
Speaker 1: kill herself if they took Catalina away again. And when
Speaker 1: the time family came for a teenage Catalina to leave,
Speaker 1: and Mary Wanna stood at the last point that she
Speaker 1: saw Catalina for twenty four hours. So just another note
Speaker 1: here Catalina's complaining letters to Charles made it clear that
Speaker 1: he knew all about how the Daniels were treating his mother,
Speaker 1: the stealing and all of that, and he still didn't
Speaker 1: do anything about it. Plus, if he thought that his
Speaker 1: mother was truly insane, why would he allow his sister
Speaker 1: to say, and I find Catalina the really fascinating part
Speaker 1: of the story. It's like somebody should write a historical
Speaker 1: novel about her experiences growing up in the castle and
Speaker 1: the um, let's do it to Palina Um. It's easy, though,
Speaker 1: to wonder why Charles didn't free his mother, especially if
Speaker 1: he knew she was not insane, but just like his father,
Speaker 1: like his grandfather before him. He did know that his
Speaker 1: power relied on Juanna being alive but out of commission
Speaker 1: um and as an unpopular foreigner, especially when eating the Inquisition,
Speaker 1: one who had brought his own click with him from
Speaker 1: Burgundy um thrown out Spanish guys. He was especially concerned
Speaker 1: that Castilians might choose his mother over him, even if
Speaker 1: they didn't necessarily allow her to rule in her own right.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was made clear after years of this
Speaker 1: that Wanna could be successfully used as a figurehead while
Speaker 1: somebody else actually did the work of the government, and
Speaker 1: this became especially worrisome for Charles in fifteen nineteen, it
Speaker 1: was just two years after he had arrived in Spain
Speaker 1: when his paternal grandfather Maximilian died, And we mentioned in
Speaker 1: the last episode that the position of Holy Roman Emperor
Speaker 1: was not inherited, but you had to have good connections,
Speaker 1: and Charles certainly had them. He was a likely candidate
Speaker 1: up against guys like Henry the eighth Francis the first
Speaker 1: of France Um. But to to increase the likelihood he
Speaker 1: would get to become Holy Roman Emperor, it meant he
Speaker 1: had to leave Spain in for a little bit right
Speaker 1: at the shaky, nerve racking sort of time. And as
Speaker 1: a side note here, Fox writes how again Wanna wasn't
Speaker 1: told Maximilian's death, just that he had abdicated. So when
Speaker 1: Daniel suggested she write a note of thanks to Maximilian
Speaker 1: for the quote favor he had shown her son, Wanna
Speaker 1: was like, maybe you should do it, because I haven't
Speaker 1: written to him since I've been in prison this whole time. Well,
Speaker 1: and Fox notes too that that's kind of a might
Speaker 1: have been Daniel hoping to get even more ammunition against
Speaker 1: the Wanna is crazy, especially when it comes to dead people.
Speaker 1: If she's this lady who followed her husband around and
Speaker 1: kissed his dead body's feet, maybe it wouldn't be too
Speaker 1: surprising that she was writing letters off to her dead
Speaker 1: father in law. But Castille did in fact take this
Speaker 1: opportunity to rise up against Charles when he was out
Speaker 1: of the country and a group of rebels started what
Speaker 1: was called the Communero revolt. On August, a group of
Speaker 1: Communero officials finally got as Dania in order to plead
Speaker 1: before the queen. They offered her castile. They begged her
Speaker 1: to help her people and asked her to sign her approval.
Speaker 1: For about one hundred days. Wanna met with the rebels
Speaker 1: and listen to their offers. She took up her favorite
Speaker 1: political tactic again, though here she started to delay. She
Speaker 1: wouldn't sign anything until she could call a council of
Speaker 1: her own. Finally, though miraculously almost, she chose her family again,
Speaker 1: even all after all that had happened to her, saying,
Speaker 1: if Charles quote all that belonged to her was his
Speaker 1: and he would take good care of it. Super sad,
Speaker 1: I don't know, it's yeah, it's more unexpected than miraculous,
Speaker 1: at least from Juanna's perspective, because as soon as the
Speaker 1: rebellion was put down, you know, Charles didn't come in saying, oh,
Speaker 1: it's really glad to hear what you what you said. Instead,
Speaker 1: he rewarded her loyalty with an even stricter regime at
Speaker 1: Tortoise if she was cut down to one room. Eventually,
Speaker 1: of course, Elena was taken away, um, and she was
Speaker 1: stuck with the hated Daniels too. She would complain about
Speaker 1: them bitterly. Apparently just the sound of their voices became
Speaker 1: agonizing for her to hear, and they were the only
Speaker 1: ones she heard a people there. Um, And so just
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, we can't go into too
Speaker 1: much more detail about that, just similar days, day in
Speaker 1: day out, for decade after decade, forty six years. Um.
Speaker 1: The strangest part of this story though, is that there
Speaker 1: are these little bright spots in it. You think this
Speaker 1: woman would be a hundred percent shunned by her family
Speaker 1: if they were willing to do this to her, But
Speaker 1: that wasn't the case. Her family did visit her sometime.
Speaker 1: They would bring the kids, bring the grandkids um. They
Speaker 1: certainly weren't considering her a deranged woman who might be
Speaker 1: dangerous to the hopes of their kingdoms. But they also
Speaker 1: didn't exactly let her back into the family circle. No, no, certainly,
Speaker 1: not even as Charles position became more secure to I
Speaker 1: think this surprised me, and this is just um, um,
Speaker 1: it's just hard to imagine why you would keep your
Speaker 1: family member in prison for so long, but why they
Speaker 1: didn't let her back in as some sort of dowager
Speaker 1: queen type role, especially if she grew older. According to Fox, Though,
Speaker 1: there were sixteen family visits between fifteen thirty five. Yeah,
Speaker 1: recorded visits, um. And like I said, bringing the grandkids,
Speaker 1: bringing the kids, her grandfon Philip, stopping before he married
Speaker 1: a cousin, and then stopping before he married another cousin
Speaker 1: that time married Tudor. Very but I don't know, just
Speaker 1: so part I can't really understand of this story. She
Speaker 1: did have them on one point, though, and that was religion.
Speaker 1: It was sort of the one thing that she could
Speaker 1: really control. So after her confessor was dismissed in fifty three,
Speaker 1: she just stopped making a full in fashion. And this
Speaker 1: was something that really immensely disturbed. Charles and his son
Speaker 1: Philip as well and her granddaughters. Everyone just couldn't handle
Speaker 1: this for some reason. No, they were. They were deeply
Speaker 1: concerned about Nah's soul, the state of her soul, what
Speaker 1: would happen should she die? Um. By age seventy five,
Speaker 1: those fears became pretty major, four of them. She was
Speaker 1: getting very frail. She did die April eleven or twelfth,
Speaker 1: and fifteen fifty five. Before her death, she was willing
Speaker 1: to make a partial confession because her family was desperate
Speaker 1: at this point trying to get her to do it,
Speaker 1: but she held out on the full deal, kind of
Speaker 1: feisty to the end here and once she was dead too.
Speaker 1: This is again where the story changes. She's not somebody
Speaker 1: to be hidden away anymore. She's somebody for the family
Speaker 1: to celebrate. She was entombed in Granada with her husband Philip.
Speaker 1: He ended up there just where she wanted him to be. Ultimately, Um,
Speaker 1: Ferdinand and Isabella, little Prince Miguel, Um, all of them
Speaker 1: end up where Wanna was expecting them to. So she, finally,
Speaker 1: I guess, wasn't accepted part of the family after all
Speaker 1: those years of being shunned. After she died. So it's
Speaker 1: a sad ending to a story that was really entirely unexpected.
Speaker 1: It is. I certainly went into it expecting and knowing
Speaker 1: that there was a lot of controversy over whether she
Speaker 1: was really Wanta a Loca Joanna the mad um and um.
Speaker 1: You know how much the power play among her family
Speaker 1: members had to do with her long imprisonment. But it's
Speaker 1: one crazy thing. I mean, not to make a bad pun,
Speaker 1: there is if you go around reading stories about Wanna
Speaker 1: uh difference versus still treat her condition as insanity, you know,
Speaker 1: like she was in prison because she was insane. Um,
Speaker 1: rather than getting into the full story behind it. You
Speaker 1: know how her mental state is is troubled clearly, but
Speaker 1: certainly not to the level that her family claimed it was,
Speaker 1: although it degraded to over time, well as it would
Speaker 1: when you're imprisoned for that long and unable to to
Speaker 1: talk to to leave, or to do anything that you
Speaker 1: want to do, to even to write. But I think
Speaker 1: in a sense it's probably almost easier just to say, well,
Speaker 1: choose crazy, because even if you know the full story,
Speaker 1: you can speculate forever about why the decisions, why she
Speaker 1: made the decisions that she made and why her family
Speaker 1: made the decisions they made too, I mean power aside
Speaker 1: um why some of the things that happened happened. But
Speaker 1: certainly a fascinating story. I'm glad that we finally covered
Speaker 1: this one. I hope all those listeners who suggested it
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. Uh And you know, sorry, it's not a
Speaker 1: super Macob kiss in the Dead Body Foot episode, but
Speaker 1: it's just not how it turned out. So to Bolina,
Speaker 1: we have a really fascinating listener mail today. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: were saying it comes from Facebook. Not all listener mail
Speaker 1: comes from email. That was very true. And it's from
Speaker 1: listener Ellen, who was writing about our episode on the
Speaker 1: real Tokyo Rose Eva to Guri Uh, an episode both
Speaker 1: of us really enjoyed learning about, and one I think
Speaker 1: is kind of stuck with us too, just as another
Speaker 1: tragic sort of story. Um. But Ellen wrote in to
Speaker 1: say that she knew Eva growing up. In fact, her
Speaker 1: mother was Eva's best friend. After after the imprisonment and
Speaker 1: all of that, remember from the episode, she moved to Chicago,
Speaker 1: where her father ran a very successful store and lived
Speaker 1: in Chicago, so that's where Ellen's mother um met Eva.
Speaker 1: But it's it's a great message, and I'm just going
Speaker 1: to read part of it. But the part that I
Speaker 1: found really touching were Ellen's memories of Eva and how
Speaker 1: she really kept a lot of humor in her life,
Speaker 1: something that was incredibly surprising to us considering all she
Speaker 1: had been through. But just to read a little bit
Speaker 1: of that she wrote, Eva was a little fireball into
Speaker 1: her old age. She was full of energy and humor,
Speaker 1: very quick to make you laugh and share hilarious stories.
Speaker 1: She had that voice that was so amazing that I
Speaker 1: can still hear it today. Listening to the old radio
Speaker 1: broadcast on the podcast brought back many happy memories. Eva
Speaker 1: never let her hard life show on her face or
Speaker 1: in her personality. No one really knew who she was
Speaker 1: when they came into the store and was checking out
Speaker 1: their stuff the register. She liked to remain anonymous to
Speaker 1: the outside world because she always considered herself an American
Speaker 1: and was deeply proud of that. She didn't want to
Speaker 1: stir up attention to her past for herself and for
Speaker 1: her father's business. So this was a really touching email,
Speaker 1: and and she she went on to say too that um,
Speaker 1: she didn't really realize who she was or how famous
Speaker 1: she was. Ellen didn't rather until she was older. UM,
Speaker 1: just because Eva always focused on on others. Really, but
Speaker 1: that's kind of an example of some of the cool
Speaker 1: personal connections we sometimes fear about between listeners and the podcast.
Speaker 1: That is pretty amazing. Thank you for sharing and that story,
Speaker 1: Like you said, I think it it really touched both
Speaker 1: of us a lot. And the quote that we mentioned
Speaker 1: about the tiger changing its stripes. When when we were
Speaker 1: reading that quote, I was reading that quote during the episode,
Speaker 1: I got really choked up. And the funny thing is
Speaker 1: I got choked up when I read it the first time,
Speaker 1: and when I read it again, and when I read
Speaker 1: it on the podcast, and then later I was repeating
Speaker 1: it to my husband and I was retelling the story,
Speaker 1: and I got choked up then too. It's just something
Speaker 1: about it. It's just and and this is the story
Speaker 1: I've offen. I retold it to my fiance, I retold
Speaker 1: it to a woman we work with. UM not something
Speaker 1: I usually. I'm not sure if listeners imagine we're just
Speaker 1: always telling these podcasts to our friends. I try to
Speaker 1: avoid that. I usually think, you know, if people want
Speaker 1: to hear it, they can listen. UM. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: just felt like I had to tell other people this story,
Speaker 1: and um I was happy to to hear that Eva's
Speaker 1: later life did seem fulfilling to that certainly added something
Speaker 1: to my understanding of the subject. So thank you so
Speaker 1: much Ellen for writing in too to share such a
Speaker 1: touching story. If you guys want to share any personal
Speaker 1: connections to subjects, I don't know how many folks are
Speaker 1: going to have Wanna li loca connections unless you're European
Speaker 1: royalty than or probably the right to us definitely, or
Speaker 1: just suggestions, you know, the drill, whatever, whatever you guys,
Speaker 1: I want to say. We are at History Podcast at
Speaker 1: Discovery dot com. We're also on Twitter at missed in History,
Speaker 1: and we're on Facebook, and again we mentioned it a
Speaker 1: few times during the podcast, but Julia Fox's book on
Speaker 1: Wanna is really interesting. It's actually a dual biography called
Speaker 1: Sister Queens, covering Juanna's life and her sister Catherine of Aragon, who,
Speaker 1: as people always say, would make another fabulous subject. So true.
Speaker 1: And if you want to learn a little bit more
Speaker 1: about Captain of Aragon's famous husband, Henry the Eighth, we
Speaker 1: have an article about that. It's ten heads that roll
Speaker 1: roll during Henry the Eighth's reign, and you can look
Speaker 1: up that one by visiting our homepage at www dot
Speaker 1: how staff works dot com for more on this and
Speaker 1: thousands of other topics. Is it how staff works dot
Speaker 1: com