Joan of Castile, known in history as Joan the Mad, was born on November 6, 1479, in the city of Toledo, Spain. Daughter of the Catholic monarchs, Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, Juana was the third surviving child of the royal couple. His education was exceptional for that time, being trained in various fields, such as foreign languages (French and Latin) and music, showing remarkable intelligence from a young age.
At the age of 17, Juana married Philip of Flanders (Philip the Fair) in a politically motivated union (but which later proved to be a passionate one, at least on Joana’s part), intended to strengthen the alliances between the Habsburg and Trastámara, following this marriage six children were born who all came to hold significant power throughout Europe. (Eleanor, 1498, was Queen of Portugal. After she married a second time and became Queen of France. Charles, 1500, was made Emperor Charles I of Spain and V of Germany. Isabella, 1501, was Queen of of Denmark. Ferdinand, 1503, Emperor of Germany, 1505, Queen of Hungary and Catherine, 1507, Queen and Regent of Portugal).
Tragedy struck Joan’s family when her older brother Juan died in 1497, followed by her sister Isabella in 1498, these deaths making Joan the likely heir to Castile and Aragon. In November 1504, after her mother’s death – a fact that marked Juana deeply – she became queen regent of Castile, while Philip became king consort. And from here came the problems that changed Juana’s life for good. Despite being queen, her reign was marked by problems from the start, her mental imbalance becoming evident in 1502 when she was accused of extreme jealousy towards her husband, Philip the Fair. But this jealousy was not unfounded, for Philip had a well-established reputation as an unfaithful man. Rumors about Juana’s madness often circulated at court. After the birth of their fourth child, Juana was said to have attacked an alleged mistress of her husband with a pair of scissors. In the early modern era, the mental health problems of kings were often used as a pretext to depose them. The writings also indicate that Philip not only cheated on Juana, but also controlled her through physical and mental punishment. However, some accounts suggest that her emotional instability may have been rooted in family pressures and the political landscape of the time, given that Juana was raised in a royal environment where expectations were high and personal relationships were often overshadowed by alliances political.
The death of her mother in 1504 marked a significant turning point for Juana. Following this loss, she returned to Castile with Philip, where she claimed the regency against her father, Ferdinand II of Aragon, two years later Philip also died on 25 September 1506. Despite her husband’s infidelities, Juana had loved him deeply Philip, some historical documents indicate that upon his death, he would have refused to part with his embalmed body, hence perpetuating even more the idea of a Juana’s emotional instabilities which led to growing concerns about his ability to govern effectively. However, it should be noted that even in those times it was not uncommon for widows to sit next to the corpses of their husbands until they were buried, but as the image of a woman with mental problems of Ioana had already perpetuated, her desire to hug and kiss his corpse Philip for weeks after his death was considered a foolish gesture, when it was probably a sincere expression of grief at the loss of the one she had loved.
In 1509, Ioana was imprisoned in the royal monastery of Santa Clara in Tordesillas, on the orders of her father, who ruled as regent until his death in 1516. For the rest of her life (almost 45 more years), Ioana lived only in a small room and having no contact with the outside world except sporadically, slowly but surely deteriorating physically and mentally. She is said to have often talked about her dead husband and expressed her desire for freedom, but the authorities never considered her release, declaring her a threat to the stability of the Spanish monarchy.
On Good Friday, April 12, 1555, Joan I of Castile – nominal queen of Castile from 1504 and queen of Aragon from 1516 to 1555 – died at the age of 75. Her body was laid to rest in the church of the Royal Monastery of Santa Clara, after which it was moved to Granada in 1574, where her mortal remains rest with those of her husband.
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