Joanna of Castile, known as la Beltraneja (28 February 1462 – 12 April 1530), was a claimant to the throne of Castile, and Queen of Portugal as the wife of King Afonso V, her uncle.
Birth and parentage
King Henry IV of Castile married Joan of Portugal, daughter of King Edward of Portugal and the youngest sister of King Afonso V of Portugal, on May 21, 1455. Seven years later, Joanna was born at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid.
Henry IV had previously been married to Blanche II of Navarre. After thirteen years, that marriage was annulled on the grounds that it had never been consummated. This was attributed to a curse, which only affected Henry's relationship with Blanche; a number of prostitutes from Segovia testified that they had noticed no impairment.
Henry had no other children and was rumoured to be impotent. Whether true or not, this rumour was widely circulated by Henry's opponents, who further insinuated that the little infanta (Joanna) was the child of Beltrán de la Cueva, a royal favourite at court, who was created the 1st Duke of Alburquerque in 1464. They called Joanna "la Beltraneja", a mocking reference to her supposed illegitimacy.
Joanna's mother, Joan of Portugal, was eventually banished to Bishop Fonseca's castle, where she fell in love with Fonseca's nephew and became pregnant. Henry divorced Joan in 1468.
Heir to the throne
On 9 May 1462, Joanna was officially proclaimed heir to the throne of Castile and created Princess of Asturias. Henry had the nobles of Castile swear allegiance to her and promise that they would support her as monarch.
Many of the more prominent nobles, seeking to increase their own power, refused to recognise Joanna, preferring that Henry would have named as heir his younger half-brother, Infante Alfonso. Armed conflict broke out and in 1464 the league of nobles forced Henry to repudiate Joanna and recognise Infante Alfonso as his heir. Alfonso then became Prince of Asturias, a title traditionally held by the heir apparent. Henry agreed to this compromise with the stipulation that Infante Alfonso would marry Joanna (his half-niece), to ensure that they both would receive the crown.
But in 1468, Infante Alfonso died, and Henry divorced Joanna's mother, resulting in Joanna's displacement in the succession. Her half-aunt, Infanta Isabella, was placed before her in the succession, although Joanna was considered the heir after Isabella.
Joanna was held in custody by the Mendoza family from 1465 to 1470, and then by Juan, Marqués de Villena (elevated, in 1472, to 1st Duke of Escalona), and his family from 1470 to 1475. There were many negotiations for her marriage to someone who could defend her rights of succession. On 26 October 1470, she was betrothed and then married by proxy to Charles, Duke of Guienne, brother of Louis XI of France, and proclaimed as the legitimate heir to the throne. But Charles died in 1472. After a few unsettled arrangements, which included French and Burgundian princes, Joanna was promised in marriage to her maternal uncle, King Afonso V of Portugal, who swore to defend her (and his own) rights to the Crown of Castile.
When Henry died in 1474, she was recognized as queen by some noble factions, while others preferred her half-aunt Isabella as queen. This began the four-year War of the Castilian Succession.
In addition to the King of Portugal, Joanna was supported by some of the high Castilian nobility and by descendants of Portuguese families that had settled in Castile after 1396: the Archbishop of Toledo (Alfonso Carrillo de Acuña); the 2nd Duke of Escalona, a powerful and wealthy nobleman; the Estúñiga family, with lands bordering Portugal; the Marquess of Cádiz; and the Grand Master of the Order of Calatrava, Rodrigo Téllez Girón.
Isabella was supported by Ferdinand of Aragon (whom she married), and by most of the Castilian nobility and clergy: the powerful House of Mendoza; the Manrique de Lara family; the 2nd Duke of Medina Sidonia; the 1st Duke of Alburquerque; the Order of Santiago; and the Order of Calatrava, except its Grand Master.