Juana the Mad

This older book remains one of my favorites because it challenges a number of easy assumptions about queenship, mental illness, and political strategy.  Juana was the third child of Isabella and Ferdinand, trained and educated to marry for diplomatic alliance, but never expected to reign in her own right. Yet early modern dynastic strategy was at the mercy of mortality and fertility, and Juana eventually became the unlikely monarch of Spain and the mother of the powerful line of Habsburg kings of Spain. Juana is typically dismissed as mentally unstable following the death of her husband. This book reexamines this… show more.

Older sister of Catherine of Aragon, Juana the Mad (1479-1555)— infamous for her bizarre attachment to the remains of her dead husband, Philip, son of Holy Roman Emperor, Philip—has been even more badly treated by history. Bethany Aram offers a complex portrait of Juana, who unexpectedly inherited the throne of Spain after the deaths of the first three heirs. I especially love Aram’s description of the resistance that Juana met when she first moved to Burgundy as Philip’s wife. Noblewomen were expected to further their family’s interests in their new homes. But Juana never had a chance: her household was… show more.