Hell Hath No Fury by Rosalind Miles Page A

helped to turn public opinion against the king, who fled for his life. Edward was captured and forced to abdicate in favor of his young son, Edward III, and Isabella declared herself and Mortimer regents for the boy.
    The next year, 1327, she saw to it that the king was killed in captivity. Conscious as ever of public opinion, she ordered the king’s body to be displayed to show that there was no mark of violence upon it, claiming that he died from natural causes. This did nothing to allay the widespread belief that he had been murdered, since Edward was a man of famously good health, with a strong constitution and a lineage of outstanding longevity. The display of the unblemished body merely gave rise to the rumor sniggered over by every English schoolboy from then on, that Edward had met his end through a red-hot poker inserted up his anus, which, in the temper of the time, would have been considered poetic justice for his sins.
    Edward’s death secured Isabella and Mortimer from further plots on his behalf, but the stench of adultery and murder created a strong backlash against them. Isabella made a final attempt to deflect criticism by planning a war against the Scots, but her power was ebbing. And the “She-wolf” was not the only plotter in the family. In 1330, her eighteen-year-old son, Edward, copied her tactic of using the nobility to turn the tables on a hated ruler and had Mortimer arrested. Mortimer was hauled out to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, while Isabella was imprisoned in Castle Riding in Norfolk. But Edward bore no long-term grudge against his mother, restoring her to court and giving her an honored place before she died—unlike her enemies, her husband, or her lover—in her old age, at peace, and in her own bed.
    Reference: Michael Prestwich,
Plantagenet England,
2005.
    ISABELLA I OF SPAIN
    Queen of Spain, b. 1451, d. 1504
    Isabella was a warrior monarch who, during the reconquest of Spain, often appeared on the battlefield “superbly mounted and dressed in complete armour.” This tactic to inspire the soldiers with both loyalty and chivalry was employed by a number of queens in time of war (see Elizabeth I, Chapter 2).
    The daughter of Juan II of Castile and Isabella of Portugal, she was three years old when her father died. She was brought up by her mother until the age of thirteen, when she was taken to the court of her ineffectual half-brother, Henry IV, king of Castile. Although Isabella became the focus of opposition in the corrupt and febrile court, she avoided entanglement in conspiracy and in September 1468 was eventually recognized as the heir to the throne of Castile.
    She married Ferdinand of Aragon, her own choice, in 1469. In 1474, on the death of Henry IV, Isabella swiftly arranged to be crowned “Queen Proprietress” of Castile instead of Juana, Henry’s illegitimate daughter and his final choice as heir. The king of Portugal invaded Spain in support of Juana but was defeated in 1479. Juana retired to a convent, and in the same year Ferdinand succeeded to the throne of Aragon as Ferdinand II.
    In 1480 the intensely austere and pious Isabella allowed the establishment of the Inquisition in Andalusia, principally as a measure to deal with Jews and Muslims who had been forcibly converted to Christianity but whose loyalties she did not trust. Both Ferdinand and Isabella were later given the title “the Catholic” by the Pope in recognition of their “purification” of the Catholic faith.
    Although Isabella and Ferdinand governed independently, they came together in the wars to expel the Moors (Muslims) from the territories in Spain that they had occupied for centuries. The
Reconquista
lasted ten years and was completed in 1492 with the conquest of the kingdom of Granada. Isabella played a prominent part in the campaign, traveling with her five children and involving herself in every detail of the military establishment. She founded