Hell Hath No Fury by Rosalind Miles Page B

the Queen’s Hospitals, consisting of six large hospital tents staffed with physicians and surgeons, which trundled across the landscape from siege to siege.
    The
Reconquista
was primarily a war of sieges, during which the arrival of Isabella in her chain mail was counted on to stimulate such enthusiasm in her troops that the beleaguered citadels quickly fell. Her qualities as a quartermaster-general were invaluable. She oversaw the recruitment of thousands of pioneers to build roads that eased the passage of the cannon in her siege train and also engaged Don Francisco Ramirez, dubbed “El Artillero,” to deploy them at their destination under the direction of her husband.
    With her final victory over the Moors, 1492 was a busy year for Isabella, which also saw the expulsion from Spain of all Jews who refused to convert to Christianity and the voyage of discovery undertaken by Christopher Columbus, a venture she supported after much procrastination. In addition to sponsoring exploration, Isabella supported many scholars and artists, founded educational establishments, and amassed a huge art collection. She left the throne of Castile to her daughter Joan, as she had been predeceased by her eldest son, Juan, and daughter Isabella. Another daughter, Catherine of Aragon, became the first wife of Henry VIII of England.
    A portrait of Isabella shows her with a long nose and a glum expression. The surviving armor of the husband-and-wife architects of the
Reconquista
indicates that Isabella was taller than Ferdinand by as much as an inch.
    Reference: William Thomas Walsh,
Isabella of Spain: The Last Crusader (1451–1504),
1987.
    MATILDA
    Countess of Tuscany, b. 1046, d. 1115
    Matilda was the right-hand woman of Pope Gregory VII in the struggle between the papacy and the Holy Roman Empire. Her spiritual adviser, Anselm of Lucca, later Pope Alexander II, observed that she combined the will and energy of a soldier with the mystic and solitary spirit of a hermit. Fighting for the Supreme Head of the Church of Rome provided Matilda with the opportunity to fulfill both the spiritual and martial sides of her indomitable nature.
    She was born in northern Italy, the daughter of the Margrave Boniface, whose citadel was the impregnable Apennine fortress of Canossa, and Beatrice, the daughter of the duke of Upper Lorraine. Her father was assassinated in 1052, and the death of her siblings left her to inherit some of the richest lands in Italy.
    As a child, Matilda was taught to ride like a lancer, spear in hand, and to wield a battle-axe and sword. She was strong and tall and was said to be accustomed to the weight of armor. She also liked needlework, and sent an embroidered war pennant to William the Conqueror. Her mother supervised her education, and she was unusually well schooled for the time, fluent in German, French, Italian, and Latin.
    Matilda’s introduction to the turbulent power politics of the eleventh century came in 1059, when she accompanied Beatrice and her stepfather, Godfrey of Lorraine, to the Council of Sutri, at which noble families maneuvered and bickered over the papal succession following the death of Pope Stephen IX.
    It is likely that Matilda’s first appearance on the battlefield came two years later, at her mother’s side, as Alexander II battled against the schismatics who challenged his succession to the papacy. A contemporary account describes the young Matilda, “armed like a warrior” and carrying herself with “such bravery that she made known to the world that courage and valor in mankind is not indeed a matter of sex but of heart and spirit.” It is also possible that she was present at the Battle of Aquino (1066) in which Godfrey of Lorraine defeated the Roman and Norman supporters of a rival pope.
    The death of Godfrey in 1069 marked a turning point in Matilda’s life. Aided at first by her mother, who died in 1076, she began to exercise her own authority in