Philip I of Castile

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Philip I of Castile
King of Castile iure uxoris
King consort of Castile and Titular Duke of Burgundy

King of Castile
iure uxoris (alongside Joanna I)
ReignJuly 12, 1506 – September 25, 1506
PredecessorJoanna I of Castile
SuccessorJoanna I of Castile

King consort of Castile
ReignNovember 26, 1504 – July 12, 1506
PredecessorFerdinand II of Aragon
(as King consort of Castile)
SuccessorIsabella of Portugal
(as Queen consort of Spain)

Titular Duke of Burgundy
ReignMarch 27, 1482 – September 25, 1506
PredecessorMary I of Burgundy
SuccessorCharles II of Burgundy
BornJune 22, 1478
Bruges, Holy Roman Empire
DiedSeptember 25, 1506(1506-09-25) (aged 28)
Burgos, Crown of Castile
Burial
Royal Chapel of Granada
SpouseJoanna I of Castile (1496–1506)
IssueSee Issue
HouseHabsburg
FatherMaximilian I of Habsburg
MotherMary of Burgundy

Philip I of Castile, called "the Handsome" (Bruges, July 22, 1478 – Burgos, September 25, 1506), was Titular Duke of Burgundy (as Philip IV), Duke of Brabant, Limburg and Luxembourg, Count of Flanders, Habsburg, Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland, Tyrol and Artois, and Lord of Antwerp and Mechelen, among other cities, between 1482 and 1506, and King iure uxoris of Castile (1504–1506) through his marriage to Joanna, daughter and heiress of the Catholic Monarchs after the deaths of her siblings the Infantes John and Isabella.

Biography

Duke of Burgundy

Maximilian I of Habsburg and Mary of Burgundy, his parents.

The firstborn of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, and of Mary of Burgundy, Philip was born in Bruges, in the County of Flanders (today Belgium). In 1482, after the death of his mother Mary of Burgundy, he succeeded her in her Burgundian possessions under the guardianship of his father. A period of unrest followed, during which he witnessed sporadic hostilities, mainly between the great cities of Flanders (especially Ghent and Bruges) and the supporters of Maximilian.

During this interregnum, Philip became caught up in events and was even briefly kidnapped in Bruges, as part of the campaign by Flanders to support its demands for greater autonomy, which it had wrested from Mary of Burgundy in an agreement known as the Blijde Inkomst or Joyous Entry of 1477. By the early 1490s, the crisis of the interregnum gave way to an uneasy standoff, in which neither the support of France for the cities of the Franc (Flanders) nor the support of Maximilian's father Frederick III proved decisive. Both sides reached an agreement in the Treaty of Senlis in 1493, which eased the internal power struggle, as both parties agreed to recognize Philip (then fifteen years old) as Prince the following year. He was proclaimed sovereign of the Order of the Golden Fleece at the age of six. In 1491 he presided over the chapter of Mechelen; in 1501, that of Brussels; and in 1505, that of Middelburg.[2]

Marriage contract (1495). General Archive of Simancas.

His father arranged his marriage to Joanna of Castile, the daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, within the framework of the Holy League that united the Spanish monarchy with the Empire, England, Portugal, Naples, the Republic of Genoa and the Duchy of Milan against the hegemonic ambitions of France in Italy (1495). It was he who introduced the House of Habsburg into the territories of present-day Spain. The epithet the Handsome was given to him by King Louis XII of France. In 1501, Philip and Joanna were traveling to Castile to be sworn in as Princes of Asturias and stopped at Blois. There the King received them, and on seeing him exclaimed: "Here is a handsome prince."

In 1494, Maximilian renounced his regency under the terms of the Treaty of Senlis, and Philip, aged sixteen, took over the government of the Burgundian lands himself, although in practice authority derived from a council of notables of Burgundy. On October 20, 1496, he married the Infanta Joanna, daughter of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, in Lier, Belgium.

The marriage was part of a series of family alliances between the Habsburgs and the Trastámaras intended to confront the growing power of France, which had increased considerably thanks to the policies of Louis XI and the successful assertion of royal power after the war with the League of the Public Weal. The matter became more urgent after Charles VIII invaded the territories of the Crown of Aragon (known as the First War of Independence).

Philip's sister, Margaret, married John, Prince of Asturias, the only son of Isabella and Ferdinand and their successor to the unified crown of Castile and Aragon.[3] The double alliance was not designed to allow the Spanish kingdoms to fall under Habsburg control. At the time of her marriage to Philip, Joanna was third in the line of succession to the throne, preceded by her siblings John and Isabella.

Philip and Joanna

As sovereign of the feudal principalities of the Low Countries, he was a competent administrator and a popular and beloved sovereign, who knew how to reconcile the interests of his various territories and showed a particular talent for proposing reforms and for bringing tranquility and peace after many years of political upheaval.

King of Castile

With the deaths of the Castilian-Aragonese Infantes John (1497) and Isabella of Aragon (1498), as well as the latter's son, the Infante Miguel de la Paz (1500), his wife became heiress of Castile and Aragon. When Queen Isabella I died (November 24, 1504), the problem of the succession in Castile arose. Her husband, Ferdinand, proclaimed Joanna Queen of Castile and took the reins of the government of the kingdom, invoking the last will of Queen Isabella.

But Philip was not willing to give up power, and in the Concord of Salamanca (1505) the joint government of Philip, Ferdinand the Catholic and Joanna herself was agreed upon. The situation changed with the couple's arrival in the Iberian Peninsula, as the poor relations between the son-in-law (supported by the Castilian nobility) and the father-in-law became evident, so that, by the Concord of Villafáfila (1506), Ferdinand withdrew to Aragon and Philip was proclaimed King of Castile at the Cortes of Valladolid under the name Philip I.

Meanwhile, Joanna supposedly went mad, according to some because of the jealousy aroused in her by the infidelities of her husband, for whom she felt a love as passionate as it was poorly reciprocated. Although the Cortes assembled in Valladolid refused to declare Queen Joanna incapable, Philip "the Handsome" exercised effective power without her. He has traditionally been censured for the favoritism he showed toward his Flemish compatriots, as well as for having distributed gifts and sinecures among the Castilian nobles to win their support. The figure who attained the greatest prominence during his brief period of government (although not to the point of being considered a valido) was a nobleman: Juan Manuel, Lord of Belmonte.

Death

His death, which occurred in the Casa del Cordón in Burgos, was so sudden that a rumor spread that his father-in-law had poisoned him. Apparently, Philip was in Burgos on September 16, 1506, playing ball in a cold place. The following day he was taken ill, with a high fever that continued over the following days. On the 20th he was spitting blood and was bled by the physicians. He died in the early hours between September 24 and 25, 1506,[4] at only twenty-eight years of age.

Upon his death, Cardinal Cisneros assumed his first regency of the Crown of Castile, pending the arrival of King Ferdinand. His firstborn son, Charles, found himself with a magnificent inheritance: the kingdoms of his four grandparents, which made him one of the most important monarchs who have ever existed.

Coat of arms before his marriage.
Coat of arms after his marriage.
Coat of arms as Count Palatine of Burgundy.

Issue

Eleanor, Charles, Isabella, Ferdinand, Mary and Catherine (from left to right and top to bottom), his six children.

Six children were born of his marriage to Joanna I of Castile:

  1. Eleanor (November 15, 1498 – February 18, 1558). Archduchess of Austria. Married King Manuel I of Portugal and, after several years of widowhood, Francis I of France.
  2. Charles (February 24, 1500 – September 21, 1558). King of Spain (1516–1556) and of Naples (1516–1554), under the name Charles I; and Holy Roman Emperor (1519–1558), under the name Charles V.
  3. Isabella (July 18, 1501 – January 19, 1526). Archduchess of Austria. Married King Christian II of Denmark.
  4. Ferdinand (March 10, 1503 – July 27, 1564). Archduke of Austria, King of Bohemia (1526–1564), of Hungary (1526–1538, 1540–1564) and Holy Roman Emperor (1556–1564); married Anne Jagiellon of Hungary and Bohemia.
  5. Mary (September 15, 1505 – October 18, 1558). Archduchess of Austria. Married Louis II Jagiellon, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia.
  6. Catherine (January 14, 1507 – January 12, 1578). Archduchess of Austria. Married King John III of Portugal.

Ancestry

Ancestors of Philip I of Castile

Titles

Filmography

Year Film Director Actor
1948 Locura de amor Juan de Orduña Fernando Rey
1983 Juana la loca... de vez en cuando José Ramón Larraz Jaime Morey
2001 Juana la Loca Vicente Aranda Daniele Liotti
2014 Isabel Jordi Frades Raúl Mérida
2016 La corona partida Jordi Frades Raúl Mérida

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Heráldica". Enciclopedia moderna: diccionario universal de literatura, ciencias, artes, agricultura, industria y comercio (in español). Vol. 22. Establecimiento Tipográfico de Mellado. 1853. p. 791.
  2. ↑ Co-production of RTVE, Fundación Carlos de Amberes and Canal de Historia. "La Orden del Toisón de Oro" (in español). 2012
  3. ↑ Wiesflecker, Hermann (1959). "Maximiliano I y la alianza matrimonial Habsburgo-española y los tratados de 1495-1496". Comunicaciones del Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas de Austria (in español) (67).
  4. ↑ "Relación de la enfermedad y muerte del rey don Felipe, por el doctor Parra". Colección de documentos inéditos para la historia de España (in español). Vol. VIII. pp. 394–397.
  5. ↑ Jervis, William Henley. The student's France, a history of France from the earliest times to the establishment of the second empire in 1852. p. 375.
  6. ↑ Evans Crowe, Eyre. The history of France. Vol. II. p. 274.
  7. ↑ Dumas, Alexandre. The Borgias and the Cenci. p. 38.
  8. ↑ Blockmans; Provenier. The promised lands: the low countries under Burgundian rule 1369-1530. p. 195.
  9. ↑ History of France, from the invasion of the Franks under Clovis, to the accession of Louis Philippe. p. 174.
  10. ↑ Comyn, Robert. The history of the Western empire:from its restoration by Charlemagne to the accession of Charles V. Vol. II. p. 126.

Bibliography

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