Doomed Queens (29 page)

Poor Jane never had a chance. Against her will, her family eagerly agreed to all Dudley suggested. Jane’s betrothal ceremony was preceded by a parental whipping to encourage her cooperation. Jane disliked her teenaged husband but feared her father-in-law—Guilford was vain and foolish, but Dudley was dangerous and cunning. Even though she was only fifteen, she understood she’d married into a family more treacherous than her own.

Soon after Jane’s reluctant nuptials, Edward gasped his last breath. Jane wept and shook with fright at the news that she was to be queen. She refused the crown, but Dudley spun visions of tortured Protestant martyrs under Mary Tudor’s Catholic rule. To protect the faith, Jane capitulated: “If what has been given to me is lawfully mine, may thy Divine Majesty grant me such spirit and grace that I may govern to thy glory and service….”

Princess Mary did not take this snub lying down. While Dudley was in London haranguing Queen Jane to name Guilford king, Mary was off in the countryside raising an army. Nine days later, she had enough support to push Jane off her throne and into the Tower of London. Jane, Guilford, Dudley, and Jane’s father were all sentenced to death. Initially, Mary planned to spare Jane and Guilford—she understood that the teenagers were only their parents’ puppets. However, after further unrest, she realized that as long as they lived, the threats to her throne would continue.

Jane received the news of her execution calmly. “It was not my desire to prolong my days…I assure you, the time hath been so odious to me that I long for nothing so much as death.” In other words, enough was enough.

Jane Grey was beheaded in 1554. For all of his sins, on one account Dudley was correct: Mary I executed several hundred Protestants during her reign, winning her the unwelcome nickname of Bloody Mary.

CAUTIONARY MORAL

Choose your in-laws carefully.

1555

uana of Castile was the third daughter of Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile; Juana’s sister was Catherine of Aragon, who wound up divorced from Henry VIII. Though Ferdinand and Isabella gained fame by bankrolling the explorer Columbus, Juana’s obsessive love for her husband gained her a different sort of fame. Her sedate childhood did not reveal the passionate nature that would one day win her the nickname of Juana the Mad. Today a psychiatrist would simply call her bipolar and throw a handful of lithium at her.

Born in 1479, Juana was groomed from an early age to marry and expand her parents’ influence. She did not protest when her parents sent her off at sixteen to wed Philip the Handsome, the Duke of Burgundy. Turns out that Philip’s nickname was accurate—and Juana fell madly, irrevocably in love with him at first sight. The couple begged to marry the night of their first meeting, so they could consummate their union without delay.

Life with Juana and Philip was a fun house of sex and fighting. Though Philip was delighted that his wife was hot in the sack, he was threatened by her loyalty to all things Spanish—especially her parents’ politics. Juana did not like the way her husband bossed her around, and she threw tantrums over his fondness for other women. One unfortunate lady-in-waiting had her long hair personally shorn by Juana after she discovered Philip servicing her; Juana deposited the tresses on her husband’s pillow as a friendly warning. She also indulged in love potions and spells.

Despite the drama, Juana did not neglect her royal duties and gave birth to five children in rapid succession. Real life intervened when Juana’s mother passed away in 1504, leaving Juana queen of Castile. Juana’s father, Ferdinand, attempted to use her wild behavior as an excuse to grab Castile from her. Though Queen Juana protested, it was soon moot: Philip suddenly succumbed to illness in 1506 at twenty-eight, leaving her without an ally. On top of this, she was pregnant yet again with a sixth child.

All of these events pushed the queen’s sanity to the breaking point: Juana became unhinged with grief. She embraced Philip’s corpse as if he still lived. Though heavy with child, she accompanied his coffin to its final resting place in Granada, insisting they travel at night so women would not be tempted by him. Occasionally, she’d open the coffin to greet his remains. During these travels, Juana gave birth to a daughter, whom she named after her sister queen in England.

No surprise here: Ferdinand milked Juana’s behavior for all it was worth—countries were worth more than daughters. He declared Juana insane and locked her away in a chamber in the castle of Tordesillas. She was to stay there for the rest of her life.

After Ferdinand died, Juana’s son Charles took over her throne. She received no mercy from him either. He wrote to her caretaker, “It seems to me that the best and most suitable thing for you to do is to make sure that no person speaks with Her Majesty, for no good could come of it.”

Juana died in 1555 at seventy-five, after almost fifty years of imprisonment.

Insanity

In the unstable world of the ruling class, consolidating power was the best way to protect your throne from wannabes. The easiest way to do so? Keep it in the family!

This wisdom led to massive consanguinity within royal families. In ancient Egypt, brother married sister, sanctioned by the example of goddess Isis and her brother-husband, Osiris. However, in Europe getting cozy with your sibling was verboten. Nonetheless, nieces married uncles with alacrity, as did first cousins. And anyone who’s read an H. C. Lovecraft horror story knows that inbreeding leads to a host of genetic problems, including mental instability.

Was Juana really mad or just lovelorn? She was a member of the Spanish Hapsburg dynasty, which specialized in producing inbred and insane monarchs. Juana’s great-great-great grandson Carlos II was called “the Bewitched” due to his obvious mental deficiencies, which were blamed on evil spirits. Carlos spent his less than illustrious reign presiding over the Spanish Inquisition’s largest auto-da-fé. He unsuccessfully attempted to have children with the lovely Marie Luisa of Orléans, who died under mysterious circumstances—but that’s another story.