On this day in 1501, Isabella of Austria was born to Philip of Burgundy and his wife Juana “the Mad” of Castile. I first came across Isabella when researching 30 Women in History, and her story has always struck me as one tinged with sadness.

Isabella of Austria (image from Wikipedia)

Her family life was unconventional even for the time. She was left with her father’s step-mother-in-law, and then his sister, while her parents frequently travelled to Spain. Philip died when Isabella was only five years old and her mother was declared mad and eventually locked up in Castile by Isbella’s grandfather Ferdinand of Aragon. She was under the care of her aunt Margaret, with her grandfather Maximilian, the Holy Roman Emperor, acting as father in Philip’s place.

When she was fourteen she was married to King Christian II of Denmark, making her Queen of Denmark. But Christian had a mistress, Dyveke, and Isabella found that she came second in both her husband’s heart and at court, where she had very little influence. She only came into her own after Dyveke died.

She and Christian had three sons (of whom two died in infancy) and two daughters, as well as a further stillborn son. But in 1523 her husband was overthrown as King of Denmark (and Norway, and he had also conquered Sweden for a short time) and she was given a choice between exile with her husband or staying in Denmark under the protection of the new King. She chose her husband, and the pair of them moved to Germany, seeking allies who would help Christian regain his throne. It was in Germany that Isabella came in contact with Lutherism. It is believed that she had been considering a conversion to what would become Protestantism, but when her fiercely Catholic Hapsburg relatives heard about her new interest they were furious and Christian encouraged her to keep her feelings quiet, probably because he was worried her family would refuse to help him regain his throne.

 In 1525 Isabella fell ill and never recovered. She died later that year near Ghent in modern-day Belgium. She was only twenty four years old. Even in an age of high mortality and powerless women she seems to have had more than her fair share of problems, and it’s quite sad that she is rarely remembered.

As part of my eBook research, and because I enjoy reading about other areas of history, I buy and read quite a lot of history books. One of the best ones I’ve read this year is “Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe” by Nancy Goldstone (please excuse the research tabs I've had to stick in the book, it's proved to be very useful XD)

I’ve read some of Goldstone’s works before, one of the main ones being “Joanna: The Notorious Queen of Naples”. That was a book I found a hard slog to go through, partly because Joanna faced a lot of problems during her reign and so the book was very large, partly because it just seemed like the writing was a bit difficult to get through. Naturally I was worried that Four Queens would be the same, but luckily it wasn’t.

Four Queens tells the story of the daughters of Raymond Berenger, the Count of Provence, and his wife Beatrice of Savoy. They had four daughters and no sons, and one by one their daughters married into two of Europe’s leading families. Their eldest daughter Margaret became Queen of France, Eleanor (the second daughter) married King Henry III of England, Sanchia married Henry’s brother Richard Earl of Cornwall, and the youngest sister Beatrice married Margaret’s brother-in-law the Count of Anjou and also inherited Provence from their father.

Normally English history only focuses on Eleanor of Provence since she and Henry faced rebellion during their reign. But as this book shows, these sisters all had interesting lives. Margaret and Beatrice both went on Crusade with their husbands and Beatrice went with her husband when he conquered Sicily, while Sanchia followed Richard to the continent when he became King of the Germans. Thanks to the efforts of Margaret and Eleanor, England and France spent a great deal of time at peace, rather than constantly fighting between each other.

This book starts off with the girls’ childhood in Provence and follows each one chapter by chapter. Generally Goldstone tries to focus one chapter on each woman, but there are points where even though a chapter is focusing on one woman, one or two of her sisters will get a prominent role as well, simply because they spent time together. This alternating between women actually makes the book easier to read without becoming too confusing, it also gives plenty of stopping-off places if you’re reading during lunch or tea break and need to put it down.

Goldstone also does her best to make sure the book actually focuses on the women themselves. There are many history books, even those that are meant to be about women in history, that focus purely on kings. While the husbands are mentioned frequently to explain the historical context, Goldstone then ensures that she explains the women’s side of things, postulating theories on their feelings and reactions. It helps that her research has included letters between Margaret and Eleanor, which give a more personal flavour about the relationship between the two queens (even though the letters were probably dictated to clerks by the queens themselves).

If there is one complaint I have about this book, it’s that there is a presumption towards understanding or second-guessing the thoughts of the women involved. But this may simply be due to the evidence Goldstone has used, I imagine that reading letters and personal accounts gives a far more intimate glimpse into the lives than simply summing them up does.

Overall I think this is a really good book, I’d highly recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about Eleanor of Provence, and especially anyone who wants to know more about upper-class women in Medieval Europe.

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