Isabella 1 of castile biography examples

Queen Isabella Iof Castile (1451 – 1504) was an influential monarch who helped to unite the different regions of Spain and make Spain a leading power in Europe and the Americas.

Queen Isabella was a strict Catholic and, amongst contemporaries, was noted for her ‘virtue and fear of God’.

Isabella 1 of castile biography examples

She was an effective monarch in bringing greater law and order to the country and had areputation for promoting justice rather than mercy. With her husband King Ferdinand, she set up the Spanish Inquisition, to investigate heretical religious practises.

Early life

Isabella was born in 1451 in Madrigal in the Kingdom of Castile (part of Spain).

Her half-brother Henry IV was King of Castile, and he wished Isabella to marry the King of Portugal in a marriage of convenience. Henry IV planned to make Isabella his successor. However, Isabella disliked her half-brother, and at the age of 18 in 1469 she married Prince Ferdinand – the heir to th