Ferdinand II, (born March 10, 1452, Sos, Aragon—died Jan. 23, 1516, Madrigalejo, Spain), king of Aragon and king of Castile (as Ferdinand V) from 1479, joint sovereign with Queen Isabella I. (As Spanish ruler of southern Italy, he was also known as Ferdinand III of Naples and Ferdinand II of Sicily.) He united the Spanish kingdoms into the nation of Spain and began Spain’s entry into the modern period of imperial expansion.
Ferdinand was the son of John II of Aragon and Juana Enríquez, both of
Castilian origin. In 1461, in the midst of a bitterly contested succession,
John II named him heir apparent and governor of all his kingdoms and lands. Ferdinand’s
future was assured when he came of age, in 1466, and when he was named king of
Sicily, in 1468, in order to impress the court of Castile, where his father
ultimately wished to place him. In addition to participating in court life, the
young prince saw battle during the Catalonian wars.
John II was careful about Ferdinand’s education and took personal charge
of it, making sure that Ferdinand learned as much as possible from experience.
He also provided him with teachers who taught him humanistic attitudes and
wrote him treatises on the art of government. Ferdinand had no apparent bent
for formal studies, but he was a patron of the arts and a devotee of vocal and
instrumental music.
Ferdinand had an imposing personality. From his father he acquired
sagacity, integrity, courage, and a calculated reserve; from his mother, an
impulsive emotionality, which he generally repressed. Under the responsibility
of kingship he had to conceal his stronger passions and adopt a cold,
impenetrable mask.
He married the princess Isabella of Castile in Valladolid in October
1469. This was a marriage of political opportunism, not romance. The court of
Aragon dreamed of a return to Castile, and Isabella needed help to gain
succession to the throne. The marriage initiated a dark and troubled life, in
which Ferdinand fought on the Castilian and Aragonese fronts in order to impose
his authority over the noble oligarchies, shifting his basis of support from
one kingdom to the other according to the intensity of the danger. Despite the
political nature of the union, he loved Isabella sincerely. She quickly bore
him children: the infanta Isabella was born in 1470; the heir apparent, Juan,
in 1478; and the infantas Juana (called Juana la Loca—Joan the Mad), Catalina
(later called—as the first wife of Henry VIII of England—Catherine of Aragon),
and María followed. The marriage began, however, with almost continual
separation. Ferdinand, often away in the Castilian towns or on journeys to
Aragon, reproached his wife for the comfort of her life. At the same time, the
restlessness of his 20 years drove him into other women’s arms, by whom he
sired at least two female children, whose birth dates are not recorded. His
extramarital affairs caused Isabella jealousy for several years.
Between the ages of 20 and 30, Ferdinand performed a series of heroic
deeds. These began when Henry IV of Castile died on Dec. 11, 1474, leaving his
succession in dispute. Ferdinand rushed from Zaragoza to Segovia, where
Isabella had herself proclaimed queen of Castile on December 13. Ferdinand
remained there as king consort, an uneasy, marginal figure, until Isabella’s
war of succession against Afonso V of Portugal gained his acceptance in 1479 as
king in every sense of the word. That same year John II died, and Ferdinand
succeeded to the Aragonese throne. This initiated a confederation of kingdoms,
which was the institutional basis for modern Spain.
The events of this period bring out the young king’s character more
clearly. In portraits he appears with soft, well-proportioned features, a
small, sensual mouth, and pensive eyes. His literary descriptions are more
complicated, although they agree in presenting him as good-looking, of medium
height, and a good rider, devoted to games and to the hunt. He had a clear,
strong voice.
From 1475 to 1479 Ferdinand struggled to take a firm seat in Castile
with his young wife and to transform the kingdom politically, using new
institutional molds partly inspired by those of Aragon. This policy of
modernization included a ban against all religions other than Roman
Catholicism. The establishment of the Spanish Inquisition (1478) to enforce
religious uniformity and the expulsion of the Jews (1492) were both part of a
deliberate policy designed to strengthen the church, which would in turn
support the crown.
The years 1482–92 were frantic for Ferdinand. In the spring months he
directed the campaign against the kingdom of Granada, showing his military
talent to good effect, and he conquered the kingdom inch by inch, winning its
final capitulation on Jan. 2, 1492. During the months of rest from war, he
visited his kingdoms, learning their geography and problems firsthand.
The conquest of Granada made it possible to support Christopher
Columbus’ voyages of exploration across the Atlantic. It is not known what
Ferdinand thought of Columbus or how he judged his plans, nor can it be stated
that the first trip was financed from Aragon; the sum of 1,157,000 maravedis
came from the funds of the Santa Hermandad (“Holy Brotherhood”). Nevertheless,
Ferdinand was present in the development of plans for the enterprise, in the
negotiations to obtain the pope’s backing for it, and in the organization of
the resulting American colonies.
At the age of 50 Ferdinand was an incarnation of royalty, and fortune
smiled on him. For various reasons, particularly for his intervention in Italy,
Pope Alexander VI gave him the honorary title of “the Catholic” on Dec. 2,
1496. But he also suffered a succession of tragedies: the heir apparent and his
eldest daughter both died, and the first symptoms of insanity appeared in his
daughter Juana. He was wounded in Barcelona in 1493, but this was unimportant
compared with the family injuries he suffered, which culminated in the death of
Isabella in 1504, “the best and most excellent wife king ever had.”
In 1505, to secure his position in Castile, Ferdinand signed a contract
to marry Germaine de Foix, niece of the king of France. This, too, was a
political marriage, although he always showed her the highest regard. A stay in
Italy (1506–07) demonstrated how badly he was needed by the Spanish kingdoms.
Once more in Castile, he managed his European policy so as to obtain a hegemony
that would serve his expansionary ends in the Mediterranean and in Africa. In
1512, immediately after the schism in the church in which the kings of Navarre
participated, he occupied their kingdom and incorporated it into Castile—one of
the most controversial acts of his reign.
In 1513 Ferdinand’s health began to decay, although he was still able to
direct his international policy and to prepare the succession of his grandson,
the future emperor Charles V. In early 1516 he began a trip to Granada; he
stopped in Madrigalejo, the little site of the sanctuary of Guadalupe, where he
died. The day before his death, he had signed his last will and testament, an
excellent picture of the monarch and of the political situation at his death.
Many considered Ferdinand the saviour of his kingdoms, a bringer of
unity. Others despised him for having oppressed them. Machiavelli attributed to
him the objectionable qualities of the Renaissance prince. The German traveler
Thomas Müntzer and the Italian diplomat Francesco Guicciardini, who knew him
personally, compared him with Charlemagne. His will indicates that he died with
a clear conscience, ordering that his body be moved to Granada and buried next
to that of his wife Isabella, so that they might be reunited for eternity. He
died convinced that the crown of Spain had not been so powerful for 700 years,
“and all, after God, because of my work and my labour.”
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