December 19, 2012 • 33 mins
In this second part of our series, Juana has become her mother's unlikely heir. Just a few years after inheriting Castile, she is declared insane and imprisoned. But was she actually mad? And why didn't her son free her when he came to power?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Fair Dowdy and I'm Deblina Choko reporting. And in
a recent episode we talked about the famous Wanna La
Loca or Joanna the mad Um, a frequent listener request,
(00:25):
very frequent request, and, as I admitted in the last show,
a subject I originally considered covering during Halloween. But I
don't even really want to call her Wanna Lia Loca anymore.
Once you research her story, it starts to sound kind
of mean. For a lot of reasons. Wanna of Castile
was a queen in her own right, and one who
(00:47):
seemed to be um pretty badly treated by some of
the most important people in her life, her father Ferdinand
as in Ferdinand and Isabella, her husband Philip of Burgundy,
and her son Charles Um. It's a disturbing story, partly
because it still is so unclear how bad off was
(01:10):
Laanna really and why did she make the decisions that
she made, And we may speculate about that a little
bit in this part too. But where we left off
last time, Juanna had come into a very unlikely inheritance
She was the third child of her parents, Fernand and
Isabella of Spain, but through a series of unfortunate deaths,
(01:30):
she became their heir. I Wanna return to Spain after
receiving that news, along with her husband Philip. For some years,
Philip and Juanna had had a pretty explosive relationship, one
where Philip was certainly mentally abusive towards Wanna, perhaps physically abusive,
and her parents were disturbed, not just because of the
(01:51):
personal relationship her daughter had with her husband, but also
because of Philip's own politics. He wasn't unabashedly pro Spanish.
They were concerned that eventually their kingdoms, Ferdinand's Arragon and
Isabella's Castille, would come under foreign control, and they weren't
exactly happy with that. So they tried to get Wanna
(02:13):
to stay in Spain when Philip went back to Burgundy,
but for some reason which we can't quite surmise, she
decided to go back to him anyway, and in fact,
even through a series of tantrums in order to be
able to go back to him. So that's sort of
where we're picking up now. She's gone back to him,
and those tantrums that are really key part of the
(02:33):
story too, because they were public. They were disturbing Wanna,
you know it, first tried to reason with her mother
about returning to Philip. You know, my children are there,
it's my husband, it's my duty, um. But Isabella was
not interested in hearing that, you know. She wanted to
keep Wanna with her, raise her up to to be
an independent monarch um. So yeah, Wanna. Wanna reacted by
(02:57):
not eating and not sleeping and not talk walking and
standing out in the rain and all of it. Finally
did result, like you just said, in her being allowed
to return to her husband. But it also upset Isabella,
and it gave the public, uh the barest hint that
maybe Wanna was unstable, and this was kind of a
(03:20):
perfect setup for Philip. Wanna was back in Burgundy by
May fifteen o four, and if she thought her public
demonstration of loyalty to Philip was going to be met
with love or respect from him, she was dead wrong.
Rumors about the couple went from bad to worse. She
physically attacked a woman that she believed Philip was sleeping with.
(03:42):
He as a result, had her locked up in her rooms,
and he sent away her ladies and her favorite servant.
He may have hit her, and he circulated rumors that
she was mad, unhinged, and unfit to rule, though anyone
who saw in public I thought that this was pretty
much entirely untrue. Seemed like a perfectly competent, respectable lady
(04:04):
and m According to the Women in World History Encyclopedia,
it's likely that Juanna had manic depression, and that would
partly explain the ups and downs and the entirely rational
behavior that she exhibited when she was in public or
with guests. And uh that entry actually suggested that this
never would have been reason enough to disqualify a male ruler,
(04:27):
but in Juanna it could be considered deabilitating madness, something
that meant Philip or perhaps Ferdinand, her father, should rule
in her stead. Just months after Juanna's return, though, this
really became an issue because until now it wasn't. Isabella
was still ruling Castile, Ferdinand was still ruling Aragon. But
(04:48):
in November fifteen o four, Isabella suddenly died. Isabella was
a woman who was certainly interested in looking after the
future of her kingdom then, especially this fragile unity between
her kingdom and her husband's and she was concerned with
what she had seen of Juanna's rages and concerned by
(05:09):
Philip's influence over her. We just mentioned that as as
a foreigner, she was afraid he wouldn't be entirely in
Spain's own best interests, since he didn't act interested at all. No,
he didn't act interested. That's a that's another good point. Um.
Isabel also accounted for the possibility that her daughter might
not be fit to rule, and try to make sure that,
(05:30):
however that went down, it would be Ferdinand and not
Philip who stood up in Juanna's place as regent. So
in her will, Isabella said that Wanna, her quote beloved daughter,
was her heiress, but in case quote she might not
like or might be unable to reign or govern, the
government should be somehow carried on her nominee until little
(05:54):
Charles came of age. Was Ferdinand, of course, who had
quote great experience of the government of the said kingdoms.
And a lot has been made of that wording, especially
the first part you read to Plina that she might
not like or might be unable to reign or govern.
And well, it's clear that Wanna was eventually betrayed by
(06:17):
her husband, by her father and by her son Charles.
Her mother's role in that is a little bit less clear, right.
Was Isabella opening up an official path for Wanna to
be declared insane or was she honestly concerned by Wanna's actions?
Was she just worried that Wanna was under Philip's thumb
and quote might not like to reign because it would
(06:38):
cause marital strife. I mean, the possibilities are kind of
endless there, they really are. But even if Juanna and
Philip did rule, Isabella had a little catch in in
her orders here that made sure Ferdinand was still in
the loops somehow. She wrote that they should obey him
quote as good and obedient children. Um. So it was
(07:00):
pretty important for Ferdinand to get this official nod from
his dying wife since he had no personal claim to Castile.
And we described this a more length than the last podcast,
but he was just the king of Aragon, and that
partnership between the two kingdoms than Castile was the more
powerful of the two and the larger of the two
really relied on both of them being alive. So at
(07:23):
first he played humble, you know, he put on a
show like he accepted this publicly acknowledged his daughter as
the new Queen of Castile renounced any claims he had there.
But there was a delay of fifteen months before Juanna
and Philip again returned to Spain, and that gave both
Ferdinand and Philip time to make their own plans against Wanna.
(07:46):
So Philip, for his part, proclaimed himself king, and so
did Ferdinand. He announced this at the Council of Toro,
said that his daughter was unfit to rule, so sort
of like thanks for that convenient insanity story to look
up that story. He also made a French alliance, marrying
Germaine de Foix, the niece of Louis the twelfth, and
(08:09):
so if they had a son, at least Aragon would
slip out of Juana's inheritance and Philip's control. But Castilian
nobles were not fans of Ferdinand at all, and this
new French marriage only made things worse, and so when
Philip and Juana arrived in April fifteen o six, they
offered up their support to Philip and Juanna, and finally Ferdinand,
who was seeing how the situation really was, finally decided
(08:31):
that it might be better to work with Philip than
risk war alienating him, and so in June of fifteen
o six, the two men signed a treaty. Just Juanna
was not included in this at all, unsurprisingly, and they
acknowledged that she was unfit to rule. Almost immediately though,
fernand backed out of the treaty. He said it interfered
(08:53):
with his daughter's rights. And it's around this point too
that Juanna, who had been using her best political tactic
of delay the entire time she was in Spain, you know,
not signing anything saying that she wanted to meet with
her father first, she wanted counsel first, most of at
this point, finally decided that Philip was not working in
(09:14):
her own interests and attempted an escaped from him on horseback,
you know, she claimed she was going out for a
light horseback ride, made a dash for it, trying to
reach her father, who had by this point left Castile
for Aragon. She was quickly caught by philips soldiers. So
this gave Philip a pretty clear sign that Wanna was
(09:36):
a threat to him or to his claims. And he
also had the approval of the Castilian Cortes in his favor,
so he had legitimacy for his regency on behalf of her.
So he was ready to imprison her, to lock her up.
I mean, we talked about how he had done that
before back home um and he thought that his stories
(09:57):
he had been circulating for so long now that she
is mentally unbalanced, had enough traction that the public would
accept it, that they would accept him. But just like
the last episode where there were repeated unexpected illnesses and
sudden death, unexpected illness struck again and Philip became desperately
ill with a fever. Wanna, who was five months pregnant
(10:19):
at this point, nursed him for six days before he
died September in fifteen o six at only age. So
what happened next is kind of the core of the
Wuannala Loca legend. For a period of several months, wanted
just froze while the country fell into complete disorder. She
(10:40):
needed to make a plan to find a way to
claim her throne without arden supporters or any money. So
by December eighteenth she finally swung into action. She canceled
Phillip's appointments and concessions and trying to set up a counsel,
and in a fateful decision, she ordered Philip's body to
be removed to Granada, where her mother was buried. It
(11:03):
made sense from a dynastic perspective. While Philip may have
been abusive and manipulative in life, it would have made
a statement about him in death that he was this
powerful ruler from a powerful family that deserved to be
buried near Queen Isabella. So this was important for Wanna's
son's future in a way, she thought as a good
pr move almost but it turned out to be a
(11:25):
bad decision, especially when the elaborate funeral procession had to
stop just a few days after starting for wanted to
give birth to her daughter, Catalina. Her insistence that the
procession begin again gave her enemies the opportunity to categorize
her as this deranged widow, someone who would open the
coffin to look at her husband. But it's interesting to
(11:47):
add here that Julia Fox, the author of Sister Queen's
notes that there really is no mention of coffin opening
from the chronicler who was on the trip, and even
if it was opened, it was probably just so Wanna
could I d Philip. Meanwhile, though, with this maccabre procession
going on and rumors building around it. The country was
(12:08):
suffering from famine, and civil war seemed imminent, and fernand
came swooping back into Castile too to handle everything. He
took over Juanna's money, took over her household, took away
Prince Ferdinand that was the son who had been born
when when she and Philip first returned to Spain. Her
elder children were being raised off in Burgundy still, but
(12:29):
Wanna didn't and wouldn't actually relinquish her rights to her father.
She wouldn't sign the papers that renounced her claim as queen.
I think this is one of the most fascinating parts
of the story. Um her insistence on this point. I mean,
clearly being queen was important to her, regardless of anything
else that happens. That didn't matter though to Ferdinand. He
(12:51):
could forge the documents, and by the spring of fifteen
o nine, Juanna's father had her and baby Catalina and
Philip spot He all sent off to Tortosa Castle. The
body was put into the care of the nuns of St. Clair,
which was nearby. Wanna was twenty nine years old, and
she spent the next forty six years in Tortoise. If
(13:14):
it was of course important for Ferdinand during this time
to keep Juanna alive because without her, little Charles would
become king, and since he was often Burgundy being raised
by his aunt Margaret, it was likely that Ferdinand would
have to deal with plenty of interference from the boy's
paternal grandfather, Maximilian, who was the Holy Roman Emperor, a
worthy opponent to Ferdinand exactly. But aside from that, there
(13:39):
were a few considerations made for one at all. Tortoise
Us was a favorite old retreat of queens, but it
was extremely isolated, so Wanna had luxurious possessions like tapestries
and fine clothes, but she only had two rooms to
live in. She had a large religious library and was
sometimes allowed out to the convent, and she educated to
(14:00):
Catalina herself. That was really her her main purpose in life,
it seemed, educating her daughter Um because nobody else was around. Really. Ferdinand,
who only visited her twice in seven years, would pass
on information to her from time to time, but he
didn't allow her to write, and there are no records
(14:20):
of her having written anything again from when she goes
into Torti see Us at age nine. Um. Sometimes she
did show unhinged behavior. You know, she would refuse to
eat her sleep, she attacked her women guards. But it
was also clear by the care that was taken to
keep her out of the public eye, that she was
not insane. She was not the woman um rumors had
(14:43):
her being. If anyone really saw her, Ferdinand was afraid
that they would know she was being imprisoned unjustly. When
Ferdinand died in January January fifteen sixteen, having failed to
have a surviving son with his second wife, it left Wanna,
technically a queen of Castile and Aragon want a son. Charles, though,
(15:05):
maintained the same policy that his grandfather had, and he
quickly claimed throne for himself. And Charles wasn't popular. He
had been raised abroad, and the Castilians really resented his
immediate assumption that he would just bypass his mother and
take the throne. So Charles had an uphill battle to
gain control over Castile and Aragon. But he had a
(15:26):
more immediate problem as well. The people of tortoise Us
rebelled against wanna treatment. They had long heard the rumors
that want his caretaker, Mossain Ferrer, was abusing the queen,
and upon Ferdman's death, they decided to chase Ferrer out
of town. And so after this, Charles sent a cardinal
Sinairos to stop the riots and to investigate these claims.
(15:49):
And the cardinal was actually disturbed enough to order Ferrer
never to be let near the Queen again. And in fact,
letters from Ferrer do suggest that he was willing to
put her on the rack and stop her self harm
protests like starvation, though Fox says it's more likely that
she was beaten. I mean, still not good. No, And
this is I think probably a good point to to
(16:10):
mention that while a lot has been speculated about Juanna's
mental state, certainly situations like this would not have helped
it over the years. And what more than forty years
of imprisonment would eventually do to somebody, especially under circumstances
like this, where you're possibly threatened or beaten um because
(16:30):
of protesting and the only way you can it's not
gonna help matters. But Charles may not have wanted his
mother beaten. You know, he he removed this guy, but
he didn't exactly swoop in to save the day either,
you know, to remove her, to to return her to
court or certainly to allow her to to rule, and
in fact, he played off Ferdinand as the bad guy.
(16:52):
He visited his mother in fifteen seventeen for the first
time since he was a child. I don't think they
had seen each other since she left Burgundy to go
to Spain. But he didn't tell her that Ferdinand was dead.
You know. It was just around the castle. Thought I'd
swing by for a visit, um, And in reality he
(17:13):
just kept her thinking Ferdinand was alive. He was the
guy behind her imprisonment, and this decision to not tell
her about Fernand kind of exposes the full duplicity of
of Charles's story. You know, he proclaimed that Juanna had
given him her blessing. He was trying to get that approval,
you know, not looking like he was just completely bypassing,
(17:34):
bypassing or skipping over his mother. Um said she had
given him her blessing, But how could she have done that,
of course, if she didn't even know that Ferdinand was dead. Um.
Charles did some housekeeping too while he was there. He
replaced her temporary guard with a guard of his choice.
The Marquis of Dania and his wife, and the Danny
(17:56):
is really cracked down on Juanna's already pretty limited life. Yeah,
they no longer even allowed her to visit the convent,
and she protested this by not hearing mass at all.
They stopped her also from meeting any of the nobles
who tried to see her. They even stole from her.
They wrote to Charles saying, quote, the torture might help
(18:17):
her condition. There's no record that he approved this though.
They even tried to avoid doctors coming in in case
word got out that Wanna was saying. At one point,
Wanna even had a ten day fever and they wouldn't
let a doctor come in to help her get well.
And you know, the same goes for Catalina too, who
is growing up here. She was sick at one point
and wasn't allowed to see a doctor for quite some time.
(18:39):
Daniel was really obsessive to very paranoid. He was obsessed
with gossiping ladies, maids and servants, and he even wrote
to Charles at one point, quote it cannot be permitted
that she speak with anybody because she would convince anyone.
So that's that's pretty damning, I'd say. But Charles is
(19:01):
a bit of an enigma because of the way he's
treating his his mother, but also the close frigard he
had for a lot of other family members, and of
course the most famous of those was Catherine of Aragon,
his aunt, who was in her terrible situation with Henry
the Eighth, eventually trying to unload her to marry Anne Boleyn.
He was a staunch supporter of hers, but also with
(19:22):
his younger sister Catalina, who had grown up in Tortos
see Us with her mother. She was eleven years old
at the time Charles inherited, and when he tried to
remove her, he thought she should be socialized a little bit.
Want To just spiral deeper and deeper into depression. And
so Charles at least knew enough to keep his mother
(19:44):
alive and and to keep her happy enough by returning
Catalina to her want to. From then on tried to
keep her daughter in sight and told Dania that she'd
kill herself if they took Catalina away again. And when
the time family came for a teenage Catalina to leave,
and Mary Wanna stood at the last point that she
(20:04):
saw Catalina for twenty four hours. So just another note
here Catalina's complaining letters to Charles made it clear that
he knew all about how the Daniels were treating his mother,
the stealing and all of that, and he still didn't
do anything about it. Plus, if he thought that his
mother was truly insane, why would he allow his sister
(20:25):
to say, and I find Catalina the really fascinating part
of the story. It's like somebody should write a historical
novel about her experiences growing up in the castle and
the um, let's do it to Palina Um. It's easy, though,
to wonder why Charles didn't free his mother, especially if
he knew she was not insane, but just like his father,
(20:48):
like his grandfather before him. He did know that his
power relied on Juanna being alive but out of commission
um and as an unpopular foreigner, especially when eating the Inquisition,
one who had brought his own click with him from
Burgundy um thrown out Spanish guys. He was especially concerned
(21:08):
that Castilians might choose his mother over him, even if
they didn't necessarily allow her to rule in her own right.
I mean, it was made clear after years of this
that Wanna could be successfully used as a figurehead while
somebody else actually did the work of the government, and
this became especially worrisome for Charles in fifteen nineteen, it
(21:29):
was just two years after he had arrived in Spain
when his paternal grandfather Maximilian died, And we mentioned in
the last episode that the position of Holy Roman Emperor
was not inherited, but you had to have good connections,
and Charles certainly had them. He was a likely candidate
up against guys like Henry the eighth Francis the first
(21:50):
of France Um. But to to increase the likelihood he
would get to become Holy Roman Emperor, it meant he
had to leave Spain in for a little bit right
at the shaky, nerve racking sort of time. And as
a side note here, Fox writes how again Wanna wasn't
told Maximilian's death, just that he had abdicated. So when
(22:12):
Daniel suggested she write a note of thanks to Maximilian
for the quote favor he had shown her son, Wanna
was like, maybe you should do it, because I haven't
written to him since I've been in prison this whole time. Well,
and Fox notes too that that's kind of a might
have been Daniel hoping to get even more ammunition against
the Wanna is crazy, especially when it comes to dead people.
(22:36):
If she's this lady who followed her husband around and
kissed his dead body's feet, maybe it wouldn't be too
surprising that she was writing letters off to her dead
father in law. But Castille did in fact take this
opportunity to rise up against Charles when he was out
of the country and a group of rebels started what
was called the Communero revolt. On August, a group of
(22:58):
Communero officials finally got as Dania in order to plead
before the queen. They offered her castile. They begged her
to help her people and asked her to sign her approval.
For about one hundred days. Wanna met with the rebels
and listen to their offers. She took up her favorite
political tactic again, though here she started to delay. She
(23:20):
wouldn't sign anything until she could call a council of
her own. Finally, though miraculously almost, she chose her family again,
even all after all that had happened to her, saying,
if Charles quote all that belonged to her was his
and he would take good care of it. Super sad,
I don't know, it's yeah, it's more unexpected than miraculous,
(23:42):
at least from Juanna's perspective, because as soon as the
rebellion was put down, you know, Charles didn't come in saying, oh,
it's really glad to hear what you what you said. Instead,
he rewarded her loyalty with an even stricter regime at
Tortoise if she was cut down to one room. Eventually,
of course, Elena was taken away, um, and she was
(24:03):
stuck with the hated Daniels too. She would complain about
them bitterly. Apparently just the sound of their voices became
agonizing for her to hear, and they were the only
ones she heard a people there. Um, And so just
kind of I don't know, we can't go into too
much more detail about that, just similar days, day in
(24:24):
day out, for decade after decade, forty six years. Um.
The strangest part of this story though, is that there
are these little bright spots in it. You think this
woman would be a hundred percent shunned by her family
if they were willing to do this to her, But
that wasn't the case. Her family did visit her sometime.
They would bring the kids, bring the grandkids um. They
(24:48):
certainly weren't considering her a deranged woman who might be
dangerous to the hopes of their kingdoms. But they also
didn't exactly let her back into the family circle. No, no, certainly,
not even as Charles position became more secure to I
think this surprised me, and this is just um, um,
it's just hard to imagine why you would keep your
(25:10):
family member in prison for so long, but why they
didn't let her back in as some sort of dowager
queen type role, especially if she grew older. According to Fox, Though,
there were sixteen family visits between fifteen thirty five. Yeah,
recorded visits, um. And like I said, bringing the grandkids,
(25:32):
bringing the kids, her grandfon Philip, stopping before he married
a cousin, and then stopping before he married another cousin
that time married Tudor. Very but I don't know, just
so part I can't really understand of this story. She
did have them on one point, though, and that was religion.
It was sort of the one thing that she could
(25:53):
really control. So after her confessor was dismissed in fifty three,
she just stopped making a full in fashion. And this
was something that really immensely disturbed. Charles and his son
Philip as well and her granddaughters. Everyone just couldn't handle
this for some reason. No, they were. They were deeply
concerned about Nah's soul, the state of her soul, what
(26:16):
would happen should she die? Um. By age seventy five,
those fears became pretty major, four of them. She was
getting very frail. She did die April eleven or twelfth,
and fifteen fifty five. Before her death, she was willing
to make a partial confession because her family was desperate
at this point trying to get her to do it,
but she held out on the full deal, kind of
(26:38):
feisty to the end here and once she was dead too.
This is again where the story changes. She's not somebody
to be hidden away anymore. She's somebody for the family
to celebrate. She was entombed in Granada with her husband Philip.
He ended up there just where she wanted him to be. Ultimately, Um,
Ferdinand and Isabella, little Prince Miguel, Um, all of them
(27:04):
end up where Wanna was expecting them to. So she, finally,
I guess, wasn't accepted part of the family after all
those years of being shunned. After she died. So it's
a sad ending to a story that was really entirely unexpected.
It is. I certainly went into it expecting and knowing
that there was a lot of controversy over whether she
(27:26):
was really Wanta a Loca Joanna the mad um and um.
You know how much the power play among her family
members had to do with her long imprisonment. But it's
one crazy thing. I mean, not to make a bad pun,
there is if you go around reading stories about Wanna
uh difference versus still treat her condition as insanity, you know,
(27:51):
like she was in prison because she was insane. Um,
rather than getting into the full story behind it. You
know how her mental state is is troubled clearly, but
certainly not to the level that her family claimed it was,
although it degraded to over time, well as it would
(28:11):
when you're imprisoned for that long and unable to to
talk to to leave, or to do anything that you
want to do, to even to write. But I think
in a sense it's probably almost easier just to say, well,
choose crazy, because even if you know the full story,
you can speculate forever about why the decisions, why she
made the decisions that she made and why her family
(28:33):
made the decisions they made too, I mean power aside
um why some of the things that happened happened. But
certainly a fascinating story. I'm glad that we finally covered
this one. I hope all those listeners who suggested it
enjoyed it. Uh And you know, sorry, it's not a
super Macob kiss in the Dead Body Foot episode, but
(28:56):
it's just not how it turned out. So to Bolina,
we have a really fascinating listener mail today. Yeah, you
were saying it comes from Facebook. Not all listener mail
comes from email. That was very true. And it's from
listener Ellen, who was writing about our episode on the
real Tokyo Rose Eva to Guri Uh, an episode both
(29:19):
of us really enjoyed learning about, and one I think
is kind of stuck with us too, just as another
tragic sort of story. Um. But Ellen wrote in to
say that she knew Eva growing up. In fact, her
mother was Eva's best friend. After after the imprisonment and
all of that, remember from the episode, she moved to Chicago,
(29:41):
where her father ran a very successful store and lived
in Chicago, so that's where Ellen's mother um met Eva.
But it's it's a great message, and I'm just going
to read part of it. But the part that I
found really touching were Ellen's memories of Eva and how
she really kept a lot of humor in her life,
(30:02):
something that was incredibly surprising to us considering all she
had been through. But just to read a little bit
of that she wrote, Eva was a little fireball into
her old age. She was full of energy and humor,
very quick to make you laugh and share hilarious stories.
She had that voice that was so amazing that I
can still hear it today. Listening to the old radio
broadcast on the podcast brought back many happy memories. Eva
(30:26):
never let her hard life show on her face or
in her personality. No one really knew who she was
when they came into the store and was checking out
their stuff the register. She liked to remain anonymous to
the outside world because she always considered herself an American
and was deeply proud of that. She didn't want to
stir up attention to her past for herself and for
her father's business. So this was a really touching email,
(30:50):
and and she she went on to say too that um,
she didn't really realize who she was or how famous
she was. Ellen didn't rather until she was older. UM,
just because Eva always focused on on others. Really, but
that's kind of an example of some of the cool
(31:10):
personal connections we sometimes fear about between listeners and the podcast.
That is pretty amazing. Thank you for sharing and that story,
Like you said, I think it it really touched both
of us a lot. And the quote that we mentioned
about the tiger changing its stripes. When when we were
reading that quote, I was reading that quote during the episode,
I got really choked up. And the funny thing is
(31:32):
I got choked up when I read it the first time,
and when I read it again, and when I read
it on the podcast, and then later I was repeating
it to my husband and I was retelling the story,
and I got choked up then too. It's just something
about it. It's just and and this is the story
I've offen. I retold it to my fiance, I retold
it to a woman we work with. UM not something
I usually. I'm not sure if listeners imagine we're just
(31:53):
always telling these podcasts to our friends. I try to
avoid that. I usually think, you know, if people want
to hear it, they can listen. UM. But yeah, I
just felt like I had to tell other people this story,
and um I was happy to to hear that Eva's
later life did seem fulfilling to that certainly added something
(32:15):
to my understanding of the subject. So thank you so
much Ellen for writing in too to share such a
touching story. If you guys want to share any personal
connections to subjects, I don't know how many folks are
going to have Wanna li loca connections unless you're European
royalty than or probably the right to us definitely, or
(32:37):
just suggestions, you know, the drill, whatever, whatever you guys,
I want to say. We are at History Podcast at
Discovery dot com. We're also on Twitter at missed in History,
and we're on Facebook, and again we mentioned it a
few times during the podcast, but Julia Fox's book on
Wanna is really interesting. It's actually a dual biography called
Sister Queens, covering Juanna's life and her sister Catherine of Aragon, who,
(33:04):
as people always say, would make another fabulous subject. So true.
And if you want to learn a little bit more
about Captain of Aragon's famous husband, Henry the Eighth, we
have an article about that. It's ten heads that roll
roll during Henry the Eighth's reign, and you can look
up that one by visiting our homepage at www dot
how staff works dot com for more on this and
(33:30):
thousands of other topics. Is it how staff works dot
com
Welcome to Stuff you Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Fair Dowdy and I'm Deblina Choko reporting. And in
a recent episode we talked about the famous Wanna La
Loca or Joanna the mad Um, a frequent listener request,
(00:25):
very frequent request, and, as I admitted in the last show,
a subject I originally considered covering during Halloween. But I
don't even really want to call her Wanna Lia Loca anymore.
Once you research her story, it starts to sound kind
of mean. For a lot of reasons. Wanna of Castile
was a queen in her own right, and one who
(00:47):
seemed to be um pretty badly treated by some of
the most important people in her life, her father Ferdinand
as in Ferdinand and Isabella, her husband Philip of Burgundy,
and her son Charles Um. It's a disturbing story, partly
because it still is so unclear how bad off was
(01:10):
Laanna really and why did she make the decisions that
she made, And we may speculate about that a little
bit in this part too. But where we left off
last time, Juanna had come into a very unlikely inheritance
She was the third child of her parents, Fernand and
Isabella of Spain, but through a series of unfortunate deaths,
(01:30):
she became their heir. I Wanna return to Spain after
receiving that news, along with her husband Philip. For some years,
Philip and Juanna had had a pretty explosive relationship, one
where Philip was certainly mentally abusive towards Wanna, perhaps physically abusive,
and her parents were disturbed, not just because of the
(01:51):
personal relationship her daughter had with her husband, but also
because of Philip's own politics. He wasn't unabashedly pro Spanish.
They were concerned that eventually their kingdoms, Ferdinand's Arragon and
Isabella's Castille, would come under foreign control, and they weren't
exactly happy with that. So they tried to get Wanna
(02:13):
to stay in Spain when Philip went back to Burgundy,
but for some reason which we can't quite surmise, she
decided to go back to him anyway, and in fact,
even through a series of tantrums in order to be
able to go back to him. So that's sort of
where we're picking up now. She's gone back to him,
and those tantrums that are really key part of the
(02:33):
story too, because they were public. They were disturbing Wanna,
you know it, first tried to reason with her mother
about returning to Philip. You know, my children are there,
it's my husband, it's my duty, um. But Isabella was
not interested in hearing that, you know. She wanted to
keep Wanna with her, raise her up to to be
an independent monarch um. So yeah, Wanna. Wanna reacted by
(02:57):
not eating and not sleeping and not talk walking and
standing out in the rain and all of it. Finally
did result, like you just said, in her being allowed
to return to her husband. But it also upset Isabella,
and it gave the public, uh the barest hint that
maybe Wanna was unstable, and this was kind of a
(03:20):
perfect setup for Philip. Wanna was back in Burgundy by
May fifteen o four, and if she thought her public
demonstration of loyalty to Philip was going to be met
with love or respect from him, she was dead wrong.
Rumors about the couple went from bad to worse. She
physically attacked a woman that she believed Philip was sleeping with.
(03:42):
He as a result, had her locked up in her rooms,
and he sent away her ladies and her favorite servant.
He may have hit her, and he circulated rumors that
she was mad, unhinged, and unfit to rule, though anyone
who saw in public I thought that this was pretty
much entirely untrue. Seemed like a perfectly competent, respectable lady
(04:04):
and m According to the Women in World History Encyclopedia,
it's likely that Juanna had manic depression, and that would
partly explain the ups and downs and the entirely rational
behavior that she exhibited when she was in public or
with guests. And uh that entry actually suggested that this
never would have been reason enough to disqualify a male ruler,
(04:27):
but in Juanna it could be considered deabilitating madness, something
that meant Philip or perhaps Ferdinand, her father, should rule
in her stead. Just months after Juanna's return, though, this
really became an issue because until now it wasn't. Isabella
was still ruling Castile, Ferdinand was still ruling Aragon. But
(04:48):
in November fifteen o four, Isabella suddenly died. Isabella was
a woman who was certainly interested in looking after the
future of her kingdom then, especially this fragile unity between
her kingdom and her husband's and she was concerned with
what she had seen of Juanna's rages and concerned by
(05:09):
Philip's influence over her. We just mentioned that as as
a foreigner, she was afraid he wouldn't be entirely in
Spain's own best interests, since he didn't act interested at all. No,
he didn't act interested. That's a that's another good point. Um.
Isabel also accounted for the possibility that her daughter might
not be fit to rule, and try to make sure that,
(05:30):
however that went down, it would be Ferdinand and not
Philip who stood up in Juanna's place as regent. So
in her will, Isabella said that Wanna, her quote beloved daughter,
was her heiress, but in case quote she might not
like or might be unable to reign or govern, the
government should be somehow carried on her nominee until little
(05:54):
Charles came of age. Was Ferdinand, of course, who had
quote great experience of the government of the said kingdoms.
And a lot has been made of that wording, especially
the first part you read to Plina that she might
not like or might be unable to reign or govern.
And well, it's clear that Wanna was eventually betrayed by
(06:17):
her husband, by her father and by her son Charles.
Her mother's role in that is a little bit less clear, right.
Was Isabella opening up an official path for Wanna to
be declared insane or was she honestly concerned by Wanna's actions?
Was she just worried that Wanna was under Philip's thumb
and quote might not like to reign because it would
(06:38):
cause marital strife. I mean, the possibilities are kind of
endless there, they really are. But even if Juanna and
Philip did rule, Isabella had a little catch in in
her orders here that made sure Ferdinand was still in
the loops somehow. She wrote that they should obey him
quote as good and obedient children. Um. So it was
(07:00):
pretty important for Ferdinand to get this official nod from
his dying wife since he had no personal claim to Castile.
And we described this a more length than the last podcast,
but he was just the king of Aragon, and that
partnership between the two kingdoms than Castile was the more
powerful of the two and the larger of the two
really relied on both of them being alive. So at
(07:23):
first he played humble, you know, he put on a
show like he accepted this publicly acknowledged his daughter as
the new Queen of Castile renounced any claims he had there.
But there was a delay of fifteen months before Juanna
and Philip again returned to Spain, and that gave both
Ferdinand and Philip time to make their own plans against Wanna.
(07:46):
So Philip, for his part, proclaimed himself king, and so
did Ferdinand. He announced this at the Council of Toro,
said that his daughter was unfit to rule, so sort
of like thanks for that convenient insanity story to look
up that story. He also made a French alliance, marrying
Germaine de Foix, the niece of Louis the twelfth, and
(08:09):
so if they had a son, at least Aragon would
slip out of Juana's inheritance and Philip's control. But Castilian
nobles were not fans of Ferdinand at all, and this
new French marriage only made things worse, and so when
Philip and Juana arrived in April fifteen o six, they
offered up their support to Philip and Juanna, and finally Ferdinand,
who was seeing how the situation really was, finally decided
(08:31):
that it might be better to work with Philip than
risk war alienating him, and so in June of fifteen
o six, the two men signed a treaty. Just Juanna
was not included in this at all, unsurprisingly, and they
acknowledged that she was unfit to rule. Almost immediately though,
fernand backed out of the treaty. He said it interfered
(08:53):
with his daughter's rights. And it's around this point too
that Juanna, who had been using her best political tactic
of delay the entire time she was in Spain, you know,
not signing anything saying that she wanted to meet with
her father first, she wanted counsel first, most of at
this point, finally decided that Philip was not working in
(09:14):
her own interests and attempted an escaped from him on horseback,
you know, she claimed she was going out for a
light horseback ride, made a dash for it, trying to
reach her father, who had by this point left Castile
for Aragon. She was quickly caught by philips soldiers. So
this gave Philip a pretty clear sign that Wanna was
(09:36):
a threat to him or to his claims. And he
also had the approval of the Castilian Cortes in his favor,
so he had legitimacy for his regency on behalf of her.
So he was ready to imprison her, to lock her up.
I mean, we talked about how he had done that
before back home um and he thought that his stories
(09:57):
he had been circulating for so long now that she
is mentally unbalanced, had enough traction that the public would
accept it, that they would accept him. But just like
the last episode where there were repeated unexpected illnesses and
sudden death, unexpected illness struck again and Philip became desperately
ill with a fever. Wanna, who was five months pregnant
(10:19):
at this point, nursed him for six days before he
died September in fifteen o six at only age. So
what happened next is kind of the core of the
Wuannala Loca legend. For a period of several months, wanted
just froze while the country fell into complete disorder. She
(10:40):
needed to make a plan to find a way to
claim her throne without arden supporters or any money. So
by December eighteenth she finally swung into action. She canceled
Phillip's appointments and concessions and trying to set up a counsel,
and in a fateful decision, she ordered Philip's body to
be removed to Granada, where her mother was buried. It
(11:03):
made sense from a dynastic perspective. While Philip may have
been abusive and manipulative in life, it would have made
a statement about him in death that he was this
powerful ruler from a powerful family that deserved to be
buried near Queen Isabella. So this was important for Wanna's
son's future in a way, she thought as a good
pr move almost but it turned out to be a
(11:25):
bad decision, especially when the elaborate funeral procession had to
stop just a few days after starting for wanted to
give birth to her daughter, Catalina. Her insistence that the
procession begin again gave her enemies the opportunity to categorize
her as this deranged widow, someone who would open the
coffin to look at her husband. But it's interesting to
(11:47):
add here that Julia Fox, the author of Sister Queen's
notes that there really is no mention of coffin opening
from the chronicler who was on the trip, and even
if it was opened, it was probably just so Wanna
could I d Philip. Meanwhile, though, with this maccabre procession
going on and rumors building around it. The country was
(12:08):
suffering from famine, and civil war seemed imminent, and fernand
came swooping back into Castile too to handle everything. He
took over Juanna's money, took over her household, took away
Prince Ferdinand that was the son who had been born
when when she and Philip first returned to Spain. Her
elder children were being raised off in Burgundy still, but
(12:29):
Wanna didn't and wouldn't actually relinquish her rights to her father.
She wouldn't sign the papers that renounced her claim as queen.
I think this is one of the most fascinating parts
of the story. Um her insistence on this point. I mean,
clearly being queen was important to her, regardless of anything
else that happens. That didn't matter though to Ferdinand. He
(12:51):
could forge the documents, and by the spring of fifteen
o nine, Juanna's father had her and baby Catalina and
Philip spot He all sent off to Tortosa Castle. The
body was put into the care of the nuns of St. Clair,
which was nearby. Wanna was twenty nine years old, and
she spent the next forty six years in Tortoise. If
(13:14):
it was of course important for Ferdinand during this time
to keep Juanna alive because without her, little Charles would
become king, and since he was often Burgundy being raised
by his aunt Margaret, it was likely that Ferdinand would
have to deal with plenty of interference from the boy's
paternal grandfather, Maximilian, who was the Holy Roman Emperor, a
worthy opponent to Ferdinand exactly. But aside from that, there
(13:39):
were a few considerations made for one at all. Tortoise
Us was a favorite old retreat of queens, but it
was extremely isolated, so Wanna had luxurious possessions like tapestries
and fine clothes, but she only had two rooms to
live in. She had a large religious library and was
sometimes allowed out to the convent, and she educated to
(14:00):
Catalina herself. That was really her her main purpose in life,
it seemed, educating her daughter Um because nobody else was around. Really. Ferdinand,
who only visited her twice in seven years, would pass
on information to her from time to time, but he
didn't allow her to write, and there are no records
(14:20):
of her having written anything again from when she goes
into Torti see Us at age nine. Um. Sometimes she
did show unhinged behavior. You know, she would refuse to
eat her sleep, she attacked her women guards. But it
was also clear by the care that was taken to
keep her out of the public eye, that she was
not insane. She was not the woman um rumors had
(14:43):
her being. If anyone really saw her, Ferdinand was afraid
that they would know she was being imprisoned unjustly. When
Ferdinand died in January January fifteen sixteen, having failed to
have a surviving son with his second wife, it left Wanna,
technically a queen of Castile and Aragon want a son. Charles, though,
(15:05):
maintained the same policy that his grandfather had, and he
quickly claimed throne for himself. And Charles wasn't popular. He
had been raised abroad, and the Castilians really resented his
immediate assumption that he would just bypass his mother and
take the throne. So Charles had an uphill battle to
gain control over Castile and Aragon. But he had a
(15:26):
more immediate problem as well. The people of tortoise Us
rebelled against wanna treatment. They had long heard the rumors
that want his caretaker, Mossain Ferrer, was abusing the queen,
and upon Ferdman's death, they decided to chase Ferrer out
of town. And so after this, Charles sent a cardinal
Sinairos to stop the riots and to investigate these claims.
(15:49):
And the cardinal was actually disturbed enough to order Ferrer
never to be let near the Queen again. And in fact,
letters from Ferrer do suggest that he was willing to
put her on the rack and stop her self harm
protests like starvation, though Fox says it's more likely that
she was beaten. I mean, still not good. No, And
this is I think probably a good point to to
(16:10):
mention that while a lot has been speculated about Juanna's
mental state, certainly situations like this would not have helped
it over the years. And what more than forty years
of imprisonment would eventually do to somebody, especially under circumstances
like this, where you're possibly threatened or beaten um because
(16:30):
of protesting and the only way you can it's not
gonna help matters. But Charles may not have wanted his
mother beaten. You know, he he removed this guy, but
he didn't exactly swoop in to save the day either,
you know, to remove her, to to return her to
court or certainly to allow her to to rule, and
in fact, he played off Ferdinand as the bad guy.
(16:52):
He visited his mother in fifteen seventeen for the first
time since he was a child. I don't think they
had seen each other since she left Burgundy to go
to Spain. But he didn't tell her that Ferdinand was dead.
You know. It was just around the castle. Thought I'd
swing by for a visit, um, And in reality he
(17:13):
just kept her thinking Ferdinand was alive. He was the
guy behind her imprisonment, and this decision to not tell
her about Fernand kind of exposes the full duplicity of
of Charles's story. You know, he proclaimed that Juanna had
given him her blessing. He was trying to get that approval,
you know, not looking like he was just completely bypassing,
(17:34):
bypassing or skipping over his mother. Um said she had
given him her blessing, But how could she have done that,
of course, if she didn't even know that Ferdinand was dead. Um.
Charles did some housekeeping too while he was there. He
replaced her temporary guard with a guard of his choice.
The Marquis of Dania and his wife, and the Danny
(17:56):
is really cracked down on Juanna's already pretty limited life. Yeah,
they no longer even allowed her to visit the convent,
and she protested this by not hearing mass at all.
They stopped her also from meeting any of the nobles
who tried to see her. They even stole from her.
They wrote to Charles saying, quote, the torture might help
(18:17):
her condition. There's no record that he approved this though.
They even tried to avoid doctors coming in in case
word got out that Wanna was saying. At one point,
Wanna even had a ten day fever and they wouldn't
let a doctor come in to help her get well.
And you know, the same goes for Catalina too, who
is growing up here. She was sick at one point
and wasn't allowed to see a doctor for quite some time.
(18:39):
Daniel was really obsessive to very paranoid. He was obsessed
with gossiping ladies, maids and servants, and he even wrote
to Charles at one point, quote it cannot be permitted
that she speak with anybody because she would convince anyone.
So that's that's pretty damning, I'd say. But Charles is
(19:01):
a bit of an enigma because of the way he's
treating his his mother, but also the close frigard he
had for a lot of other family members, and of
course the most famous of those was Catherine of Aragon,
his aunt, who was in her terrible situation with Henry
the Eighth, eventually trying to unload her to marry Anne Boleyn.
He was a staunch supporter of hers, but also with
(19:22):
his younger sister Catalina, who had grown up in Tortos
see Us with her mother. She was eleven years old
at the time Charles inherited, and when he tried to
remove her, he thought she should be socialized a little bit.
Want To just spiral deeper and deeper into depression. And
so Charles at least knew enough to keep his mother
(19:44):
alive and and to keep her happy enough by returning
Catalina to her want to. From then on tried to
keep her daughter in sight and told Dania that she'd
kill herself if they took Catalina away again. And when
the time family came for a teenage Catalina to leave,
and Mary Wanna stood at the last point that she
(20:04):
saw Catalina for twenty four hours. So just another note
here Catalina's complaining letters to Charles made it clear that
he knew all about how the Daniels were treating his mother,
the stealing and all of that, and he still didn't
do anything about it. Plus, if he thought that his
mother was truly insane, why would he allow his sister
(20:25):
to say, and I find Catalina the really fascinating part
of the story. It's like somebody should write a historical
novel about her experiences growing up in the castle and
the um, let's do it to Palina Um. It's easy, though,
to wonder why Charles didn't free his mother, especially if
he knew she was not insane, but just like his father,
(20:48):
like his grandfather before him. He did know that his
power relied on Juanna being alive but out of commission
um and as an unpopular foreigner, especially when eating the Inquisition,
one who had brought his own click with him from
Burgundy um thrown out Spanish guys. He was especially concerned
(21:08):
that Castilians might choose his mother over him, even if
they didn't necessarily allow her to rule in her own right.
I mean, it was made clear after years of this
that Wanna could be successfully used as a figurehead while
somebody else actually did the work of the government, and
this became especially worrisome for Charles in fifteen nineteen, it
(21:29):
was just two years after he had arrived in Spain
when his paternal grandfather Maximilian died, And we mentioned in
the last episode that the position of Holy Roman Emperor
was not inherited, but you had to have good connections,
and Charles certainly had them. He was a likely candidate
up against guys like Henry the eighth Francis the first
(21:50):
of France Um. But to to increase the likelihood he
would get to become Holy Roman Emperor, it meant he
had to leave Spain in for a little bit right
at the shaky, nerve racking sort of time. And as
a side note here, Fox writes how again Wanna wasn't
told Maximilian's death, just that he had abdicated. So when
(22:12):
Daniel suggested she write a note of thanks to Maximilian
for the quote favor he had shown her son, Wanna
was like, maybe you should do it, because I haven't
written to him since I've been in prison this whole time. Well,
and Fox notes too that that's kind of a might
have been Daniel hoping to get even more ammunition against
the Wanna is crazy, especially when it comes to dead people.
(22:36):
If she's this lady who followed her husband around and
kissed his dead body's feet, maybe it wouldn't be too
surprising that she was writing letters off to her dead
father in law. But Castille did in fact take this
opportunity to rise up against Charles when he was out
of the country and a group of rebels started what
was called the Communero revolt. On August, a group of
(22:58):
Communero officials finally got as Dania in order to plead
before the queen. They offered her castile. They begged her
to help her people and asked her to sign her approval.
For about one hundred days. Wanna met with the rebels
and listen to their offers. She took up her favorite
political tactic again, though here she started to delay. She
(23:20):
wouldn't sign anything until she could call a council of
her own. Finally, though miraculously almost, she chose her family again,
even all after all that had happened to her, saying,
if Charles quote all that belonged to her was his
and he would take good care of it. Super sad,
I don't know, it's yeah, it's more unexpected than miraculous,
(23:42):
at least from Juanna's perspective, because as soon as the
rebellion was put down, you know, Charles didn't come in saying, oh,
it's really glad to hear what you what you said. Instead,
he rewarded her loyalty with an even stricter regime at
Tortoise if she was cut down to one room. Eventually,
of course, Elena was taken away, um, and she was
(24:03):
stuck with the hated Daniels too. She would complain about
them bitterly. Apparently just the sound of their voices became
agonizing for her to hear, and they were the only
ones she heard a people there. Um, And so just
kind of I don't know, we can't go into too
much more detail about that, just similar days, day in
(24:24):
day out, for decade after decade, forty six years. Um.
The strangest part of this story though, is that there
are these little bright spots in it. You think this
woman would be a hundred percent shunned by her family
if they were willing to do this to her, But
that wasn't the case. Her family did visit her sometime.
They would bring the kids, bring the grandkids um. They
(24:48):
certainly weren't considering her a deranged woman who might be
dangerous to the hopes of their kingdoms. But they also
didn't exactly let her back into the family circle. No, no, certainly,
not even as Charles position became more secure to I
think this surprised me, and this is just um, um,
it's just hard to imagine why you would keep your
(25:10):
family member in prison for so long, but why they
didn't let her back in as some sort of dowager
queen type role, especially if she grew older. According to Fox, Though,
there were sixteen family visits between fifteen thirty five. Yeah,
recorded visits, um. And like I said, bringing the grandkids,
(25:32):
bringing the kids, her grandfon Philip, stopping before he married
a cousin, and then stopping before he married another cousin
that time married Tudor. Very but I don't know, just
so part I can't really understand of this story. She
did have them on one point, though, and that was religion.
It was sort of the one thing that she could
(25:53):
really control. So after her confessor was dismissed in fifty three,
she just stopped making a full in fashion. And this
was something that really immensely disturbed. Charles and his son
Philip as well and her granddaughters. Everyone just couldn't handle
this for some reason. No, they were. They were deeply
concerned about Nah's soul, the state of her soul, what
(26:16):
would happen should she die? Um. By age seventy five,
those fears became pretty major, four of them. She was
getting very frail. She did die April eleven or twelfth,
and fifteen fifty five. Before her death, she was willing
to make a partial confession because her family was desperate
at this point trying to get her to do it,
but she held out on the full deal, kind of
(26:38):
feisty to the end here and once she was dead too.
This is again where the story changes. She's not somebody
to be hidden away anymore. She's somebody for the family
to celebrate. She was entombed in Granada with her husband Philip.
He ended up there just where she wanted him to be. Ultimately, Um,
Ferdinand and Isabella, little Prince Miguel, Um, all of them
(27:04):
end up where Wanna was expecting them to. So she, finally,
I guess, wasn't accepted part of the family after all
those years of being shunned. After she died. So it's
a sad ending to a story that was really entirely unexpected.
It is. I certainly went into it expecting and knowing
that there was a lot of controversy over whether she
(27:26):
was really Wanta a Loca Joanna the mad um and um.
You know how much the power play among her family
members had to do with her long imprisonment. But it's
one crazy thing. I mean, not to make a bad pun,
there is if you go around reading stories about Wanna
uh difference versus still treat her condition as insanity, you know,
(27:51):
like she was in prison because she was insane. Um,
rather than getting into the full story behind it. You
know how her mental state is is troubled clearly, but
certainly not to the level that her family claimed it was,
although it degraded to over time, well as it would
(28:11):
when you're imprisoned for that long and unable to to
talk to to leave, or to do anything that you
want to do, to even to write. But I think
in a sense it's probably almost easier just to say, well,
choose crazy, because even if you know the full story,
you can speculate forever about why the decisions, why she
made the decisions that she made and why her family
(28:33):
made the decisions they made too, I mean power aside
um why some of the things that happened happened. But
certainly a fascinating story. I'm glad that we finally covered
this one. I hope all those listeners who suggested it
enjoyed it. Uh And you know, sorry, it's not a
super Macob kiss in the Dead Body Foot episode, but
(28:56):
it's just not how it turned out. So to Bolina,
we have a really fascinating listener mail today. Yeah, you
were saying it comes from Facebook. Not all listener mail
comes from email. That was very true. And it's from
listener Ellen, who was writing about our episode on the
real Tokyo Rose Eva to Guri Uh, an episode both
(29:19):
of us really enjoyed learning about, and one I think
is kind of stuck with us too, just as another
tragic sort of story. Um. But Ellen wrote in to
say that she knew Eva growing up. In fact, her
mother was Eva's best friend. After after the imprisonment and
all of that, remember from the episode, she moved to Chicago,
(29:41):
where her father ran a very successful store and lived
in Chicago, so that's where Ellen's mother um met Eva.
But it's it's a great message, and I'm just going
to read part of it. But the part that I
found really touching were Ellen's memories of Eva and how
she really kept a lot of humor in her life,
(30:02):
something that was incredibly surprising to us considering all she
had been through. But just to read a little bit
of that she wrote, Eva was a little fireball into
her old age. She was full of energy and humor,
very quick to make you laugh and share hilarious stories.
She had that voice that was so amazing that I
can still hear it today. Listening to the old radio
broadcast on the podcast brought back many happy memories. Eva
(30:26):
never let her hard life show on her face or
in her personality. No one really knew who she was
when they came into the store and was checking out
their stuff the register. She liked to remain anonymous to
the outside world because she always considered herself an American
and was deeply proud of that. She didn't want to
stir up attention to her past for herself and for
her father's business. So this was a really touching email,
(30:50):
and and she she went on to say too that um,
she didn't really realize who she was or how famous
she was. Ellen didn't rather until she was older. UM,
just because Eva always focused on on others. Really, but
that's kind of an example of some of the cool
(31:10):
personal connections we sometimes fear about between listeners and the podcast.
That is pretty amazing. Thank you for sharing and that story,
Like you said, I think it it really touched both
of us a lot. And the quote that we mentioned
about the tiger changing its stripes. When when we were
reading that quote, I was reading that quote during the episode,
I got really choked up. And the funny thing is
(31:32):
I got choked up when I read it the first time,
and when I read it again, and when I read
it on the podcast, and then later I was repeating
it to my husband and I was retelling the story,
and I got choked up then too. It's just something
about it. It's just and and this is the story
I've offen. I retold it to my fiance, I retold
it to a woman we work with. UM not something
I usually. I'm not sure if listeners imagine we're just
(31:53):
always telling these podcasts to our friends. I try to
avoid that. I usually think, you know, if people want
to hear it, they can listen. UM. But yeah, I
just felt like I had to tell other people this story,
and um I was happy to to hear that Eva's
later life did seem fulfilling to that certainly added something
(32:15):
to my understanding of the subject. So thank you so
much Ellen for writing in too to share such a
touching story. If you guys want to share any personal
connections to subjects, I don't know how many folks are
going to have Wanna li loca connections unless you're European
royalty than or probably the right to us definitely, or
(32:37):
just suggestions, you know, the drill, whatever, whatever you guys,
I want to say. We are at History Podcast at
Discovery dot com. We're also on Twitter at missed in History,
and we're on Facebook, and again we mentioned it a
few times during the podcast, but Julia Fox's book on
Wanna is really interesting. It's actually a dual biography called
Sister Queens, covering Juanna's life and her sister Catherine of Aragon, who,
(33:04):
as people always say, would make another fabulous subject. So true.
And if you want to learn a little bit more
about Captain of Aragon's famous husband, Henry the Eighth, we
have an article about that. It's ten heads that roll
roll during Henry the Eighth's reign, and you can look
up that one by visiting our homepage at www dot
how staff works dot com for more on this and
(33:30):
thousands of other topics. Is it how staff works dot
com
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