Isabella I of Castile

Isabella I of Castile
Biographical information
Born	22 April 1451 Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Spain
Died	26 November 1504 (aged 53) Medina del Campo, Spain
Political information
Affiliations	Castile-Aragon Union

Isabella I of Castile (1451 – 1504) was a Queen of Castile and León, and the wife of King Ferdinand II. Furthermore, she was a very religious person and often had contact with Tomás de Torquemada, Inquisitor General and her personal confessor. Her beliefs led her to order the conversion or exile of their Muslim and Jewish subjects in Spain, in what would later become known as the Spanish Inquisition.

Biography

In 1478, Isabella and Ferdinand, seeking further religious unity, requested permission from the Pope to establish an inquisition. Pope Sixtus IV permitted them to appoint priests as inquisitors.

By 1491, members of both the Assassin and Templar Orders had infiltrated Ferdinand and Isabella's close circles, the Templars being drawn by their religious initiatives and masterful diplomacy. That year, the Genoese explorer Christopher Columbus, a close friend of Isabella's Jewish finance minister and secret Assassin Luis de Santángel, requested Isabella to fund his voyages to the East Indies. The Templars, aware that Columbus route would lead him to discover the New World, deliberately influenced Isabella into prolonging the ongoing war with the Moors, thereby preventing her from funding Columbus.

In 1492, the Italian Assassin Ezio Auditore da Firenze rescued King Muhammad XII from a Templar attack on his palace of Alhambra, and persuaded him into putting an end to the war with Ferdinand and Isabella. Queen Isabella, though grateful for Ezio's efforts, was still unable to finance Columbus' journey as her resources were still scarce. In addition to that, she revealed that the King of France had made Columbus an offer, though Ezio quickly realized it was a Templar trap and rescued Columbus. Luis de Santángel and Raphael Sanchez, Ferdinand's and Isabella's finance minister, eventually persuaded Isabella to fund half of Columbus' voyage, while they both paid the other half.

That same year, Isabella and Ferdinand were present during the public execution of heretics during which the Spanish Mentor, Benedicto, was burned to the stake by Tomás de Torquemada. During the ordeal, they also witnessed the escape of Aguilar de Nerha and Maria, two other Assassins about to be executed.

When Luis de Santángel died in 1498, the Assassins no longer had any eyes within the Spanish royal circle. In the early 1500s, Ezio Auditore sent a team of Assassins to retrieve Santángel's journal, resulting in the discovery that he had been trying to poison the Queen. Upon investigating whether Santángel's motives were out of revenge for the Spanish Inquisition which had killed most of his family or because of Templar influence, the Assassins found out that Isabella had been exchanging letters with Cesare Borgia, and concluded that she was forced into serving the Borgia.

Isabella on her deathbed

After establishing contact with Santángel's associate, one of Isabella's servants, the Assassins continued Santángel's work and started slowly poisoning the Queen. In 1504, Ferdinand and Isabella made an arrangement with Pope Julius II to have Cesare Borgia imprisoned in the Castillo de la Mota near Valencia. However, Isabella later succumbed to the Assassins' poisoning on 26 November.

Gallery

Queen Isabella in Assassin's Creed II: Discovery