"To stand upon my kingdom once again."

What has she done? She is wearing purple. And purple is the colour of royalty.

The Death of Eleanor of Castile, Queen of England & the Eleanor Crosses

November 28, 1290

England [was] startled by the sudden, swift loss to illness of Edward’s wife, Eleanor of Castile. Edward was distraught and in the agony of his sorrow he arranged a funeral of historic dimensions. Eleanor of Castile’s body was carried in state from Lincoln to London, and Edward planned a series of exquisite crosses, reminiscent of those used to mark Louis IX’s burial procession, to be erected along the way. The king then had his wife buried in Westminster abbey, next to the tomb of his father.

“Four Queens,” Nancy Goldstone

16 November 1272, The Death of Henry III, King of England

Henry III died on November 16, 1272. He was sixty-five years old and had reigned for fifty-six years. In that more than half-century he, in combination with his wife and her family, had tried to reinvent England as a great European power. In this attempt, he and Eleanor failed, and nearly lost everything. But there had also been achievements, most notably the establishment of a firm peace with France which would outlast his reign. For a man who possessed no real ability for leadership, whose talents lay principally in the realm of aesthetic, who loved to live lavishly but had not the funds to do so, who was by turns generous, petulant, romantic, vindictive, pious, and partisan, Henry had done his best. He was buried with “all honor,” according to an English chronicler. His body was laid in state and dressed in coronation robes; he wore his crown. His funeral was attended by all the great men of the kingdom. But for the absence of his two sons [away on crusade], it was all as Henry would have wished.

The King was buried in Westminster Abbey, which had been recently and gloriously renovated, in the tomb formerly containing the relics of Edward the Confessor. Somewhere between the wars and the oaths, the intrigues and the disappointments, Henry had found the time to express his great love of architecture in this one church; the artistic vision was his and his alone; he devoted years to its magnificent redesign. It still stands today, the great gift of the reign of a troubled king.

On this day, 9 November 1605, in Ottoman history Handan Valide Sultan died:

a slave concubine of Bosnian origins, she was Mehmed III’s first consort and the mother of, among others, his successor Ahmed I. Her son was thirteen when he ascended the throne so Handan acted as co-regent of the empire with the sultan’s tutor, Lala Mustafa Efendi. She was the first queen mother to be regent, although she was never officially recognised as such. Handan emptied Topkapi Palace of Safiye Sultan’s clients and replaced them with her own, she acted as intermediary between the sultan and his viziers, and took an active part in the management of governmental affairs, to the point that Ahmed I considered her presence overbearing. 

Handan Sultan died on 9 November 1605 after what it seems to have been a brief illness. That she was on her deathbed is confirmed by the sultan’s decision to appoint Haci Mustafa Aga as Chief Black Eunuch of the harem on November 5th.

She was buried in the mausoleum of Mehmed III in Hagia Sophia. 

On this day in history: Juana I of Castile’s birth

Juana had been born at Toledo on November 6, 1479. Isabella had not contemplated suckling the infant herself because breastfeeding was commonly believed to delay a mother’s ability to conceive. Instead she had entrusted her baby to a wet nurse, Maria de Santistevan. Soon the child grew into a very lively, pretty, and graceful little girl who was to develop into a beautiful woman. She was, the Venetian ambassador would write, ‘very handsome.’

as soon as she was seven, her parents appointed Andres de Miranda her first tutor. It was his task to teach her Latin, a language in which she became proficient, and Catholic doctrine—essential skills that Deza also taught to Juan. Records of some of the little girl’s possessions have survived, so we know that she was given a special box in which to carry letters, a lavishly decorated book of hours, prayer books, and various Latin texts including poetry. She was taught to ride, she was taught music and dancing, she learned how to behave in public. And, just like her own mother, Juana learned housewifely tasks like baking, spinning, weaving, and sewing.

The children would have been left in no doubt that suffering was an inevitable part of life and should be borne with stoicism, even with willing acceptance. And yet their early lives were not unhappy or filled with care. There was music and dancing, and there were presents. For the Christmas of the year when Granada fell, Ferdinand had taken time off from the Reconquista to choose dolls to delight his daughters. The little girls were even given dolls’ clothes in which to dress them. A much-cherished gift for the Catholic Monarchs’ son, Juan, was the chess set that he kept in his bathroom. And the children were often allowed the sweetmeats they so clearly relished; they could gorge on rose-flavored syrup, on quince jelly, on aniseed balls, on lemon blossom candy. And their clothes were splendid too, for upon such matters were royal houses judged. Cloth from Flanders and from England was imported; there were velvets and silks; there were pretty ribbons; there was coral; there were hoops for farthingales; there were hats; there were fur-lined cloaks. Even the mules that they rode were equipped with silk and brocade to adorn saddles and girths. Every luxury that money could buy was lavished upon the children. An awareness of human tribulation and the importance of repentance and redemption did not preclude parental indulgence.

6 November 1501

On this day in history Katherine of Aragon and Arthur, Prince of Wales, meet for the first time

Princess Katherine remained in Plymouth for over a week before beginning her travels en route to London, stopping off at various places on the way, one being Dogmersfield in Hampshire. Henry VII had become impatient after months of waiting for her to arrive, and wanting to see what she looked like, decided to go to Dogmersfield with Prince Arthur and meet the Princess. It was not until November 4, a month or so after she had stepped ashore at Plymouth, that the king left his newly refurbished palace of Richmond just outside London to travel to her side. Arthur, in expectation of Katherine’s arrival at Southampton, was already waiting for her at the royal hunting lodge at Easthampstead in Surrey. 

Delayed by poor weather, Henry did not arrive at Easthampstead until November 5. After spending the night there, father and son rode on toward Dogmersfield, only to be headed off by de Ayala who informed them that there was no way they could see the princess. Ferdinand and Isabella had given strict orders that their daughter should not be seen by her bridegroom until the day of her marriage. Henry held an impromptu council meeting “in the Fieldes” at which his advisers “concluded and answered” that Katherine was now in England and thus the “Pleasure and Commandement of her seemed to lye in the Power, Grace, and Disposition” of the “noble King of England.” That was enough for Henry. 

Leaving Arthur behind for the moment, he rode straight to Dogmersfield, where he told Katherine’s outraged attendants, who tried to protest that the princess could not see him because she was resting, that he would see her even if she was in bed. This, stated the king, was “the Mynde and Intent of his Comminge.” After some argument, the Spaniards had to agree to his demand and admit him to the Princess’s rooms. Here, a mute and outraged Doña Elvira presented the Infanta, heavily veiled, to King Henry, who, with a marked lack of patience, lifted the veil. His relief was evident, for the ambassador had not lied: Katherine was a very pretty girl, with no sign of any blemish or deformity.

Finding that Spanish etiquette would not be observed in England, Katherine made the best of matters and received Henry graciously. When the king met his future daughter-in-law, though unable to address each other in an intelligible language, ‘there were the most goodly words uttered to each other, in the language of both parties, to as great joy and gladness as any persons conveniently might have.’ Then, after the King had changed his travelling garb, he sent word that he had a present for the Princess; and led in the blushing Prince Arthur to the presence of his bride. The couple had corresponded in Latin, but found that they could not understand each other, since they had learned different pronunciations.

Katherine entertained the King and his son in her chamber with music performed by her minstrels and with dancing. She and her ladies danced the slow, stately pavan that permitted two beats to a step; when Arthur joined in, Katherine and one of her ladies taught him a dignified Spanish dance, after which he danced with Lady Guildford, the wife of one of his father’s ministers, in the English style “right pleasantly and honourably”. It would never have done for the betrothed couple to dance together. In the morning, Henry VII and Arthur took their leave of Katherine and returned to London to prepare for the wedding.

Sources:

Sister queens: the noble, tragic lives of Katherine of Aragon and Juana, Queen of Castile by Julia Fox.

Jal Mahal, Man Sagar Lake, Jaipur City, Rajasthan, India

𝙤𝙩𝙩𝙤𝙢𝙖𝙣 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙨 : Osman I

Favourite Renaissance women | Chiara Matraini 

Se per voler seguir la stella mia…

Chiara Matraini (Lucca, June 4, 1515 – Lucca, November 8, 1604) was an Italian Renaissance writer from Lucca. Primarily known for her love poetry, composed in the style of Petrarch, she also authored a number of spiritual prose and verse texts. Matraini wrote throughout her long life, publishing her last text, the Dialoghi spirituali (1602), when she was well into her 80s. Her many projects included genres that were uncommon for women writers of her time, such as an oration on the art of war, a translation from Latin to vernacular, and several didactic religious texts. Matraini’s writing demonstrates an eagerness to compose in an authoritative voice.

A Picture Gallery (Benjamin Constant), 1866, Lawrence Alma-Tadema

AURELIA (del germánico “meine liebe”) femenino. singularmente plural. luz que incendia felicidad. - c.s.