Special Guest Blogger: Joanna of Castile

I’m just a woman who loved too deeply, ruled too fiercely, and was subsequently locked in a room with a lot of tapestries.
Back in the day, I was known as the Beloved. Not for the reasons you’re thinking! It was all about the political strategy, of course. At 16, I was thrust into a marriage with Philip of Habsburg, handsome, wealthy, and slightly insufferable, according to my diary.
Our union was the stuff of fairy tales!  Philip and I had five kids, which is impressive when you consider he died at 26 after a mysterious case of the Spanish sweating sickness but heartbreak? Never!
Philip’s death? A tragedy. My mother, Isabella, advised me to take the throne. I did. I was queen of Spain, Navarre, and bits of Italy. I didn’t just rule, I dominated. Literally. I had the administrative skills of a spreadsheet wizard and the ruthlessness of a woman who’d just been widowed by a man who probably didn’t brush his teeth.
But then came the problem in the shape of my son Charles, aka the future Holy Roman Emperor, who’d probably have won Teen Emperor of the Year if they’d had such a thing.
He looked at me, his grieving, governing mother, and thought, Mum’s not herself anymore. Probably the stress! and just like that, I was gently, lovingly, manhandled into a life of semi-soft house arrest.
Let’s get one thing straight: I was not mad. I was disappointed. Charles, bless his Habsburg jawline, thought he could just take my empire? I tried to stop him! I wrote letters! I sent ambassadors! I even tried to sneak out of my room dressed as a nun but there i was confined to a palace, surrounded by the sound of my own thoughts but at least I had the wine. And the tapestries. They were very nice.
History remembers me as the Mad but we really didn’t do mental health back then. If you were a woman who refused to be a punchline for European politics, you were diagnosed with hysteria. If you were a woman who did punch men in politics, you were mad. Either way, you were silenced.
But you know what’s mad? Being gaslit by your son for 40 years while he rules your empire and i did lose  my mind sometimes and died still arguing with my son’s surrogates through a locked door.