Third and youngest daughter of Don Pedro the First, surnamed The Cruel,
and Maria Padilla, whose marriage is usually considered a fiction by
modern writers, though Pedro himself solemnly affirmed it, and their
daughters were treated as Princesses through life. Isabel was born at
Morales or Tordesillas, in 1355. In 1365, when Don Pedro fled before
his rebel brother, he was accompanied by his third wife, Juana, and his
three daughters, Beatriz, Constanga, and Isabel. They fled from Sevilla
to Bayonne, and did not return to Sevilla till 1368, after the victory
of Navareta. After the loss of the battle of Montiel and the murder of
their father, in 1369, the Princesses were hastily taken again by their
guardians to Bayonne. Constancy was married to John of Gaunt, Duke of
Lancaster, at Rochefort, near Bordeaux, about November, 1369. Isabel
remained with her sister, and accompanied her to England in 1371. In
1372--between January 1st and April 30th--she married Edmund Earl of
Cambridge, the brother of her sister's husband. It was at Hertford,
March 1st, 1372, that John of Gaunt and Constanca assumed the titles of
King and Queen of Leon and Castilla; and as sixteen months had then
elapsed since their own marriage, the probability seems to be that this
date marks the marriage of Isabel, and the consent of her bridegroom to
the exclusive assumption of queenship by the elder sister. (The other
and really eldest sister, Beatriz, had become a nun.) Isabel is alluded
to as Edmund's wife on April 30th, 1372. In May, 1381, she accompanied
her husband to Portugal, on an expedition undertaken with the object of
securing the recognition of herself and her sister as the true heirs of
Castilla. The expedition failed; and Isabel returned to England with
her husband in October, 1382.
Several pardons appear on the rolls, granted at the instance of Isabel.
Dona Juana Fernandez, who appears in the story, was at first one of her
damsels, but in 1377 became Mistress of the Household. Isabel became
Duchess of York, August 6th, 1385. Her will was made December 6th,
1389. A grant of 100 pounds was given to her, October 3rd, 1390, to pay
her debts; but notwithstanding this and further grants of money, she was
still obliged to borrow 400 from her brother-in-law of Lancaster,
January 25th, 1393. This was her last recorded act, for on the third of
February she was dead. (_Rot. Ex. Michs_, 14 R. II; _Compotus
Soberti de Whitteby_, 1392-3, _folio_ 19; _Rot. Pat_. 16 R. II, Part
3.)--Much misconception exists as to the terms of her will. She is
represented by some writers as having been driven to provide for her son
Richard by the purchase of the King's favour, having bequeathed all her
goods to his Majesty on a species of compulsion. The fact is that she
bequeathed to him her son and her goods together, requesting him to
provide for the one from the proceeds of the other. She made the King
simply trustee for her boy, his own godson. And how much King Richard
gained or lost by the transaction is set down in plain figures: for the
jewels, etcetera, bequeathed by Isabel sold for 666 pounds 13 shillings
4 pence--just two years' income of the annuity paid for seven years (the
rest of his reign) to Richard. (_Rot. Ex, Michs_, 17 R. II.) The
monastic chroniclers speak of Isabel in terms of unqualified contempt--
particularly Walsingham, who invariably vilifies a Lollard. And that
she was a Lollard few can doubt who read her will with attention.
Possibly the entire accusation brought against her in early life is a
calumny; possibly it is a fact. Many women that _were_ sinners have
washed Christ's feet with tears; and perhaps they will not be found the
lowest in the kingdom of Heaven.