Juana La Loca

Where does a woman go when a King is wooing her and won't stop? Dana speaks with Chief Historian of Historic Royal Palaces, Tracy Borman, about her newest historical fiction novel, THE HOUSE OF BOLEYN. Support Noble Blood:—ORDER 'THE ARCANE ARTS'— Bonus episodes, stickers, and sc ...  Show more

In December of 1586, the King of Poland died suddenly and without an obvious successor. King was an elected position, and the noblemen bickered and tried to advance their own agendas, to no avail. It was a complete standsill. They needed an unbiased third party to be a temporary ...  Show more

Juana of Castile has gone down in history as "Juana la Loca." But Juana's mental state was likely not as bad as it seemed. Was she instead the victim of conniving relatives? In this episode, we discuss Juana's youth, her marriage and more.

Many kings and queens are given nicknames along with their titles. Juana was the third child of Isabel and Fernando “the Catholics”. Her nickname, “la loca”, or “the crazy one” came from her dramatic outbursts, often related to her husband, Felipe “the Handsome”. The question ...

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?

Never before have we covered a woman with such far reaching influence. This determined woman began by pulling off a coup, then branched out into such far reaching endeavors as the Spanish Inquisition, the settlement of the Americas, and transforming the queen (in chess and in lif ...  Show more