03/11/1526 AD married

In January 1526, Isabella traveled to Spain. Upon her arrival, she met the Duke of Calabria, the Archbishop of Toledo and the Duke of Béjar at the Spanish-Portuguese border. They escorted her to Seville, where she was to wait for Charles for a week. At the end, their wedding took place the very next day just after midnight on 11 March in the Palace of Alcázar of Seville.

By 1525, Charles was no longer interested in an alliance with England and could wait no longer for Mary Tudor to get older because he was determined to have legitimate children. His engagement was called off, the alliance with England was abandoned, and he finally sought to marry Isabella. There were many more advantages - she was closer to him in age (she was only three years his junior), fluent in Spanish, and offered a dowry of 900,000 Portuguese cruzados or Castilian folds which was more than enough to solve many of his financial problems brought on by the recent war.[2]

Charles wasted no time in securing a papal dispensation for first cousins and the marriage contract for an alliance with Portugal were made - Isabella would marry him and her brother, King John III of Portugal, would marry his youngest sister, Catherine of Austria. The young Emperor intended to wed and then leave his future wife as regent to govern Spain while he went to Central Europe to deal with political and religious troubles there.

Although their marriage was a political arrangement, Isabella captivated her husband, who tarried with her longer than anticipated. They honeymooned for several months at the Alhambra in Granada, where Charles ordered the seeds of a Persian flower that had never been seen before in Spain. The seeds eventually grew into the red carnation which delighted Isabella. Her husband ordered thousands more to be planted in her honor, establishing the red carnation as Spain's floral emblem.

Seville

Lattitude: 37.3891° N
Longitude: 5.9845° W
Region: Europe

Modern Day Spain

Events in 1526 MORE