Joanna La Beltraneja - Later Life

Later Life

In 1479, the king of Portugal gave up on the pretension and signed a treaty with the Catholic Monarchs. Joanna was given the choice to marry the son of Isabella when he became an adult and if he then chose to consent, or to enter a convent. Joanna entered the convent Santa Clara in Coimbra, and the ceremony was witnessed by Isabella, who praised her decision. She was not incarcerated in the convent, and was eventually allowed to reside in the Castle of São Jorge in Lisbon. In 1482, King Francis of Navarre, nephew of Louis XI of France, proposed to her as a French warning to Castile, who threatened Roussilon, but he died soon after. At the death of Isabella in 1504, Ferdinand is alleged to have proposed to her to keep the throne from his son-in-law, but she refused.

Joanna signed her letters "La Reina", meaning "the Queen", until the day she died. She died in Lisbon, having survived her aunt Isabella I. Joanna's own claim to the throne passed to her cousin, Queen Isabella I's daughter Joanna, who was already monarch of Castile.

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