The Catholic Monarchs were two of the most important monarchs in the history of Spain. The marriage of Fernando II of Aragon and Isabel I of Castile united the Crown and the Crown of Aragon, the two most powerful kingdoms of the second half of the 15th century. They were married at a very early age, when he was 16 and she was 18. They were second cousins, so they needed a dispensation from the Pope for their marriage to be recognized by the Church. However, Paul II never got to grant it, so they used a false bulsa.The Kings carried out a common foreign policy characterized by marital ties with different European royal families.War of the Castilian SuccessionThe first war conflict in which the Catholic Kings was the War of the Castilian Succession, which took place between 1475 and 1479 by the succession of the Crown of Castile. On one side, the defenders of the daughter of the late monarch Enrique IV, Juana de Trastámara and, on the other, the supporters of his half-sister, Isabel. Finally, Isabel was the heir to the Crown of Castile, married to Fernando, heir to the Crown of Aragon. The Conquest of the Catholic Monarchs The Catholic Monarchs have gone down in history for contributing to the discovery of America. In 1486, Christopher Columbus turned to them in search of funding to carry out his project of traveling to India by a hitherto unknown westward route. He left Puerto de Palos with a squad made up of the caravels Pinta, Niña and the ship Santa María, and a crew of 90 men.After the death of Isabel, Fernando was forced to cede the Crown of Castile to his daughter Juana la Loca and her husband Felipe el Hermoso.He retired to Aragon, from where he carried out the conquest of Navarre in 1517. When Felipe died, and Juana was declared incapable of reigning, power went to the regent Cisneros. He asked Fernando to reign again, and his reign lasted until Carlos, Juana’s son, reached the age of majority. The remains of the Catholic Monarchs rest in the Royal Chapel of Granada. They themselves chose this place, and it was created through the Royal Decree on September 13, 1804.
