[Sca-cooks] Juana la Loca

[Daniel & Elizabeth Phelps]

Further Regards Juana la Loca after Phillip's death.  The following was 
clipped from an on line biography:

 Philip's coffin was temporarily buried in a monastery near Burgos. Stories 
were spread that the mad Queen had the coffin opened every night and then 
embraced her beloved dead. In fact, Juana (to the right) did have the coffin 
opened once and then looked at her husband's remains, but not until five 
weeks after his death, as a response to rumours that his body had been 
stolen. When the wrappers were removed from the corpse, Juana began kissing 
its feet. She had to be removed from the vault with force. When Burgos was 
struck by a contagious disease, Juana decided to move to Torquemada. She 
wanted to take the coffin with her, because it was en route to Philip's 
final resting place, Granada. The coffin was opened for a second time to 
ensure that Philip's remains were still there. Thus, Juana had his coffin 
carried about on her journeying. It was guarded by an armed escort and she 
had ordered that females were to be kept at a distance. She travelled by 
night only and during the day they rested in monasteries, deliberately 
avoiding nunneries.

When Juana was seized with labour pains on her gloomy procession in January 
1507, she refused the help of midwives and gave birth alone to a daughter, 
Catalina. Meanwhile, the coffin was placed in a nearby church before the 
altar and Juana jealously ordered that women were forbidden to come near it. 
After four months she started out again with the coffin. When suddenly a 
storm broke, she refused to take shelter in a nunnery. Again she had the 
coffin opened to gaze at the smelling remains of her once handsome husband. 
She stopped in a little village and stayed there for some more months, 
keeping the coffin with her. When she received word that her father had 
returned from Naples, she opened the coffin a fourth time before she set out 
to meet her father.

Daniel