Juana of Castile was the third daughter of Ferdinand, king of Aragon, and Isabella, queen of Castile; Juana’s sister was Catherine of Aragon, who wound up divorced from Henry VIII. Juana's sedate childhood did not reveal the passionate nature that would one day win her the nickname of Juana the Mad.

Though Ferdinand and Isabella gained fame by bankrolling the explorer Columbus, Juana’s obsessive love for her husband gained her a different sort of fame. Think Fatal Attraction sixteenth-century style.

view other Doomed Queens cautionary morals