Crown of Aloes

by Norah Lofts

First published 1974

Amazon

3.6(249)

Isabella of Castile grows from a politically vulnerable princess into a monarch determined to secure her throne and govern alongside Ferdinand of Aragon. Dynastic rivalry, marriage and civil conflict force her to make decisions long before the union of their crowns can appear inevitable. Lofts presents queenship as continual work: balancing family, noble factions, religious conviction and the demands of war.
The later reign brings the Granada War, the establishment and expansion of the Spanish Inquisition under the Catholic Monarchs, and Christopher Columbus’s appeal for support for an Atlantic voyage. Isabella I, Ferdinand II and Columbus appear as historical actors in a narrative that connects the conquest of Granada and religious coercion with the outward expansion of the Spanish monarchy. The title’s image of a crown made from bitter aloe leaves captures Lofts’s emphasis on the personal cost of sovereign power.