Isabella of Castile
by Giles Tremlett 624pp, Bloomsbury, £25, ebook £15.83
Isabella of Castile, as this magnificent biography shows, had a good grasp of realpolitik. To win her throne, she had to drive her half-niece into a convent with a rumour of illegitimacy; against her half-brother’s wishes, she married Ferdinand of Aragon – by which much of Spain was united – and asserted corule. She is an uncomfortable subject for a modern biographer: after she retracted protection from the Jews, their persecution did not “trouble her greatly”. Catherine Fletcher