(Valladolid, Spain 1486 CE)

At the age of twenty-one, a young Spanish woman named Beatriz Galindo was recruited into the new royal household which had formed through the marriage of King Ferdinand II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile and Leon. Eventually, by 1492, these Catholic monarchs would unite all of Spain after a seven-hundred year saga of re-conquest against the Moors on the Iberian Peninsula. This was to historically set the stage for the Spanish Empire's Golden Age of Exploration and expansion. Young Beatriz's influence in the Spanish royal house of Castile would be for the most part overlooked by history, yet nonetheless was profound upon its new Queen Isabella I and later, her four daughters.

Beatriz's original contract was to assist in the royal house with the education of Isabella and Ferdinand's children. There would eventually be five young pupils-Isabella, Juan, Joanna, Maria, and Catherine. The girls would eventually play out major roles in European history. As queen, Isabella was adamant about the advanced tutoring of her girls, which at the time was rare for young females and women generally. For this she sought out the best mentors and exposed her children to domestic duties as well as the privileges into which they were born. It is recorded that she and her girls had made many of her husband Ferdinand's clothing in addition to studying the classical languages and the celebrated literature of Greek, Latin, French and that of the native Castilians.

None of these tutors, however, were as dynamic or influential to the girls as the young Beatriz Galindo. Even while still a girl herself, she was blessed by two propitious factors-first being gifted in languages, some say a genius, mastering Latin and ancient Greek by the age of 15. Secondly, she was raised in a city famous for educating many of the most influential men of fifteenth and sixteenth century Europe-Salamanca, in northwestern Spain.

At the time of Beatriz Galindo's employment as "institutriz" (tutor) to Crown's royal children, the phenomenal instructor had already been one of the few females from her era allowed to attend and eventually lecture at the prestigious University of Salamanca. It was one of Renaissance Europe's first great centers for humanities and sciences, reminiscent of the Alexandrian Museum and Library of Egypt, some one thousand years before.

The "instituto" of Salamanca had become an alma mater to great men of science, medicine, and philosophy throughout Spain, but also to a few bold adventurers. Men like Hernan Cortes and Christopher Columbus, who found themselves eager to explore lands beyond the known world, had been students there. In addition to making Latin translations of Classical works into her native Spanish, the young Beatriz taught and shared her love of Greek mythology and poetry to all who came to be enlightened by her at the university. For this she was held in great respect by many Spanish Renaissance scholars, and remembered today for her early treatises on Aristotle and her own poetry penned both in Latin and Spanish.

But there was an additional avocation this pivotal woman had during these times inside the royal household in total secrecy. It would be revealed only to a chosen few other females besides the Queen and her four daughters. This guarded undertaking had originated in earnest clearly several thousand years before in another, more ancient area of the world. And it was to become quietly influential to later eras through a its secret expansion. This torch of pro-female ideology would be carried by the efforts of other courageous and remarkable women-all who had pledged themselves into the society.

The belief in the power and preservation of women's strengths and abilities, enshrined in this clandestine sisterhood, moved like a silent but constant breeze across borders, religions, races and eventually across the great ocean barrier which divided the Old World from the New. It was a phenomenon which could be attributed later and greatly to both Beatriz and her intellectual and forward-thinking queen, Isabella I.

As a linguistic scholar with a pure and simple heart, Beatriz became a powerful catalyst of inspiration while going about her duties in the royal Spanish household. And when it came to the queen's children, she mentored them in all subjects. With Isabella I, Beatriz became over time her unofficial confidant, advising the courageous and compassionate ruler in nearly all maters of state and family. Yet, it was this special preoccupation with the secret woman's society and in such dangerous times of strict church ideology and political intrigues that a brilliant proto-feminist manifesto was developed and kept alive.

Through these two women, and later Isabella's daughters, the secret society was allowed to grow, not only through the royal support of an ever-expanding Spanish Empire, but, through other royal houses of Europe and among other trusted women in their sphere. There were females who possessed incomparable political connections. Their liaisons with other royal families and kingdoms, all with legacies of landed titles, served the society well through the ages. It acted to keep the flame of women's camaraderie and a vision of independence alive through truly underground means. And surprisingly, this was at a time when the flame of hope for women's dignity and affirmation was nearly extinguished altogether by the patriarchal attitudes being fomented by the powerful Church of Rome.

Earlier in her tenure at Salamanca, the young scholar Beatriz had become privy to, and was initiated into, this nascent all-women's sisterhood, the 'Αδελπηες Αμααζονες' (Amazon Sisters). The society had begun on the misty plains of Anatolia and gravitated slowly as an idea and purpose into empires and far-flung regions of the world.

But this could only be accomplished through the efforts and auspices of other brilliant or powerful women who supported it. By the time of Isabella I, the movement had transcended the early satrapal regions of Persia, the halls of Roman power in Byzantium, and the cradle of religious and cultural tolerance in Alexandria, Egypt. It was carried on by powerful queens and women of tremendous influence. For the sisterhood to progress, Beatriz and Queen Isabella particularly would be highly instrumental, moving the very wish of Penthesilea, Queen herself of the Amazons, through the Middle Ages, into a Renaissance Europe and eventually across the sea to the New World.

Isabella I, Queen of Castile and Leon, through marriage became the other half of a monarchy which greatly reshaped the world. Her accomplishments with Ferdinand were many and after a concerted effort to route the Moorish domination of Granada, resulting in a military power superior in all of Europe for its day, she focused on needed social reforms. Not only did Isabella as a monarch reduce the crime which had become unbearable to the public in the Spanish provinces, she also brought down and managed the debts incurred by her incompetent brother Henry IV, while he had been king.

Additionally, she was able to raise the consciousness of a society about the needs of women, and fight the corruption of nobles which had dominated the courts since the reign of her father, John II. After some 1500 thieves had been rounded up and punished in Castile, her continuation of an official citizen police force-'La Santa Hermandad' (the Holy Brotherhood) kept the gentry safe and restored order.

Beatriz Galindo had discovered, through her readings in Latin of translated Greek texts, that Hypatia of Alexandria had been a woman like herself-an exceptional academic prodigy and mentor to many. She read also of her self-same comfort around the greatest male minds of her own day and her quiet contributions to that earliest of secret female organizations, the 'Adelphes Amazonas.' In later centuries the society would take on the name 'Penthesilea Sisterhood,' a rebranding of the original society which Hypatia of Alexandria had singularly inaugurated.

Being fourteen years younger than her queen did not hinder Beatriz from becoming Isabella's close friend during the decade and a half they were in close contact. Her role as the children's tutor quickly expanded to "personal advisor to the monarch," a position which she carried unofficially until the Queen's death in 1504. Isabella I of Spain's own fame as a female leader of exceptional innovation and service to her people had been evident while making sweeping changes within the provinces she inherited and ultimately ruled.

As a hands-on ruler she wished to make social reforms in a large society which had become overly corrupt and unsafe. Championing the conditions of women and children throughout her life, added to her reputation in history. And it can in part be traced to Galindo's early women-centered influence in her own royal house.

When at the end of the 15th century Queen Isabella I and King Ferdinand II completed the "Reconquista" of Spain, the Queen in particular moved on to undertaking an interest in exploring the world outside the confines of the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, in 1492 when the keys of the city of Granada were handed over to her and Ferdinand by the last Moorish leader, and the Spanish provinces of the Iberian Peninsula began to fly under one flag, a series of bold maritime ventures were taken on, bringing a new era to be known as Spanish Empire and the Age of Exploration. Thus also began the modern age of Europe as these monarchs were instrumental in allowing for discovery and exploration focused on totally new continents and trade routes with Asia.

Isabella personally embraced innovative ideas and boldly granted during the landmark year 1492, a charter for Italian Christopher Columbus. His training as a navigator told him by simply sailing west out of the Mediterranean, the East Indies could be reached. Being granted this audacious undertaking under the flag of Spain and with Isabella's auspices, a new route to the Indies had by accident morphed into the discovery of a whole new landmass comprising two continents. Rumors were that Isabella I sold her own collection of jewels to sponsor Columbus' first expedition. Her gamble paid off, as it resulted in immeasurable wealth for Spain over the next two centuries.

For twelve years Beatriz Galindo advised her queen on all matters-from her new, united empire, to the growing complexities of exploration of the Americas. Beatriz's own pet name among the royal court during this time became 'America.' This was in deference to her enthusiasm for news of exciting discoveries returning to the House of Castile from these exotic lands. It was also a time when Columbus's first three expeditions to the West Indies between 1492 and 1498 had become the talk of the day. And it was during these adventures that the Italian navigator brought back actual natives from his expedition which he presented as gifts to his Queen as proof of occupied landfall somewhere on the other side of an unexplored world.

But Beatriz Galindo had an additional impact on Isabella and her daughters which was to escape the annals of written history. It was her influence to enlist their efforts in that society for which she was so devoted as a member. Like other well-positioned women who were to have an undetected association with these undertakings, Galindo maintained great allegiance to the sisterhood in spite of the differences of politics, bloodlines or religious adherence which had become so divisive during and after Spain's Reconquista.

Women who were active in the society at this time, including her queen, had to navigate as advocates of their cause within their own male-dominated societies. And this was during an era not known for religious tolerance, gender equality or racial diversity. Often the very survival of females working in secrecy was determined by their ability to endure these constraints and remain undetected amid trials and investigations of heresy by the Church.

For this reason it was particularly difficult for Isabella to publically maintain an unflinching, pro-female stance in light of the religious and cultural persecution which had affected Spanish society for seven-hundred years. It was a reaction to the release of occupation and domination of Muslim authority. In light of these austere "cleansing" operations underway to rid the newly united kingdoms of the "Infidels"-Jews and Moslems, and following a Moorish uprising in 1499 which threatened to dismantle her and her husband's Treaty of Granada, Isabella had to emotionally endure witnessing the persecution, torture, and death of both men and women at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition, which grew out of the religious fervor during her own reign. This institution of terror which moved through the various kingdoms of Spain, purged with fire and torture any citizens unwilling to renounce prior religious convictions that were not sanctioned by the Catholic Church.

Previously Jews and Moslems had been tolerated historically in Castile, Isabella's own native kingdom-and the Spanish populous generally had adopted many of their ways and customs. Yet following the unification in 1492 of the major provinces of Castile, Leon, Aragon and finally Granada, an intolerant attitude towards those who did not embrace the orthodoxy of the Roman Church took hold. Isabella I and Ferdinand II, reacting to the 1499 violation of the Treaty of Granada, came to be seen as the quintessential "Catholic Monarchs," empowered to cleanse the land for Christendom.

Moreover, it was as early as 1480 that Pope Sexus IV gave the order to allow monarchs of their own kingdoms to appoint Inquisitors to hold tribunals and punish by death those guilty of heresy. This severe campaign to stamp out "pagans" who, under the guise of being converted to Christianity, yet still practiced their original faith in secrecy, was implemented with sadistic and often male-chauvinistic vigor. Many women who were 'conversos' (Jews who converted to Catholicism), and 'moriscos,' (Moslems who had been converted in order to remain in Spain), were subjected to the harshest treatment of this Christian intolerance.

History at this time took a darker turn at the hands of 'Grand Inquisitors'-men like Torquemada,'who operated viciously and paradoxically in the name of Christian purification. Many, including Isabella, felt that when this hysteria reached the point of torturing then burning many women accused as witches for their beliefs, the atrocious program had simply gone too far.

Her early efforts, however, toward the plight of the indigenous people in the Americas-natives who were quickly being exploited by Spanish expeditionary forces, was admiringly humanitarian. Working with the Church's leadership, Isabella I put into place certain guidelines for the fair and safe treatment of these peoples, especially women and children. Unfortunately, throughout the subsequent age of Spanish colonization, these sanctions were difficult to enforce and often neglected entirely by the men who led these expeditions. Several of these "Indians," as they were erroneously being called by Columbus, who had brought them back for public display, were taken under the care of Isabella personally, and in the most humane manner.

It was during these difficult times that the Queen's little known confidant and personal advisor, Beatriz Galindo, indirectly provided seminal inspiration to future generations of women, not the least her daughters-all future queens in their own right. Throughout all of her lifetime Galindo exhibited a pious nature, superior intellect, and the desire to seek out humble virtues. It was how she was raised as a commoner, and what defined her exceptional approach to education at Salamanca. These characteristics exerted great influence upon the humanitarian endeavors of her liege, Queen Isabella I and the academic training of her four daughters.

It can be easily surmised that in the court of Isabella I and Ferdinand II, Beatriz often entertained the women around her with the myths and romances of far away places. Inherent to these were also the values and an enduring legacy for all women. For tales of courage and independence, she recited from her great knowledge, the tales begun even before the Classical Age of Greece-a time and place of legends Galindo so much loved to read about from ancient Greek texts. For these were the works few people besides herself had the acumen to translate and interpret for future advocates of the Penthesilea Sisterhood.

The effects of this influence could later be seen historically in the completion of Isabella's reign and the legacies of her daughter Joanna and granddaughter Mary-both to be crowned 'queens' in their own times. And it was for these future legacies that Isabella maintained and transferred what had been bestowed upon her-the highly secretive oath 'Consilium Reginae,-"The Compact of Queens," which carried the promise to transcend royal bloodlines, territories, distance and time when honoring the wishes of Penthesilea and her ancient sisters. The compact carried forth Penthesilea's own wish to continue the independence and progress of her sex.

It is no wonder that both women as confidants-tutor and queen, necessarily cloistered, yet unfettered within their rare and enormous opportunities-would have found fascinating the legends of the Amazons out of the mist of history. Both as women of power and ability, they employed their talents to secretly work within their own capacities and to advance the tenets that the 'Penthesilea Sisterhood' would continue to hold. The society would continue to evolve and grow under their watch, expanding later into a vibrant and powerful force. Its evolution would eventually be present on all continents and threaten to change the landscape of power and tradition forever.

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