The Hour Of Triumph - 3

The Hour Of Triumph - 3

 But pomp and parade were not the only occupation of these Barcelona days. There were

long consultations with Ferdinand and Isabella about the colonisation of the new lands;

there were intrigues, and parrying of intrigues, between the Spanish and Portuguese

Courts on the subject of the discoveries and of the representative rights of the two nations

to be the religious saviours of the New World. The Pope, to whose hands the heathen

were entrusted by God to be handed for an inheritance to the highest and most religious

bidder, had at that time innocently divided them into two portions, to wit: heathen to the

south of Spain and Portugal, and heathen to the west of those places. By the Bull of 1438,

granted by Pope Martin V., the heathen to the west had been given to the Spanish, and the

heathen to the south to the Portuguese, and the two crowns had in 1479 come to a

working agreement. Now, however, the existence of more heathen to the west of the

Azores introduced a new complication, and Ferdinand sent a message to Pope Alexander

VI. praying for a confirmation of the Spanish title to the new discoveries.

This Pope, who was a native of Aragon and had been a subject of Ferdinand, was a stolid,

perverse, and stubborn being; so much is advertised in his low forehead, impudent

prominent nose, thick sensual lips, and stout bull neck. This Pope considers the matter;

considers, by such lights as he has, to whom he shall entrust the souls of these new

heathen; considers which country, Spain or Portugal, is most likely to hold and use the

same for the increase of the Christian faith in general, the furtherance of the Holy

Catholic Church in special, and the aggrandisement of Popes in particular; and shrewdly

decides that the country in which the. Inquisition can flourish is the country to whom the

heathen souls should be entrusted. He therefore issues a Bull, dated May 3, 1493,

granting to the Spanish the possession of all lands, not occupied by Christian powers, that

lie west of a meridian drawn one hundred leagues to the westward of the Azores, and to

the Portuguese possession of all similar lands lying to the eastward of that line. He sleeps

upon this Bull, and has inspiration; and on the morrow, May 4th, issues another Bull,

drawing a line from the arctic to the antarctic pole, and granting to Spain all heathen

inheritance to the westward of the same. The Pope, having signed this Bull, considers it

further-assisted, no doubt, by the Portuguese Ambassador at the Vatican, to whom it has

been shown; realises that in the wording of the Bull an injustice has been done to

Portugal, since Spain is allowed to fix very much at her own convenience the point at

which the line drawn from pole to pole shall cut the equator; and also because, although

Spain is given all the lands in existence within her territory, Portugal is only given the

lands which she may actually have occupied. Even the legal mind of the Pope, although

much drowsed and blunted by brutish excesses, discerns faultiness in this document; and

consequently on the same day issues a third Bull, in which the injustice to Portugal is

redressed. Nothing so easy, thinks the Pope, as to issue Bulls; if you make a mistake in

one Bull, issue another; and, having issued three Bulls in twenty-four hours, he desists for

the present, having divided the earthly globe.

Thus easy it is for a Pope to draw lines from pole to pole, and across the deep of the sea.

Yet the poles sleep still in their icy virginal sanctity, and the blue waves through which

that papal line passes shift and shimmer and roll in their free salt loneliness, unaffected

by his demarcation; the heathen also, it appears, since that distant day, have had

something to say to their disposition. If he had slept upon it another night, poor Pope, it

might have occurred to him that west and east might meet on a meridian situated

elsewhere on the globe than one hundred miles west of the Azores; and that the

Portuguese, who for the moment had nothing heathen except Africa left to them, might

according to his demarcation strike a still richer vein of heathendom than that granted to

Spain. But the holy Pontiff, bull neck, low forehead, impudent prominent nose, and

sensual lips notwithstanding, is exhausted by his cosmographical efforts, and he lets it

rest at that. Later, when Spain discovers that her privileges have been abated, he will have

to issue another Bull; but not to-day. Sufficient unto the day are the Bulls thereof. For the

moment King proposes and Pope disposes; but the matter lies ultimately in the hands of

the two eternal protagonists, man and God.

In the meantime here are six heathen alive and well, or at any rate well enough to

support, willy-nilly, the rite of holy baptism. They must have been sufficiently dazed and

bewildered by all that had happened to them since they were taken on board the

Admiral's ship, and God alone knows what they thought of it all, or whether they thought

anything more than the parrots that screamed and fluttered and winked circular eyes in

the procession with them. Doubtless they were willing enough; and indeed, after all they

had come through, a little cold water could not do them any harm. So baptized they were

in Barcelona; pompously baptized with infinite state and ceremony, the King and Queen

and Prince Juan officiating as sponsors. Queen Isabella, after the manner of queens, took

a kindly feminine interest in these heathen, and in their brethren across the sea. She had

seen a good deal of conquest, and knew her Spaniard pretty intimately; and doubtless her

maternal heart had some misgivings about the ultimate happiness of the gentle, handsome

creatures who lived in the sunshine in that distant place. She made their souls her especial

care, and honestly believed that by providing for their spiritual conversion she was doing

them the greatest service in her power. She provided from her own private chapel

vestments and altar furniture for the mission church in Espanola; she had the six exiles in

Barcelona instructed under her eye; and she gave Columbus special orders to inflict

severe punishments on any one who should offer the natives violence or injustice of any

kind. It must be remembered to her credit that in after days, when slavery and an

intolerable bloody and brutish oppression had turned the paradise of Espanola into a

shambles, she fought almost singlehanded, and with an ethical sense far in advance of her

day, against the system of slavery practised by Spain upon the inhabitants of the New

World.