Wanderings With An Idea - 2

Wanderings With An Idea - 2

 After all his preparations this rebuff must have been a serious blow to Columbus. It was

not his only trouble, moreover. During the last year he had been earning nothing; he was

already in imagination the Admiral of the Ocean Seas; and in the anticipation of the much

higher duties to which he hoped to be devoted it is not likely that he would continue at his

humble task of making maps and charts. The result was that he got into debt, and it was

absolutely necessary that something should be done. But a darker trouble had also almost

certainly come to him about this time. Neither the day nor the year of Philippa's death is

known; but it is likely that it occurred soon after Columbus's failure at the Portuguese

Court, and immediately before his departure into Spain. That anonymous life, fulfilling

itself so obscurely in companionship and motherhood, as softly as it floated upon the

page of history, as softly fades from it again. Those kind eyes, that encouraging voice,

that helping hand and friendly human soul are with him no longer; and after the interval

of peace and restful growth that they afforded Christopher must strike his tent and go

forth upon another stage of his pilgrimage with a heavier and sterner heart.

Two things are left to him: his son Diego, now an articulate little creature with character

and personality of his own, and with strange, heart-breaking reminiscences of his mother

in voice and countenance and manner—that is one possession; the other is his Idea. Two

things alive and satisfactory, amid the ruin and loss of other possessions; two reasons for

living and prevailing. And these two possessions Columbus took with him when he set

out for Spain in the year 1485.

His first care was to take little Diego to the town of Huelva, where there lived a sister of

Philippa's who had married a Spaniard named Muliartes. This done, he was able to

devote himself solely to the furtherance of his Idea. For this purpose he went to Seville,

where he attached himself for a little while to a group of his countrymen who were settled

there, among them Antonio and Alessandro Geraldini, and made such momentary living

as was possible to him by his old trade. But the Idea would not sleep. He talked of

nothing else; and as men do who talk of an idea that possesses them wholly, and springs

from the inner light of faith, he interested and impressed many of his hearers. Some of

them suggested one thing, some another; but every one was agreed that it would be a

good thing if he could enlist the services of the great Count (afterwards Duke) of Medini

Celi, who had a palace at Rota, near Cadiz.

This nobleman was one of the most famous of the grandees of Spain, and lived in mighty

state upon his territory along the sea-shore, serving the Crown in its wars and expeditions

with the power and dignity of an ally rather than of a subject. His domestic establishment

was on a princely scale, filled with chamberlains, gentlemen-at-arms, knights, retainers,

and all the panoply of social dignity; and there was also place in his household for

persons of merit and in need of protection. To this great man came Columbus with his

Idea. It attracted the Count, who was a judge of men and perhaps of ideas also; and

Columbus, finding some hope at last in his attitude, accepted the hospitality offered to

him, and remained at Rota through the winter of 1485-86. He had not been very hopeful

when he arrived there, and had told the Count that he had thought of going to the King of

France and asking for help from him; but the Count, who found something respectable

and worthy of consideration in the Idea of a man who thought nothing of a journey in its

service from one country to another and one sovereign to another, detained him, and

played with the Idea himself. Three or four caravels were nothing to the Count of Medina

Eeli; but on the other hand the man was a grandee and a diplomat, with a nice sense of

etiquette and of what was due to a reigning house. Either there was nothing in this Idea,

in which case his caravels would be employed to no purpose, or there was so much in it

that it was an undertaking, not merely for the Count of Medina Celi, but for the Crown of

Castile. Lands across the ocean, and untold gold and riches of the Indies, suggested

complications with foreign Powers, and transactions with the Pope himself, that would

probably be a little too much even for the good Count; therefore with a curious mixture of

far-sighted generosity and shrewd security he wrote to Queen Isabella, recommending

Columbus to her, and asking her to consider his Idea; asking her also, in case anything

should come of it, to remember him (the Count), and to let him have a finger in the pie.

Thus, with much literary circumstance and elaboration of politeness, the Count of Medina

Celi to Queen Isabella.

Follows an interval of suspense, the beginning of a long discipline of suspense to which

Columbus was to be subjected; and presently comes a favourable reply from the Queen,

commanding that Columbus should be sent to her. Early in 1486 he set out for Cordova,

where the Court was then established, bearing another letter from the Count in which his

own private requests were repeated, and perhaps a little emphasised. Columbus was

lodged in the house of Alonso de Quintanilla, Treasurer to the Crown of Castile, there to

await an audience with Queen Isabella.