Wanderings With An Idea - 3

Wanderings With An Idea - 3

 While he is waiting, and getting accustomed to his new surroundings, let us consider

these two monarchs in whose presence he is soon to appear, and upon whose decision

hangs some part of the world's destiny. Isabella first; for in that strange duet of

government it is her womanly soprano that rings most clearly down the corridors of

Time. We discern in her a very busy woman, living a difficult life with much tact and

judgment, and exercising to some purpose that amiable taste for "doing good" that marks

the virtuous lady of station in every age. This, however, was a woman who took risks

with her eyes open, and steered herself cleverly in perilous situations, and guided others

with a firm hand also, and in other ways made good her claim to be a ruler. The consent

and the will of her people were her great strength; by them she dethroned her niece and

ascended the throne of Castile. She had the misfortune to be at variance with her husband

in almost every matter of policy dear to his heart; she opposed the expulsion of the Jews

and the establishment of the Inquisition; but when she failed to get her way, she was still

able to preserve her affectionate relations with her husband without disagreement and

with happiness. If she had a fault it was the common one of being too much under the

influence of her confessors; but it was a fault that was rarely allowed to disturb the

balance of her judgment. She liked clever people also; surrounded herself with men of

letters and of science, fostered all learned institutions, and delighted in the details of civil

administration. A very dignified and graceful figure, that could equally adorn a Court

drawing-room or a field of battle; for she actually went into the field, and wore armour as

becomingly as silk and ermine. Firm, constant, clever, alert, a little given to fussiness

perhaps, but sympathetic and charming, with some claims to genius and some approach

to grandeur of soul: so much we may say truly of her inner self. Outwardly she was a

woman well formed, of medium height, a very dignified and graceful carriage, eyes of a

clear summer blue, and the red and gold of autumn in her hair—these last inherited from

her English grandmother.

Ferdinand of Aragon appears not quite so favourably in our pages, for he never thought

well of Columbus or of his proposals; and when he finally consented to the expedition he

did so with only half a heart, and against his judgment. He was an extremely enterprising,

extremely subtle, extremely courageous, and according to our modern notions, an

extremely dishonest man; that is to say, his standards of honour were not those which we

can accept nowadays. He thought nothing of going back on a promise, provided he got a

priestly dispensation to do so; he juggled with his cabinets, and stopped at nothing in

order to get his way; he had a craving ambition, and was lacking in magnanimity; he

loved dominion, and cared very little for glory. A very capable man; so capable that in

spite of his defects he was regarded by his subjects as wise and prudent; so capable that

he used his weaknesses of character to strengthen and further the purposes of his reign. A

very cold man also, quick and sure in his judgments, of wide understanding and grasp of

affairs; simple and austere in dress and diet, as austerity was counted in that period of

splendour; extremely industrious, and close in his observations and judgments of men. To

the bodily eye he appeared as a man of middle size, sturdy and athletic, face burned a

brick red with exposure to the sun and open air; hair and eyebrows of a bright chestnut; a

well-formed and not unkindly mouth; a voice sharp and unmelodious, issuing in quick

fluent speech. This was the man that earned from the Pope, for himself and his

successors, the title of "Most Catholic Majesty."

The Queen was very busy indeed with military preparations; but in the midst of her

interviews with nobles and officers, contractors and state officials, she snatched a

moment to receive the person Christopher Columbus. With that extreme mental agility

which is characteristic of busy sovereigns all the force of this clever woman's mind was

turned for a moment on Christopher, whose Idea had by this time invested him with a

dignity which no amount of regal state could abash. There was very little time. The

Queen heard what Columbus had to say, cutting him short, it is likely, with kindly tact,

and suppressing his tendency to launch out into long-winded speeches. What she saw she

liked; and, being too busy to give to this proposal the attention that it obviously merited,

she told Columbus that the matter would be fully gone into and that in the meantime he

must regard himself as the guest of the Court. And so, in the countenance of a smile and a

promise, Columbus bows himself out. For the present he must wait a little and his hot

heart must contain itself while other affairs, looming infinitely larger than his Idea on the

royal horizon, receive the attention of the Court.

It was not the happiest moment, indeed, in which to talk of ships and charts, and lonely

sea-roads, and faraway undiscovered shores. Things at home were very real and lively in

those spring days at Cordova. The war against the Moors had reached a critical stage;

King Ferdinand was away laying siege to the city of Loxa, and though the Queen was at

Cordova she was entirely occupied with the business of collecting and forwarding troops

and supplies to his aid. The streets were full of soldiers; nobles and grandees from all

over the country were arriving daily with their retinues; glitter and splendour, and the

pomp of warlike preparation, filled the city. Early in June the Queen herself went to the

front and joined her husband in the siege of Moclin; and when this was victoriously

ended, and they had returned in triumph to Cordova, they had to set out again for Gallicia

to suppress a rebellion there. When that was over they did not come back to Cordova at

all, but repaired at once to Salamanca to spend the winter there.

At the house of Alonso de Quintanilla, however, Columbus was not altogether wasting

his time. He met there some of the great persons of the Court, among them the celebrated

Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza, Archbishop of Toledo and Grand Cardinal of Spain. This

was far too great a man to be at this time anything like a friend of Columbus; but

Columbus had been presented to him; the Cardinal would know his name, and what his

business was; and that is always a step towards consideration. Cabrero, the royal

Chamberlain, was also often a fellow-guest at the Treasurer's table; and with him

Columbus contracted something like a friendship. Every one who met him liked him; his

dignity, his simplicity of thought and manner, his experience of the sea, and his calm

certainty and conviction about the stupendous thing which he proposed to do, could not

fail to attract the liking and admiration of those with whom he came in contact. In the

meantime a committee appointed by the Queen sat upon his proposals. The committee

met under the presidentship of Hernando de Talavera, the prior of the monastery of Santa

Maria del Prado, near Valladolid, a pious ecclesiastic, who had the rare quality of

honesty, and who was therefore a favourite with Queen Isabella; she afterwards created

him Archbishop of Granada. He was not, however, poor honest soul! quite the man to

grasp and grapple with this wild scheme for a voyage across the ocean. Once more

Columbus, as in Portugal, set forth his views with eloquence and conviction; and once

more, at the tribunal of learning, his unlearned proposals were examined and condemned.

Not only was Columbus's Idea regarded as scientifically impossible, but it was also held

to come perilously near to heresy, in its assumption of a state of affairs that was clearly at

variance with the writings of the Fathers and the sacred Scriptures themselves.