A MEMORABLE REIGN.
The reign of Ferdinand and Isabella has been called the most
celebrated, and the year 1492 the most eventful, in Spanish history.
Not the fall of Granada alone made that year notable; not the
culmination of a long series of wars, extending through centuries, and
conducing to the final triumph of Christian arms, made the year 1492
memorable—for the youth of this age scarcely need be told that it was,
in a sense, the birth year of America!
A sad and preoccupied witness of the Christian triumph at Granada, one
who saw the tumultuous entrance into the Alhambra of the Spanish army,
the unfurling of the Castilian banner on the tower of _La Vela_, the
departure of the broken–hearted Moors—one Christopher Columbus was
attendant through it all. Possessed with his grand idea of reaching
the Indies by sailing directly westward—a thing hitherto unheard of,
at least unattempted—after his rebuffs at the court of Portugal he had
come to Spain as early as the year 1482, and was sent by the Duke of
Medina Celi to Isabella at Cordova. He followed her court to Salamanca
in 1486, there had audience with the queen, and the next year appeared
before the famous Council in the Dominican convent. Nothing came of
that except discouragement; but he returned to Cordova the same year,
whence he was summoned by Isabella to the military camp at Malaga. We
have no continuous itinerary of his travels, but in 1489 he was with
the army before the walls of Baza, where he probably saw and conversed
with two holy men who had come from Jerusalem to enlist the aid of
Spain against the infidels in the Orient.
For eight long years he was a hanger–on at court, ever fed on promises,
put off with half denials, and again reassured with the prospect of
assistance when the Moors should have been subjugated. At last, in
1491, weary and heartsick, Columbus resolved to depart from Spain,
and on his way to the coast stopped at the convent of La Rabida,
near the port of Palos, where his distinguished appearance attracted
the attention of the prior. This was the turning of the tide in his
fortunes, for the prior had formerly been confessor to the queen,
and, impressed with the scheme of his visitor, offered to intercede
in his favour. He did so, and, as the result, Columbus was again
ordered to wait upon the queen, and with money for the journey from
the royal exchequer, set out for Santa Fé, where he arrived in time to
witness, as we have noticed, the surrender of Granada. But that was
no propitious time for the king or queen to engage in new adventures,
with the royal treasury drained by the terrible drafts upon it for the
Moorish wars, and again Columbus was disappointed, and a second time
bade farewell to the court and set out for the coast. He had, however,
proceeded but a few miles on his journey when the queen’s courier
overtook him with the pledge of her assistance, and so he returned to
Granada. The point at which he was halted by the courier was at the
Bridge of Pines, still spanning the stream as of yore, and the last
decisive interview is said to have been in a corridor of the Alhambra,
known as the Hall of Justice.
Here, finally, amid the tumults attendant upon the occupation of
Granada, on the 17th of April, 1492, the “capitulation” was signed, by
the terms of which the queen was to provide the funds for the voyage,
and Columbus was to go forth to explore the territory and conquer the
inhabitants of the unknown Western world.
Some historians have asserted, and some have denied, that the queen
pledged her jewels for the necessary funds; but certainly she is
entitled to all the glory of that adventure, since the prudent
Ferdinand looked coldly upon the schemes of the Genoese sailor, and if
his advice had been followed he would have been promptly dismissed. It
required a lofty faith, a serene confidence in Providence, to embark
in such an enterprise, when she may have been already sated with the
glory of conquest; and once having pledged her assistance, Isabella
never wavered in her pecuniary and moral support. Ten days after the
“capitulation” Columbus was at Palos with the royal command for sailors
and caravels to be furnished by that port, and by the 1st of August
the little expedition dropped down the Rio Tinto and made its final
preparations for the long voyage across the Atlantic.
All students of our history know the glorious sequel to this
voyage begun under such discouragements: of the discovery of land
in the Bahamas in October following; of the meetings with strange
copper–coloured people whom Columbus called “Indians”; of the
triumphant return of two out of the three caravels that set forth,
and the magnificent reception of Columbus by his sovereigns at their
royal court in Barcelona. But with his departure from the Spanish coast
Columbus temporarily sails out of our ken, and we must return to trace
the course of events after the fall of Granada.
Happy should we be to chronicle such events as the preceding, only; to
record acts of clemency and magnanimity toward the conquered peoples
now absolutely dependent upon Isabella and Ferdinand for their fortunes
and their lives. But almost contemporaneously with their arrival at
the summit of their power, the Castilian sovereigns committed at least
one act which the whole world has regarded with aversion even to the
present day. Intent upon the union of the diverse peoples of their
extensive kingdom under one religious faith, and perhaps with an eye
to the material advantages which might also accrue, they issued an
edict of expulsion against the most thrifty and law–abiding inhabitants
of Spain, the Jews. These people had long been resident here, had
accumulated vast properties, and under the Moors had been exempt from
the persecution to which they were subject by the Goths in ancient
times and by many of their successors.
Learning that this terrible edict was in contemplation, the wealthier
of the Jews offered an immense ransom to be allowed to remain in the
enjoyment of their religion and possessions. But while this offer was
under advisement by the sovereigns, and when they seemed to incline
to mercy, it is said that the Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada, injected
the venom of his depraved nature into the discussion with disastrous
effect. Bursting into the royal presence, he exclaimed with fury, as
he held aloft a crucifix: “Judas Iscariot sold his master for thirty
pieces of silver. Your Highnesses will sell him for thirty thousand.
Here he is, take him and barter him away!” Saying this, he dashed the
crucifix upon the table and darted from the room.
Sad to relate, bigotry triumphed. The mercenary and bloodthirsty
schemes of Torquemada were carried out to the full, and more than
two hundred thousand stricken Jews were expelled the country, losing
homes, wealth, all they possessed, which eventually reverted to the
crown through the dastardly work of the Inquisition. This act of the
crown, by which Spain lost some of its best subjects, was signed on the
30th of March, 1492; and thus the sovereigns, while at the same time
outstretching one hand to grasp a new continent which was to yield them
vast treasure, yet with the other strangled domestic thrift and trade,
and undermined the foundations of the kingdom they had sacrificed so
much to consolidate and perpetuate.
The Jews had brought commerce and manufactures, they were skilled
agriculturists, some of them learned for their time; the Moors had
brought into Spain, or had developed there, a glorious architecture,
schools, and colleges, renowned throughout Europe, arts, and even
sciences, and had reclaimed from the desert vast areas of waste lands;
they had built beautiful cities and towns, castles and palaces, which
are the admiration of all who see them to–day; yet both Jews and Moors
were driven from Spain as though they were its deadly enemies. Those
who drove them forth were not capable of creating a tithe of what the
Moors and Jews had done; to their credit is not one work of art, not
one beautiful structure of renown; but they were through force of
circumstance and skill at arms the conquerors, and the lives of these
vastly superior peoples were at their mercy.
Had they but treated them with leniency, had they encouraged them
in their peculiar industries and pursuits, Spain would probably
have become the grandest nation in Europe, instead of merely rising
to temporary greatness and ultimately sinking to insignificant
proportions. As with the Jews, so the Castilian sovereigns dealt with
the Moors. Though they had stipulated on oath that they should be
protected in the observances of their own religion, yet not long after,
urged thereto by the inquisitors of the Holy Office, they broke their
sacred pledges and turned them over to their enemies. Many professed
to become converted, to escape persecution, but others were driven to
rebellion, fled to the mountains and waged a bloody war until overcome
by force.
Says a learned historian of that time, when the Inquisition claimed
its innocent victims by hundreds and thousands: “Now a scene of
persecution and cruelty began which far exceeds in atrocity anything
which history has related. Every tie of nature and society was broken,
every duty and every relation violated, and torture forced from all
alike false accusations, betrayal of friends, confession of impossible
crimes; while the actors in these horrible tragedies were shielded
by impenetrable secrecy from the revenge of their victims and the
detestation of society.”
Were it not for such acts as these, and had Isabella and Ferdinand
inclined to mercy rather than listened to the advice of bigoted
counsellors, their reign might have earned the distinction of being,
what many have claimed for it, the greatest that Spain ever knew.
They built wisely in many things, they advanced Spain from obscurity
to become a power among nations; they earned the love and regard of
their Christian subjects by works promoting their welfare; but at the
same time they vitiated the good deeds by their barbarous treatment of
“heretics.”
It is no matter of wonder that an attempt was made on Ferdinand’s life,
in Catalonia, soon after the capture of Granada, and that even Isabella
was not safe from covert attack. Still, they were a well–matched pair,
and, from a worldly and contemporary point of view, were all–sufficient
to Spain in her time of greatest need. Isabella was calm and lucid
in her counsels, inclined to benevolence and mercy where religious
questions were not involved, and, as one writer has expressed it,
followed after Ferdinand’s armies to garner the wheat which he had cut
on the fields of war. Ferdinand was crafty, a diplomat whose match all
Europe could not then produce. This is shown in his conduct of the
Neapolitan wars, when he outwitted the King of France, and eventually
gathered the rewards to himself, adding the title of King of Naples to
his other distinctions. “Foreign affairs were conducted by the king
in behalf of Aragon, just as colonial affairs were for the benefit of
Castile.”
They did not lack for learned and astute counsellors, such as Cardinal
Mendoza, Torquemada, and Ximenes. The last named, born before his
sovereigns, yet outlived them both, and to the end was a faithful, even
though bigoted, servant and courtier. Chosen as the queen’s confessor
in 1492, he was later appointed Archbishop of Toledo, and after
Isabella’s death became a cardinal, throughout his career remaining
loyal to the throne.
Another faithful servant of the Crown was Gonsalvo de Cordova, who
fought magnificently against the Moors, and then was sent to carry
on the wars in Naples, where Spanish arms were so triumphant that he
earned the title of the “Great Captain,” and covered Ferdinand’s reign
with glory.
After the death of Isabella, which occurred on November 26, 1504,
Ferdinand’s diplomacy continued him in power as regent and sovereign,
except for a brief term; and it was to him that Columbus vainly
appealed for justice when, weak and broken from his four transatlantic
voyages, he came back to endure poverty and neglect.
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