While at Barcelona, in 1492, Ferdinand narrowly escaped being killed by an assassin. King Ferdinand had not much intellectual culture; and Isabella was far superior to her husband in literary attainments. But Ferdinand was a capable man in the military and practical affairs of his kingdom. The children of Ferdinand and Isabella received unusual education for those times, and acquired rare attainments. Prince John, heir to their throne, was reared with the greatest care. But just after the marriage of the young prince to Princess Margaret, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian of Austria, which was celebrated with great magnificence, Prince John was stricken with a fever, and died. Thus perished their only son. Their eldest daughter, Isabella, who had married the king of Portugal, died soon after the death of her brother, Prince John. This daughter left a babe, who thus became heir to Portugal, Aragon, and Castile; but ere a year had passed the infant also sank into the grave. Their daughter Joanna was married to the archduke Philip, son and heir of Maximilian. This unhappy princess was the mother of Charles V. of Spain. But her life was clouded with gloom, occasioned by her husband’s neglect, which at last caused her insanity. The youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, Catharine of Aragon, afterwards had the misfortune to marry the infamous Henry VIII. of England. Thus, the last days of these illustrious sovereigns were overshadowed with heart-rending sorrows. We can barely note the subsequent discoveries of Columbus. Before his second voyage, while at Barcelona, he was invited by the grand cardinal of Spain to dine with him. An envious guest inquired of Columbus if he thought that there was no man in Spain capable of discovering the Indies, if he had not made the discovery. Columbus, without replying to the question, took an egg from the table, and asked if there was any one who could make it stand on one end. They all tried, but failed. Whereupon Columbus, by a slight blow, crushed the end of the egg, and left it standing before them, saying, “You see how easy it is to do a thing after some one has shown you how.”
In his second voyage he discovered the island of Jamaica and several other islands. Ferdinand and Isabella received him with kindness upon his return; but two years passed before he could obtain another squadron. It was during this third voyage that complaints reached Isabella that Columbus was enslaving the inhabitants of Hayti. An officer named Bobadilla was sent to Hayti to investigate the matter. He was unscrupulous and envious; and, falsely using his official authority, he ordered Columbus to be sent back to Spain in chains. These outrages, inflicted upon a man so illustrious, roused indignation throughout the world. Ferdinand and Isabella were shocked and alarmed upon hearing of this outrageous treatment, and sent in the greatest haste to release him from his fetters, and to express their sympathy and regret for the indignities he had suffered. Some months after, Columbus started upon his fourth and last voyage. After encountering storms and perils, Columbus reached the continent at what is now called Central America, near Yucatan. Notwithstanding the importance of having at last touched the American continent, this voyage was a series of disappointments and disasters. He was detained for a year on the island of Jamaica, on account of the loss of his ships, which were wrecked in the storms. At length, two vessels arrived at the island, and Columbus embarked for his return to Spain. When he at last reached that country, he was broken down by old age, sickness, and mental suffering. Poverty stared him in the face. Isabella was upon her death-bed; and Ferdinand was heartless, and would not offer him any relief. After all his achievements in behalf of mankind, Columbus thus sadly writes to his son: “I live by borrowing. Little have I profited by twenty years of service, with such toils and perils, since at present I do not own a roof in Spain. If I desire to eat or sleep, I have no resort but an inn, and for the most times have not wherewithal to pay my bill.” In the midst of such sorrow and poverty, the heroic Columbus passed his last days on earth. He was buried in the Convent of St. Francisco, at Seville. Thirty years afterwards, his remains were removed to St. Domingo, on the island of Hayti. Upon the cession of the island to the French, in 1795, they were transferred by the Spanish authorities to the Cathedral of Havana, in Cuba.
TOMB OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA IN THE CATHEDRAL OF GRANADA.
Queen Isabella was now broken in health, from her many domestic sorrows. She died in November, 1504. The last years of Ferdinand afford a sad contrast to his early life and brilliant manhood. As the death of Queen Isabella took from Ferdinand the crown of Castile, Philip, the husband of the poor crazy Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, seized upon the throne of Castile. A bitter family quarrel ensued. In order to secure the help of France, Ferdinand, though it was only eleven months after the death of his deeply loved wife, was married to the princess Germaine, a gay and frivolous girl of eighteen, daughter of one of the sisters of Louis XII.
“It seemed hard,” says one writer, “that these nuptials should take place so soon, and that, too, in Isabella’s own kingdom of Castile, where she had lived without peer, and where her ashes are still held in as much veneration as she enjoyed while living.” The marriage ceremony took place at Duenas, where, thirty-six years before, he had pledged his faith to Isabella. In 1513 the health of Ferdinand began to fail. Dropsy and partial paralysis made his life a torment. Hoping to gain relief, he travelled southward; but, having reached the small village of Madrigalejo, he was unable to proceed farther. On the 22d of January, 1516, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, Ferdinand breathed his last. He died in a small room in an obscure village. “In so wretched a tenement did the lord of so many lands close his eyes upon the world.” Thus ended the lives of Ferdinand and Isabella, shrouded with gloom and disappointment.
“A crown! What is it?
It is to bear the miseries of a people,
To hear their murmurs, feel their discontents,
And sink beneath a load of splendid care.”