A Short History of Spain

by Mary Platt Parmele

From the painting by V. Brozik.

Columbus at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella.

So stubborn was the defense, it appeared sometimes as if the reduction of Granada would have to be abandoned. Isabella's courage and faith were sorely tried. But the brave Queen infused her own courage into the flagging spirits of her husband, and kept alive the enthusiasm of the people; and at last,—on the 2d of January, 1402,—the proud city capitulated. Boabdil surrendered the keys of the Alhambra to Ferdinand—the silver cross which had preceded the King throughout the war gleamed from a high tower; and from the loftiest pinnacle of the Alhambra waved the banners of Castile and Aragon.

The conflict which had lasted for 781 years was over. The death of Roderick and the fall of the Goths was avenged, and Christendom, still weeping for the loss of Constantinople, was consoled and took heart again.

CHAPTER XVII.

The reduction of Granada had required eleven years, and had drained the kingdom of all its resources. It is not strange that Isabella should have had no time to listen seriously to a threadbare enthusiast asking for money and ships for a strange adventure! To have grown old and haggard in pressing an unsuccessful project is not a passport to the confidence of Princes. But the gracious Queen had promised to listen to him when the war with the Moors was concluded. So now Columbus sought her out at Granada; and it is a strange scene which the imagination pictures—a shabby old man pleading with a Queen in the halls of the Alhambra for permission to lift the veil from an unsuspected Hemisphere; artfully dwelling upon the glory of planting the Cross in the dominions of the Great Khan! The cool, unimaginative Ferdinand listened contemptuously; but Isabella, for once opposing the will of her "dear lord," arose and said, "The enterprise is mine. I undertake it for Castile." And on the 3d of August, 1492, the little fleet of caravels sailed from the mouth of the same river whence had once sailed the "ships of Tarshish," laden with treasure for King Solomon and "Hiram, King of Tyre." A union with Portugal—the land of the Lusitanians and of Sertorius—was all that was now required to make of the Spanish Peninsula one kingdom. This Isabella planned to accomplish by the marriage of her oldest daughter, Isabella, with the King of Portugal. Her son John, heir to the Spanish throne, had died suddenly just after his marriage with the daughter of Maximilian, Emperor of Germany.

This terrible blow was swiftly followed by another, the death of her daughter Isabella, and also that of the infant which was expected to unite the kingdoms of Portugal and Spain. The succession of Castile and Aragon now passed to Joanna, her second daughter, who had married Philip, Archduke of Austria and son of Maximilian, an unfortunate child who seemed on the verge of madness.

Isabella's youngest daughter, Catherine, became the wife of Henry VIII. of England. Happily the mother did not live to witness this child's unhappiness; but her heart-breaking losses and domestic griefs were greater than she could bear. The unbalanced condition of Joanna, upon whom rested all her hopes, was undermining her health. The results of the expedition of Columbus had exceeded the wildest dreams of romance. Gold was pouring in from the West enough to pay for the war with the Moors many times over, and for all wars to come. Spain, from being the poorest, had suddenly become the richest country in Europe; richest in wealth, in territory, and in the imperishable glory of its discovery. But Isabella,—who had been the instrument in this transformation,—who had built up a firm united kingdom and swept it clean of heretics, Jews, and Moors,—was still a sad and disappointed woman, thwarted in her dearest hopes; and on the 26th of November, 1504, she died leaving the fruits of her triumphs to a grandson six years old.